I don't think there are any plans to add 3 players to CoffeeCalcs. The programmer is a HUSNG player and wanted to build a strictly HUSNG program.
As far as a video pack, I've really been studying these games and talking with players. My current conclusion is that there was a ton of negative hype from players and websites and that these games are actually quite profitable. So we're looking to develop a pack soon, and we've started putting videos up (Faarcyde was first).
We would've been on it sooner, but we didn't want to release a pack for a game that wasn't beatable/was really bad for the ecology (we did release a blackjack pack obviously before, but that was about cardcounting, which is clearly profitable in the right conditions).
if they are worthwhile, how many people 4 tabling your limit continuous who dont suck does it take to make them no longer worthwile? (my feeling would be its not a terribly high number)
how much -neg impact does filling seats with non incompetent players have relative to what you could hope to gain from fees for the videos
(say theres a non fish filling a seat at the one 3,000x you spin in the next year who wouldnt have been grinding the format without some guidance, the change in expectation that one single game prob outweighs it)
if theyre beatable enough, and if theyre where poker is headed... why make them worse? in your shoes id sit on/protect that edge
but i tend to think at 4% they mightve been worth it, at 5% theyre not so i dont expect it would harm me personally to have videos released (since i explored and dropped them)
These are the same questions people have asked about HUSNGs since like 2005. The answer is complicated, but in short, I believe that in a game that is as popular as Spin and Go, it can sustain many regulars for an extended period of time. HUSNGs have sustained it for a decade now, and every year people say "man games are too hard, it's going to be unbeatable." Yet the game grew for most years (maybe not the last two years, but it's still far larger than it was pre 2011).
It's the same with staking and private coaching though (which "harm the game" more, and by harm the game I mean help a player become more profitable, which isn't in the interests of any other player obviously). If an individual finds it worthwhile, they are going to do it. Same goes with playing.
I mean, if spin and gos or HUSNGs were checkers, and nobody knew how to play, and I did, obviously I'd go and just crush them all. But poker is far, far more complex, both of these games we're discussing here. Some of the best players in the world have coached and failed to make many players profitable. How on earth? Well, players need to put in their own work, and control their own emotions. Giving them the tools is helpful, but it's like building a house, if you don't learn how to do it and then practice it and put in effort, I can buy you an amazing set of power tools and supplies... if you get angry and impatient and don't put in the effort to practice building and working on houses, you won't be able to build a house.
And the reason why poker is so profitable isn't because people don't know how to analyze hands, it's because people don't have the patience or discipline to do it consistently in real time over long periods.
Videos and coaching are only really effective if you are going to put in the work to not only go through it all and understand it, but also put in the time at the tables and play in a confident and tilt free way.
its not hu tho, its raked more than twice as hard, and payouts are distributed in a manner that make it a perpetual uphill battle, its alot to overcome
imo you dont need a decent edge vs the average villain, you need a massive edge for the games to be tolerable, and these should be pretty easy to ruin in that respect because you really need (fish/fish) for a high % of your games to get an acceptable winrate longterm. every (reg/fish) you get seated in 2xs means you lose money very solidly, every reg you face in a 25x or higher costs you sessions to months of equity compared to a completely uneducated fish filling that seat.
if you play off peak, you are already sitting the same guys multiple times per sesh with 80k husng samples and are profitable....
i think good content for these would be a -ev decision but the nut worst thing you can do is release free videos that contain anything other than genuine misinformation *esp if stars changes the rake/structure so that these become clearly good games to play
Plenty of other games are also raked similarly, I don't think the rake point works (look at MTT rake, or other SNGs).
Personally, I think rake per hour related to profit per hour is really the key metric (but HUSNGs would then need to be in your argument for not releasing information, and the game grew for years while information was continuously released).
You're right about if you lose big multipliers, you can run bad, but that happens in MTTs already. What if you get to the final 5 and you have 3 regs instead of 1 reg? You can make that same argument to never release anything of value about MTTs.
But the reality is, the regs in these now are not anywhere near to playing perfect (and in two years every reg will probably say "man, I played like an idiot 2 years ago."). So releasing videos, free or not, with valuable information, is not just going to improve bad players (actually it would only improve bad players that work hard, and they would improve to some extent no matter what, probably just a bit more slowly), it will improve good players that work hard too.
The people hurt the most are the lazy ones that will never improve, it causes them to lose more (or win less) faster than they otherwise would probably.
