blonde poker forum

From the 2+2 Thread titled "SNE launches a petition against Spin & Go format", this post by Little Danny.


I've seen a lot of talk about the poker ecosystem and what kills games, etc. Do you know what kills games and destroys the poker ecosystem above and beyond all the things mentioned? Winning players. Yup, you guys lol. The winning players as a whole win a lot more money than the company makes each and every year. Yet, oddly, they still offer VIP programs to the very people who are essentially "killing the games."

If Spin N' Go's deterred pros from playing, that actually HELPS the poker ecosystem immensely, it just may not help YOU personally. I love, love, love, and love this concept and if it helps to level the playing field a little bit, while allowing rec players to stretch their dollars a bit further than before, I think in the end that is a win for everyone- even the winning players who are upset about it now.

You guys don't even want to know what I would do to the VIP programs if I was in charge! I would focus on giving bonuses to the LOSING players exclusively. They'd play more, last longer, and the pros would get the money in the end anyway. I think it's overkill to not only have pros crushing all the rec players, but then also giving them the majority of the bonuses on top of that?

The mindset of some pros is backwards. You think they need you, when the reverse is true. They would do better as a company if pros didn't play at all. They need the rec players, THEY should be the priority, not the pros. If you lose rec players, then pros don't play anyway. If the rec players continue to deposit and play, then the pros will be there to get that money.

Look at it this way, PokerStars provides a service that allows some of you to make a living. You are not employees, and they are not your boss. As with any service, if you don't feel it's worth it to use, then you are free to choose a different service. That may seem harsh, but I get a sense that some people have entitlement issues that aren't warranted.

Spin and go?

It's a recent 'Stars innovation which has proven to be stunningly popular, so much so that it has put a sizeable dent in the cash game traffic, (I read somewhere that it was 9% down the week before last) hence it has upset many cash game players.

As with most things, what pleases some, displeases others.


http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/spin-and-go/

(http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/Spin-and-Go-infographiccc.png)

Nick Wright wrote the following interesting article

http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/tournaments/ept/2014/ept11-london-anyone-for-a-spin-and-go-151535.shtml


Barry Crater wrote this one

Is there too much gamble in PokerStars Spin & Go tournaments?

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/world-of-poker/Is-there-too-much-gamble-in-Spin-Go-_87588/

Can somebody explain why this is a dear Pleno thread?

I assume we are quoting a totally unbiased Danny here and not the best paid stars Pro on the planet who shares the same name.

It was just a whimsical thread title David, good thread titles get more views. It was certainly not specifically aimed at Patrick, I just used his name as he wins more than almost anyone in our circle!

I was not quoting any particular Danny, I was just quoting his comment, as it struck me as very interesting, & included what some may consider to be a few home truths.

If I Posted this thread Next Door, there would be an overwhelming response in favour of Danny. On here, I would imagine quite the opposite. 

 

Generally forms part of a sentence whenever the camel meets little Danny...

Lol, am keenly awaiting the response from Danny's biggest fan.

 ;scarymoment; ;scarymoment; ;scarymoment;

It pains me more than you can imagine to admit to agreeing with Daniel Negreanu but I agree with Daniel Negreanu.

Hyper turbo sngs are full of pros 18 tabling and taking forever to make a decision. It means you sometimes only get 3 or 4 hands per level. It's beyond annoying. And selfish of them. Because the recs are playing these for a change of pace and a bit of gamble. NOT to be exploited by regs.

I've played a few of these spin and gos and they are great. Haven't suffered a player timing out once in about 50 games.

The rake is a little high, but apart from that I see absolutely no downside.

Hope they put in $50, $100 and $200 versions soon too.

Dear Danny,


This statement in itself is completely flawed. Poker is an 'ecosystem' which has to have winning and losing players. No players are of the same ability, even amongst the losing players, there are going to be ones that are better at poker than the others. If we took out all of the players that are currently winning, then the best of the previous losing players would now start to be winning players. There is no way around it, there simply has to be winners and losers in poker.

As for all of this about the VIP system, it is a fair system that awards EVERYONE the same bonuses, regardless of whether you win or lose. It is a fair system that pays out depending on how often you are playing, not how much you are winning/losing.


Pokerstars and other sites need both pros and recs. At the end of the day, they make most of their money through rake. They need the pros that grind 5 days a week, specifically at times when most 'recs' would be at work, else the site would be far less busy. Recreational players are called that because they play exactly that way - casually. Not every day, not 5 days a week. Just whenever they fancy it. Poker sites needs both recs and pros to maximize their profits at all times of the day and I think Pokerstars does a great job of attracting both types of player. So no, Pokerstars would not do better as a company without pros.

