Starting in January 2018, online poker room partypoker will launch a new system for awarding seats to its partypoker LIVE events called partypoker LIVE $$$. The system allows players to win credit toward live tournament buy-ins that can essentially be used any way players would like. It also has a name that partypoker will certainly eventually regret.

Yes, the name of the program is partypoker LIVE $$$ – I’m not just being cavalier with my typing or trying to create a fake Trump tweet. The poker room is calling it partypoker Live-dollar sign-dollar sign-dollar sign. Like, what do we say when we verbalize it? Do we say “cash” instead of $$$? Do we say “money?” Name aside, though, partypoker LIVE $$$ looks like it has promise.

It is a fairly simple concept. Players will be able to participate in various satellites and qualifiers, but instead of winning a seat in a partypoker LIVE event, they will earn credits (which I guess are actually called $$$?) for the events. These credits can be accumulated and be redeemed for partypoker LIVE event buy-ins or event hotel and travel expenses.

What this does is gives players flexibility in what partypoker LIVE events they play, as well as flexibility in which online qualifiers they choose. It also gives players an out (no pun intended) if their plans change.

John Duthie, president of partypoker LIVE, weighed in on the partypoker blog. (Spoiler: he’s excited.) Said Duthie:

We’ve spent a lot of this year listening to players and one of the most common criticisms about the online to LIVE satellite route has always been getting locked into specific events when circumstances may change. Enter partypoker LIVE $$$. These can be used to buy in to any partypoker LIVE event worldwide and also to pay for travel and accommodation. They will have no expiry date. This gives players such freedom! To launch partypoker LIVE $$$ we’re going create a Leaderboard in 2018 with $1,000,000 being divvied up between the top players. We’d rather give money to our customers than spend it on advertising. I hope you love this idea as much as I do.

Well, John, I do love it as much as you do. I have always been the kind of person who prefers cash back credit cards over ones that award points or frequent flier miles because I can choose to do whatever the hell I want with the cash rather being locked into a specific gift or range of gifts. So yeah, this is pretty cool.

It remains to be seen how the partypoker LIVE $$$…um, currency (or do I write partypoker LIVE $$$ $$$?) … will be awarded in satellites and qualifiers. If say, a satellite would normally award one seat into a specific partypoker LIVE tournament, will it now just have that top prize be $$$ (ugh) equivalent to what that buy-in would have been? Or instead of awarding a seat for the winner, will it split the buy-in amount down the leader board a bit, awarding greater numbers of smaller prizes?

I would guess it will be the former, just swapping out the defined partypoker LIVE seat for the buy-in amount in credits. Otherwise, the incentive for people to play in the satellites would take a hit. You still want to feel like you are at least getting equal value for your buy-in and time. If there tournaments that award smaller $$$ prizes, but more of them, they would need to be structured in such a way so as to not involve as much of a commitment as a regular satellite would.

“I’ve always liked leaderboards,” said partypoker ambassador Patrick Leonard. “I first started playing tournaments because I wanted to reach number one in the world on PocketFives, I played every day and it was really fun to have extra competition. When I spoke to the guys about the possibility of a $1m leaderboard it made me think of the good old days of poker. Thankfully it seems like the good days are back.”

Oh yeah, that’s right. There’s a leader board which really has little to do with partypoker LIVE tournaments, as far as I can tell. I would have preferred some additional insight into the partypoker LIVE $$$ program, such as why partypoker settled on symbols for the name instead of words, but that’s ok.

Partypoker reminds us that one of the first significant events that players will be able to use their partypoker LIVE $$$ on is MILLIONS Germany, hosted by King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic (and, coincidentally, also has a poor name). The €5,300 buy-in Main Event will have a €5 million guaranteed prize pool and will run February 10th through February 18th.