Hey hey we’re a winner

I had a heads up on this as I saw the results page yesterday, but this email just in confirms it.  My Poker Stars monkey photo won a prize!

Hello Christopher,

We have awarded 5,000 FPPs for your PokerStars Monkey Photo. Thank you for playing on PokerStars.

http://www.pokerstars.com/vip/store/promotions/monkey/

Regards,

Scotty
PokerStars VIP Team

The winning picture is excellent, but to be honest this one is my favourite:

What I wasn’t expecting was another email that arrived at exactly the same time announcing I had been upgraded to Silver Star status (I didn’t play enough last month and fell out of the VIP tier).  No idea how it works, and it’s not really that big a deal because Poker Stars are literally giving away VIP status this month, but it was a nice surprise.

5,000 FPPs would put me at Platinum Star, but they’ve weren’t added as status points (understandable, because I didn’t earn them) so it must have been a manual adjustment; either a 1-tier upgrade for winners or just "here, have Silver Star so you can spend your points on something other than another monkey".

Anyway, as the photos I entered into the competition of monkey in Vegas were (ahem) creatively enhanced, here’s one I actually took last month, straight out of the camera.