'Danny's' whole argument seems to be insinuating that winning players either shouldn't be allowed to play or that they should not be awarded bonuses and that if this was the case, more people would play.

Again, I disagree. If poker was like roulette or blackjack, where I knew the only way I could win in the long run was to gain an 'edge' over the house, which would likely get me banned, then I wouldn't play poker. It would be too much like a lottery and that doesn't appeal to me at all. It would literally be burning money and that is the reason why I don't play roulette or any other casino games. What attracts me to poker and keeps me playing 5 days a week and working very hard off the table is the fact that I know that you can become a better player and can strive to become one of the best if you work hard enough. I play poker for the challenge and the fact that I can aim to become a great player. If there was nothing like this for me to strive for, then I wouldn't play at all. Not a single hand.

Finally, I have no idea why the VIP program or the fact that you are a winning or losing player has anything at all to do with Spin & Go's. It is just another option on the site for people to play. You aren't forced to play them, it's your choice. If you don't like the concept, then you don't have to play them. If you love them, then great - keep playing them! It may attract new players to the site, which can never be a bad thing!


Yours Sincerely

MelissaChloe

Hi Melissa,

For context, that Post by Mr N was on a thread in which there was a vigorous debate saying Spin & Gos were a bad thing as they are greatly reducing cash game traffic, &, as such, affecting the Pros. That was the gist of the thing.   

Hi Tikay :)

Yeah, I get that. But i think that it will see such a decline for the initial period whilst all the new 'hype' is surrounding them. In the long term though, if they attract new players to the site, those new players could then try out cash games etc. that they wouldn't have joined the site for previously, so may increase traffic to other games!

I don't agree with the people that are trying to get them banned, but I also don't agree with the points made by Daniel that I quoted.

Not quite. I see your point, but it does ignore some of the larger issues at hand. Why are you rewarding frequency of play for example? Is it fair on the people who bring money into the system to reward them equally to those with withdraw money from the system?

Your point regarding the usefulness of pros and regs is well made though and is often ignored in this debate.

I think it is more fair to reward frequency of play, rather than by how much you win or lose. I think it is a smart thing by Pokerstars too, as they offer an incentive of good bonuses for the people who have the time to make SNE etc. whereas they probably wouldn't play anywhere near that volume even if they were playing full time. Or a recreational player might push to play slightly more that month so they make goldstar instead of silverstar and get an extra bonus at the same time. So it makes sense for stars to do it that way cause I'm sure it increases their rake an awful lot.

Is it the most fair way? I don't know, there probably will be a system out there that is better or more fair, but I haven't looked into it. I think it is hard to make everyone happy, whatever system they introduce, someone will disagree with it.

"frequency of play" is a major driver & KPI of a poker site. By "stretching" a player from playing, say, 2 days per week to 3 days per week it makes a huge difference to total Margin. Most sites work very hard to increase this.   

This is the biggest fallacy about online poker sites - they do not make their money from rake, they make their money from the deposits of losing players. Rake is simply the mechanism by which it is taken. There is some value from the liquidity that the regs provide (which is most important in SnGs, less so in cash games) but the negative aspects of multi-tablers (slow to act, timing out, no chat/fun) are a turn-off for the more casual player.

He's also right about the VIP scheme - some winning player takes $10k off the site in winnings each month and yet we give them more money on top??

As a HUSNG player the introduction of these games has obviously reduced my volume quite a bit, but making a load of noise trying to get them removed is probably one of the most self-absorbed campaigns I've ever witnessed.

Genuinely creases me up that these SNEs and other Supernovas think that they have a hope of getting these games removed. The heads up hypers guys are the best, a lot of them are so specialised that they have no idea what to do now that these games have trimmed a lot of the fish from the heads up hypers games.

For those of us willing to adapt, this may very well turn out to be exactly what we wanted in terms of sending a lot of the mediocre regs broke

Well the entire industry was obsessed with this for 10 years. And then realised the monster it had created a little too late. Hence my initial question.

I say we just stop anyone playing more than 4 tables at a time and for more than 12 hours in any given week, that will make those pesky pros get a job in the real world and stop them nicking our money  ;whistle;

There is a huge amount of value in regs churning that money around. If I deposit £100 and lose it all to Tikay who then withdraws it the site has made very little from me. If I deposit £100 and lose it all to Tikay who in turn was simultaneously losing £95 to lildave who in turn was losing £90 to etc etc. You see where I'm going with this.