Another point is the cost. I love the products we offer on HUSNG.com, but a $200 video pack is not worth $10k, otherwise we would sell it for thousands. If you buy a $200 video pack, then spend 10 hours working it over and reviewing it, say your time is worth $20hr at the time, you've now spent $400 total on this pack. If you get $800 back over 6 months, that means you made a great investment. Maybe that doesn't sound sexy (the real distribution is probably that it's worth a few thousand to guys that work very hard at poker, and less than $800 to those that do not, and there are more do nots than hard workers), but I truly believe that is the reality here, and the reality is often not sexy. You can't just spend 5 hours and make 100k (well, some do, but they are the .001% lucky). Hype and sky high head in the clouds dreams sell, but they aren't realistic. Making good decisions and working hard will maximize the chances that you succeed (both in moderate success and heavy success).
if you think the rake is fine, im ok to agree to disagree and your have permission to revise that thought when the honeymoon period of these games is over
the mtt ship has sailed, but id imagine if you were able to take a collection that you could raise more in donations from 2012 mtt regs bribing 2007 training sites to shut down than the training sites collected in fees during those years
if you think its better to make 20k on a video pack, and see the regs you see at the moment (alot of suboptimal play, but not complete fish) with plugged leaks, and more of them, then your decision is easy
im just not as optimistic about these games/max winrates in them being as robust as you are and think you lose whatever you make off the videos in your ev on the back end assuming you/friends are grinding these
im certain my opinion isnt as informed as yours, but despite that im very confident in the dramatic response in the trending of the greenline based on small decline of the slope of the yellow line
Rypac, You talk about staking. I guess that it will be impossible to stake these Spin And Goes as there is no way for you to verify results,and it is very easy to fake results in PT4. So if many regs start playing these your staking program will be in danger?
That could be the case, and if it hurts staking or coaching or video profitability, then the best I can do is adjust accordingly.
I'm not going to oppose a popular and profitable game just because I may make less money from it as a business. If my expenses were sky high and I had bad spending habits, maybe that biased situation would get the better of me and I would selfishly try to lobby against Spin and Gos, but I live within my means and I'm confident that I can adjust myself and my standard of living to cope with any downturn. I don't live always expecting to make the same or more money. I of course try to set myself up to do that in life, but I don't want to live on a 20 buyin roll, metaphorically speaking.
Now, if I believe(d) that spin and gos were really bad for poker and not profitable nor sustainably profitable, then I would oppose them, irrespective of money making opportunities. We don't promote online casinos on this site, even if it would increase income 10-20%.
I'm not trying to act like I'm holier than thou either. If you told me adding casino promotion would make the site 10x more income, I'd probably add casino promotions. But I'm not going to oppose or support a game that I think is bad for poker due to a quick spike or loss in income. This company has partially been built by taking the right stand on issues in the poker community and looking out into the long term, not the short term. Mers free ebook (that many regs didn't want released, but I believed would help grow this site and the game, and I think it did), refusing and speaking out against Lock Poker when everyone was making small fortunes there, refusing to promote some get rich quick type products in our market, refusing to promote certain products and software where we had issues with the ethics of people involved... these types of moves can cost a significant amount of short term income, but a lot of players trust us because we're not in this to just get rich quick or make money off the customer. We're in it to gain the business of our customers, not gain their money at any cost. It's also far easier to live life happily when you aren't taking advantage of people or manipulating them into giving you money.
In equilibrium the house wins & there is a sustainable reg:fish ratio as a function of rake.
The house only needs to sustain a handful of prominent winning players to keep the dream of winning big at poker alive and keep deposits flowing. With little competition, Pokerstars will increasingly squeeze the profits out of the game until only the intelligent, hardworking guys who are prepared to work for low tier professional wage post rake back are still playing professionally.
Training products are a double edge sword in the sense that they both bring new players (fish) to the game and catalyse the natural equilibrium described above. HUSNG.com products are of a quality which provide a fantastic foundation for beginner players, but they aren't really going to break the games.
Scaling from the razor thin edges in HUSNG HTs which have significantly lower rake, it is unlikely that spin & gos will be profitable for long (or at all) with the current game structure.
I was personally hoping Pokerstars would pursue the opposite strategy for HUSNGs:
- encourage more a more competitive market-driven lobby environment; via
- lower rake for high volume players.
They could have introduced something like a "Nemesis" system where after X number of rematches in a consecutive playing session, players could battle each other rake free. Or a variation on a rake as a function of volume vs specific player type structure. It could have felt like poker => a skill based strategy game! Instead they've pursued the strategy of taking casual player's deposits faster & clipping regular's profits. Not a big deal for me, I have just reallocated my Poker hobby time into other activities and no longer provide liquidity to Pokerstars' games.
For HUSNG.com, it's a case of adapt or die. While they operate they will continue to provide quality material for aspiring poker players. Will be very interested to see how the poker market plays out over the next 1-2 years.
I would also like to know this.
Math pack video for spin and goes would also be great.
Rypac, are there any plans for any Spin and goes video packs or software?
