By Kory Travers | December 11, 2009

Cake Poker launched an upgrade to its customer loyalty program this week, turning it from a cute system for earning bonuses, satellite entries, and opportunities to make purchases in the Cake Store into a full-fledged rewards program that should appeal to hard-core grinders and casual players alike. The program, called Gold Stacks, is an extension of the Gold Chips program and is available on all sites on the Cake Poker network, including DoylesRoom and Players Only.

As we just noted, it all starts with Cake’s Gold Chips. Gold Chips are acquired by earning Frequent Player Points (FPP) at the real money tables. FPP are earned at a rate of 1 per every $1 in rake at cash tables and 7 for every $1 in tournament fees. The first Gold Chip per month requires 120 FPP, the second requires 115 FPP, followed by 110, 90, and 70 FPP. After that 5th Gold Chip, the 6th is free and the rest still require just 70 FPP.

These Gold Chips don’t just accumulate in your account, waiting to be used in the Cake store anymore – they now build up to create Gold Stacks. There are 50 Levels of Gold Stacks, each of which requires a certain number of Gold Stacks to be built in order to advance to the next Level. As one might guess, as players advance in Levels, it takes more Gold Stacks to move up. It also takes more Gold Chips to create a Gold Stack at higher and higher Levels. For example, at Level 0, players need 2 Gold Chips to form a Stack and 1 Stack to advance to Level 1. At Level 1, players need 4 Gold Chips to create a Stack and still just 1 Stack to move up to Level 2. In fact, only 1 stack is needed to advance until Level 16, although the Stacks need to be bigger and bigger to be completed.

When a Gold Stack is completed, Cake Poker distributes an instant, guaranteed reward. There is no need to select a reward, accept a reward, or complete any more playthrough requirements. It is placed in a player’s account immediately upon completion of a stack. At Levels 0 through 9, the rewards are additional Gold Chips, but starting with Level 10, Cake Poker will award cash prizes for each Stack.

As an extra incentive to plow through the Gold Stacks, Cake Poker will also juice up the rewards for building Gold Stacks quickly. If a player completes a Stack within 6 days, a Turbo Reward, which is larger than the standard reward, will be given, and a Stack created within 3 days will result in an even better, Super Turbo Reward.

Again, we’ll give some examples. At Level 0, the standard, guaranteed reward for completing a Gold Stack is 2 Gold Chips, the Turbo Reward is 4 Gold Chips, and the Super Turbo Reward is 6 Gold Chips. At Level 10, the guaranteed reward is $12.50, the Turbo Reward is $18.50, and the Super Turbo Reward is $24.75.

There are a couple other very nice features of the Gold Stacks program. First, players below Level 11 will never move down a Level. Ever. Second, it is really difficult to move down a Level even at Level 11 and higher. All one has to do to maintain the Level is earn three Gold Chips over two consecutive months. And if that isn’t accomplished, Cake Poker will still only reset the player’s Gold Stack status to Level 10, the minimum Level for the cash rewards.

Contrast this to, say, Party Poker’s Key Level system.  To maintain Silver status, a player must earn 400 PartyPoints per month. To maintain Gold status, 1,000 PartyPoints are required, and so an and so forth. These punitive systems are not restricted to Party Poker, though. The Cereus Network’s RAI$E program requires heavy play to maintain loyalty status, as does PokerStars’ system. Most other loyalty programs are similar. Cake Poker’s is easily the most player-friendly.

One quick note: only Gold Coins earned at real money tables count towards Gold Stacks. Thus, Gold Coins awarded from the Gold Stacks program do not count towards building new Gold Stacks, nor to Gold Coins won in Gold Coin buy-in tournaments. Players can track their Gold Stacks progress right in the “My Account” section of the Cake Poker software.

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