PokerStars's Spin & Go tournament format is their take on the 3-max hyper turbo format with randomized prizes that was introduced by Winamax under the name Expresso and has since then been copied by other poker rooms under different names as well. The format has been met with some controversy and resistance by grinding professionals due to the format's added randomness element and its affect on the action in other formats, including HUSNGs. Last week, PokerStars introduced Spin & Go's to PokerStars.fr, their French segregated market poker room. We asked two PokerStars.fr regs to tell us what they think of the format.
Reg 1
It's hard to remain objective because since the introduction of Spin and Go's the action in hyperturbo HUSNGs has noticeably declined so I hate them. :) The idea of 3handed SNGs itself is not the problem, nor is some variance in prizepool. However the way it has been currently done is not ok. Poker is a very complex and interesting game of skill, at least that is what people who play poker seriously would like for society to udnerstand. However the way Spin and Go's are promoted, even the way they look in lobby screams slot machines! This is definetely not ok if the only poker site which is yet to introduce sportsbooking and online casino has taken the step in this direction, which also further decreases the chances of more online poker-friendly legislation and clear distinction of poker and casino games.
From a professional poker player's point of view, whose main interest is his profit and sustainability of it, there are several big problems with Spin and Go's. Variance goes through the roof. Due to extreme changes in prizepools Spin and Go's are very unlikely to be introduced for higher stakes to make them attractive to any serious player. 100k Jackpot at 100s would be nice though. :)
Overall I do not think there is anything we can do to make them go away but I really hope that there will be some compromise and PokerStars will introduce 3 handed SNGs with less extreme prizepool variance.
Reg 2
Since its introduction, action became more dry (it was pretty dry anyways before spin and goes, around 16-20matches/hour).
And to achieve this 16-20m/h we had to go trough long regbattles to earn the respect of other good players. Competition is pretty hard here.
Now since Sunday I average around 14 games/hour.
I had 40 minute stretches in the evening hours where only 1 game vs fish popped up at 30!!!
This format attracts fish like magnets attract iron. Now if they deposit 100-200euro, obviously it's an easy pick for them to take their chances in hopes for 10k jackpots, rather than losing it to the same regulars over and over again. They obviously don't know that they have basically no chance to hit it. This game has very little to do with poker. I am very disappointed that online poker heads to this direction. First they introduced BlackJack at FTP, then casino games. I never thought PS will introduce pure luck based games. They always wanted to be solely a poker room, the biggest ambassadors of online poker. I understand that this is very profitable for the room because they make more money out of fish than regs. They won't mind at all if every regular would disappear. Unfortunately, introducing games like this will totally ruin the reputation of online poker and the livelyhood of regulars in the long run.
masuronike's thoughts
Slovakian 6-max reg Tomas "masuronike" Kubaliak, a past interview subject of ours, also posted a strong opinion about the format and its affect on 6-max on his poker focused social networking site TiltBook.com: http://tiltbook.com/masuronike/blog/pokerstars-will-be-launching-first-casino-game-this-month---spin--go/.
Double edge sword as far as I can see.
- HUSNG hyper format has become overfished with reg : fish ratios becoming unsustainably high without collusive control of lobbies.
- High variance, gambling formats such as spin & gos will attract more fish helping to dilute the unsustainable reg: fish ratios.
Not really that surprising from the poker room's perspective:
- They make their money out of volume
- The only benefit of having any winning players in the ecosystem is that they provide the illusion to 90-95% of the player pool that they should continue depositing & putting in volume
- Poker's not really that fun when you're losing (imo) & losing players are ridiculously outgunned in the current state of the game
- Luck based formats can reintroduce the fun for recreational gamblers
Unfortunately for winning players, this all nets out to an equilibrium where interests of the online poker rooms & those of winning players are now heavily deviating. Winning players will have to put in larger volumes at lower returns (copping larger swings) to make the same money they used to when recreational players were interested in playing more skill oriented formats.
Irrespective of the new lotto sngs (of which I'm conflicted on, as paranoia was high when hyper turbo husngs came out, and many called them too variance filled and luckboxing and predicted profits would go down and/or games would die... when it created a boom for us... that said there are good points made to be worried about lotto sngs too), I believe there is a clear correlation between removing winning professionals from a game and a lot of recreational interest drying up (at least in poker).
I also am 99.9% sure this format has nothing to do with HUSNG groups or lobby state. In fact, by all accounts, the HUSNG environment is great for poker rooms. They're raking more per hour than ever and the format has attracted plenty of new players over the last few years.
These 3 man lotto sngs were popular on winimax, and were brought to smaller PokerStars country sites, have done very well and proven very popular, so they are bringing them to the big site (.com).
Many thanks to husng.com support manager serge who is editing my interviews and writing introductions when needed! Because of his contribution my english looks fluent so as a result I look smarter.
I am always looking for new interview opportunities with HUSNG and Spin Reg's who play $30s and higher. Please PM me here or on 2p2 (Charles Hawk).
Did the ps.fr regs ask no to disclose their screen names for this interview??, if not I'd be curious on who were they.
Also, some months ago I asked if it was possible to track some other highstakes husng players from smaller sites like ps.fr, winamax or ipoker, I was
told by e.tekstai that he was going to try and find some about ttheir results but he never got back to me :(
I was just wondering if those guys were also making some gud money on those sites.
VHL
When editing Charles's article, I made a mistake and did not correctly link to masuronike's blog post on spin and goes. This has now been corrected, and the correct link is in the article. I apologize for the confusion.
st
When you hit your goal it is very important to stick to it. You reach the $50-quit. Too many times we tell ourselves we are on fire and keep playing to only see our winnings slip away.