"If you want to win, you must not lose!"
I don't think there are any plans to add 3 players to CoffeeCalcs. The programmer is a HUSNG player and wanted to build a strictly HUSNG program.
As far as a video pack, I've really been studying these games and talking with players. My current conclusion is that there was a ton of negative hype from players and websites and that these games are actually quite profitable. So we're looking to develop a pack soon, and we've started putting videos up (Faarcyde was first).
We would've been on it sooner, but we didn't want to release a pack for a game that wasn't beatable/was really bad for the ecology (we did release a blackjack pack obviously before, but that was about cardcounting, which is clearly profitable in the right conditions).
if they are worthwhile, how many people 4 tabling your limit continuous who dont suck does it take to make them no longer worthwile? (my feeling would be its not a terribly high number)
how much -neg impact does filling seats with non incompetent players have relative to what you could hope to gain from fees for the videos
(say theres a non fish filling a seat at the one 3,000x you spin in the next year who wouldnt have been grinding the format without some guidance, the change in expectation that one single game prob outweighs it)
if theyre beatable enough, and if theyre where poker is headed... why make them worse? in your shoes id sit on/protect that edge
but i tend to think at 4% they mightve been worth it, at 5% theyre not so i dont expect it would harm me personally to have videos released (since i explored and dropped them)
These are the same questions people have asked about HUSNGs since like 2005. The answer is complicated, but in short, I believe that in a game that is as popular as Spin and Go, it can sustain many regulars for an extended period of time. HUSNGs have sustained it for a decade now, and every year people say "man games are too hard, it's going to be unbeatable." Yet the game grew for most years (maybe not the last two years, but it's still far larger than it was pre 2011).
It's the same with staking and private coaching though (which "harm the game" more, and by harm the game I mean help a player become more profitable, which isn't in the interests of any other player obviously). If an individual finds it worthwhile, they are going to do it. Same goes with playing.
I mean, if spin and gos or HUSNGs were checkers, and nobody knew how to play, and I did, obviously I'd go and just crush them all. But poker is far, far more complex, both of these games we're discussing here. Some of the best players in the world have coached and failed to make many players profitable. How on earth? Well, players need to put in their own work, and control their own emotions. Giving them the tools is helpful, but it's like building a house, if you don't learn how to do it and then practice it and put in effort, I can buy you an amazing set of power tools and supplies... if you get angry and impatient and don't put in the effort to practice building and working on houses, you won't be able to build a house.
And the reason why poker is so profitable isn't because people don't know how to analyze hands, it's because people don't have the patience or discipline to do it consistently in real time over long periods.
Videos and coaching are only really effective if you are going to put in the work to not only go through it all and understand it, but also put in the time at the tables and play in a confident and tilt free way.
its not hu tho, its raked more than twice as hard, and payouts are distributed in a manner that make it a perpetual uphill battle, its alot to overcome
imo you dont need a decent edge vs the average villain, you need a massive edge for the games to be tolerable, and these should be pretty easy to ruin in that respect because you really need (fish/fish) for a high % of your games to get an acceptable winrate longterm. every (reg/fish) you get seated in 2xs means you lose money very solidly, every reg you face in a 25x or higher costs you sessions to months of equity compared to a completely uneducated fish filling that seat.
if you play off peak, you are already sitting the same guys multiple times per sesh with 80k husng samples and are profitable....
i think good content for these would be a -ev decision but the nut worst thing you can do is release free videos that contain anything other than genuine misinformation *esp if stars changes the rake/structure so that these become clearly good games to play
Plenty of other games are also raked similarly, I don't think the rake point works (look at MTT rake, or other SNGs).
Personally, I think rake per hour related to profit per hour is really the key metric (but HUSNGs would then need to be in your argument for not releasing information, and the game grew for years while information was continuously released).
You're right about if you lose big multipliers, you can run bad, but that happens in MTTs already. What if you get to the final 5 and you have 3 regs instead of 1 reg? You can make that same argument to never release anything of value about MTTs.
But the reality is, the regs in these now are not anywhere near to playing perfect (and in two years every reg will probably say "man, I played like an idiot 2 years ago."). So releasing videos, free or not, with valuable information, is not just going to improve bad players (actually it would only improve bad players that work hard, and they would improve to some extent no matter what, probably just a bit more slowly), it will improve good players that work hard too.
The people hurt the most are the lazy ones that will never improve, it causes them to lose more (or win less) faster than they otherwise would probably.