Let's wait and see what PokerGal thinks.  ;)

I didn't play one yet, but I assume it is just the same format as on other sites, Winamax, ipoker etc. Personally I don't see what is exciting about a three player crap shoot where you are almost always gonna only be playing for 2/3s of the buy ins. Do people really get that excited about the 'jackpot game' where they can make a big win?

And no sympathy for the whining/winning regs obv.

Congrats to winamax for coming up with the idea.

They're fun.

 ;fishing;

Then hopefully they will start paying some tax!

 ;hide;

Can understand why sit and go regs are annoyed by these reducing traffic to their games.

Overall, these will be great fun for rec players, with a bit of a gambling experience which they'll love.

Anything sites can do to encourage recs, or "losing"  players, is a positive imo.

sorry for asking what is probably a stupid question but why can't the stt regs just transfer to playing these?  Is rake excessively high because its a product designed for fish predominately and the large rake is hidden effectively in the prize pool?

What is the rake in these things?

4% I think

These are awesome.

The best spin multiplier I've had though is 20X - probably 85% are the minimum multiplier, i.e. 6 dollars winner takes all in a 3 dollar 3 man.

Played them on winimax too but pokerstars software far more playable.

The reason grinders playing for a living don't want to play these is because the variance in them is insane, increased more so by the fact no deals are allowed.

The rake is listed as 4% on $7+ buyin levels, 5% on the 3s and 7% on the 1s.

Info on probabilities here :

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/spin-and-go/

seems like a bad idea for stars to me.  The churn factor will not have much chance to kick in rake wise as anyone who binks 1000 times their buy in is pretty certain to withdraw it from the stars system and spunk it elsewhere outside of poker compared to normal stt's.  It will also send less lucky punters skint much quicker as they contribute towards these massive 1000 times the buy in pay outs and hence hurt the rake/deposit amount ratio they get from these players.  They must be expecting a huge increase in mugs playing these to counter the loss of churn from their normal stt product.

Call

Ok i will rephrase it to pretty certain to withdraw a substantial chunk of it.

Fold

an interesting 4 minutes reading time

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/world-of-poker/Why-online-poker-rooms-do-not-owe-you-a-living_87563/

pretty sure these or something very similar were running on DTD  not so long ago?

They do, twister poker is I-poker's variant, been launched nearly a year now

Professional poker players are "cleverly gaming a system"? What system? Are plumbers cleverly gaming the system? Journalists? I don't understand why people in the industry seem to want to treat professionals as some sort of scumbags that are scamming a living. Stars would absolutely not be better off without any recreational players, and this very idea is just so dumb I can only try to explain. Do you think the London Stock Exchange would be better off without any professional traders? Poker media seems fairly anti pro at the moment, which is funny considering many pros give (presumably) free interviews/information out all the time.

"The winning players as a whole win a lot more money than the company makes each and every year"- Daniel Negreanu 2014. Just take that in for a second.

"In the first half of 2014, Oldford Group recorded USD$567.9 million in revenues (H1 2013 - USD$545.9 million), USD$218.4 million in net income (H1 2013 - USD$189.9 million), and USD$246.4 million in net cash from operating activities (H1 2013 - USD$207.0 million"
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/amaya-pr-shareholders-today-about-pokerstars-full-tilt-1482207/

He actually thinks professional poker players won more than $246m last year. Hes on a different planet. Its just not even close to possible. Can we please not take advice on the poker ecosystem from someone who is so far removed he thinks the stat above could be possible.

Furthermore, how does no one seem to understand one of the main points in the 2+2 topic, that Stars changing the ecology in the sit and go games right at the end of the calendar year, significantly affects peoples plans for vip levels. I'm not really in that boat, but if I'd been planning on supernova elite, and then 3/4 of the way through the year have the liquidity in my main games vastly reduced, I'd be pretty upset. Especially as so much of the rakeback % comes from the last 10% of the volume. Any other company does this to a customer/pseudo employee and everyone would firmly be on there side, but because its online poker everyone is fine with it? It just doesn't make sense. Imagine pokerstrategy told Barry at the start of the year they would pay him at the end of the year for all his articles at a minimum of 1500 words as long as it gets a 100k total views, then in October, tell him to write articles in Japanese on their new website. He might even like writing in Japanese, but it doesn't mean this change is fair.

Spin and gos will not say recreational player friendly for very long because online poker as an economic market is extremely saturated. Any game that is soft will have an increasing number of regulars in it until the point where it becomes a rakeback fest, just like small stakes hold'em/plo cash that are frankly unbeatable due to the rake. Some games manage to stay hidden away, but largely this will always be the case.