Another point is the cost. I love the products we offer on HUSNG.com, but a $200 video pack is not worth $10k, otherwise we would sell it for thousands. If you buy a $200 video pack, then spend 10 hours working it over and reviewing it, say your time is worth $20hr at the time, you've now spent $400 total on this pack. If you get $800 back over 6 months, that means you made a great investment. Maybe that doesn't sound sexy (the real distribution is probably that it's worth a few thousand to guys that work very hard at poker, and less than $800 to those that do not, and there are more do nots than hard workers), but I truly believe that is the reality here, and the reality is often not sexy. You can't just spend 5 hours and make 100k (well, some do, but they are the .001% lucky). Hype and sky high head in the clouds dreams sell, but they aren't realistic. Making good decisions and working hard will maximize the chances that you succeed (both in moderate success and heavy success).
if you think the rake is fine, im ok to agree to disagree and your have permission to revise that thought when the honeymoon period of these games is over
the mtt ship has sailed, but id imagine if you were able to take a collection that you could raise more in donations from 2012 mtt regs bribing 2007 training sites to shut down than the training sites collected in fees during those years
if you think its better to make 20k on a video pack, and see the regs you see at the moment (alot of suboptimal play, but not complete fish) with plugged leaks, and more of them, then your decision is easy
im just not as optimistic about these games/max winrates in them being as robust as you are and think you lose whatever you make off the videos in your ev on the back end assuming you/friends are grinding these
im certain my opinion isnt as informed as yours, but despite that im very confident in the dramatic response in the trending of the greenline based on small decline of the slope of the yellow line
Rypac, You talk about staking. I guess that it will be impossible to stake these Spin And Goes as there is no way for you to verify results,and it is very easy to fake results in PT4. So if many regs start playing these your staking program will be in danger?
"If you want to win, you must not lose!"
That could be the case, and if it hurts staking or coaching or video profitability, then the best I can do is adjust accordingly.
I'm not going to oppose a popular and profitable game just because I may make less money from it as a business. If my expenses were sky high and I had bad spending habits, maybe that biased situation would get the better of me and I would selfishly try to lobby against Spin and Gos, but I live within my means and I'm confident that I can adjust myself and my standard of living to cope with any downturn. I don't live always expecting to make the same or more money. I of course try to set myself up to do that in life, but I don't want to live on a 20 buyin roll, metaphorically speaking.
Now, if I believe(d) that spin and gos were really bad for poker and not profitable nor sustainably profitable, then I would oppose them, irrespective of money making opportunities. We don't promote online casinos on this site, even if it would increase income 10-20%.
I'm not trying to act like I'm holier than thou either. If you told me adding casino promotion would make the site 10x more income, I'd probably add casino promotions. But I'm not going to oppose or support a game that I think is bad for poker due to a quick spike or loss in income. This company has partially been built by taking the right stand on issues in the poker community and looking out into the long term, not the short term. Mers free ebook (that many regs didn't want released, but I believed would help grow this site and the game, and I think it did), refusing and speaking out against Lock Poker when everyone was making small fortunes there, refusing to promote some get rich quick type products in our market, refusing to promote certain products and software where we had issues with the ethics of people involved... these types of moves can cost a significant amount of short term income, but a lot of players trust us because we're not in this to just get rich quick or make money off the customer. We're in it to gain the business of our customers, not gain their money at any cost. It's also far easier to live life happily when you aren't taking advantage of people or manipulating them into giving you money.
In equilibrium the house wins & there is a sustainable reg:fish ratio as a function of rake.
The house only needs to sustain a handful of prominent winning players to keep the dream of winning big at poker alive and keep deposits flowing. With little competition, Pokerstars will increasingly squeeze the profits out of the game until only the intelligent, hardworking guys who are prepared to work for low tier professional wage post rake back are still playing professionally.
Training products are a double edge sword in the sense that they both bring new players (fish) to the game and catalyse the natural equilibrium described above. HUSNG.com products are of a quality which provide a fantastic foundation for beginner players, but they aren't really going to break the games.
Scaling from the razor thin edges in HUSNG HTs which have significantly lower rake, it is unlikely that spin & gos will be profitable for long (or at all) with the current game structure.
I was personally hoping Pokerstars would pursue the opposite strategy for HUSNGs:
- encourage more a more competitive market-driven lobby environment; via
- lower rake for high volume players.
They could have introduced something like a "Nemesis" system where after X number of rematches in a consecutive playing session, players could battle each other rake free. Or a variation on a rake as a function of volume vs specific player type structure. It could have felt like poker => a skill based strategy game! Instead they've pursued the strategy of taking casual player's deposits faster & clipping regular's profits. Not a big deal for me, I have just reallocated my Poker hobby time into other activities and no longer provide liquidity to Pokerstars' games.
For HUSNG.com, it's a case of adapt or die. While they operate they will continue to provide quality material for aspiring poker players. Will be very interested to see how the poker market plays out over the next 1-2 years.