Don't mean to offend anyone but this is a particularly tilting topic for me, and the general anti pro bullshit that keeps appearing is very frustrating. Off to game the Hearthstone system, you know, by being good.  :o


P.S "The same players would, in theory, be much looser too, given that they have come into poker with a gambling mentality. Spin & Go is also still pretty low stakes (Maximum buy-in $30) so recreational players will lose much more slowly than they would at a roulette table with no maximum bet. This is also good for the poker ecology in general." (pokerstrat article)

In comparison to a recreational player losing his money at roulette, I would obviously prefer they lose the money in spin and gos, but this is not good for the poker professional, its good for the sites. I wasn't aware the poker ecology consisted of just the poker sites. I want my opponents to get it all in dead on the river for their stack in the first hand.

Think you mean pro players here?

Very good reply tbf.  Your argument about the SNE is very valid and i hadn't considered that.  Do you think Star's have actually timed this release to stop having to pay the SNE's as much year end rakeback?

Yeah, your right. Was a bit all over the shop finding things from links etc.  Stars want low win rates, and this is achieved by having tough games, not extremely soft ones. Open recreational player heavy games just don't really exist online.

More from Danny........


http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-journal.php?subaction=showfull&id=1413434000&archive=&start_from=&ucat=&

Whereas I somewhat agree that people trying to get these banned is poor form, the points he uses to make them are appaling, was only 1 line i agreed with...


I believe he has seen a lot of talk.

Thats a super cool story but this isn't Toronto and more importantly we're not in 1995. Ask any cash game player the last time a recreational player got a bunch of friends to open sit a game online.

Winning players should be grateful that we're allowed to play? Pokerstars' marketing over the last however many years has leaned heavily on presenting poker as a skill game and good luck getting a legislation framework in place if you abandon the idea of poker as a skill game and market it as a lottery.

I completely agree with him that a lot of pros way over-estimate their bargaining power with the sites and over-inflate the winning regs' role in the games, but throwing comments around suggesting that Pokerstars would be just fine tomorrow if they flipped a switch to ban all accounts that are winning over a big sample is just flat wrong.

imo Mr Negreanu needs to toot the corporate horn a little less. He's trying to present himself as somebody that knows how the online poker 'ecosystem' (for desperate want of a better term) works and he's making himself look pretty silly to anyone that has been paying attention to this.

Arguably, IMO, this was a bad thing for the online game and has led to a lot of the problems we have now. Would it have happened if the US never tried to ban online poker? Hmm. I'm not so sure. Certainly not on such a grand scale.

My personal view on this is by marketing poker SOLELY as a skill game you are making promises the game simply can't keep.

I think he is right on the primary value pros bring to the game, which is the same in both live and online, but misses the equally important secondary value that only exists online.

You are more importantly telling the mugs that they can't win as well as they don't have the skills so will invest their gambling budget in other products where they feel they can win.

Yep. Totally agree. And that IS what happened.

After playing nearly 600 of these I finally got to play a big one.

The adrenaline rush was massive.

Love these spin and gos, played more online poker in the last two weeks than the last 6 months combined!

how big did you get keith?

$750

0.08% chance of playing that which puts it into a bit of perspective.

Incredibly unlikely to get one, but more than made up for by my opponents playing terribly in it.

think they have just increased the jackpots on these after only a few weeks...must be hugely popular

Yeah it kinda got lost in the increased rake stuff but here is the new structure, top prize is now 3000x and only happens 1 in 100,000

(http://i.imgur.com/NcV0fP2.jpg)

so they increase the jackpot...but lower the chances of winning it...

and go from 1115 in 100,000 of hitting a x10 or above to
                   616 in 100,000

seems like a bit of an own goal to me or are they bowing to pressure and keeping less players with bigger wins.

are these beatable - just out of curiosity?!

How do you work out ROI on constantly adjusting prizepools?! Is it...Return on Prize pool!?

Spose you have a 40% ROPP at $30 SPnGo's and play 100,000 of them.

you'd have invested $3,000,000.

you'd have gotten
$1,692,432 back from the 2x's
$1,025,568 back from the 4x's
$540,000 back from the 6x's
$60,000 back from the 10x's
$30,000 back from the 25x's
$14,440 back from the 120x's
$14,440 back from the 240x's
$43,200 back from the 3600x's

$3,420,080 return total = 14% return right? Is that how you'd figure it out or am I barking up the wrong tree?? The variance though will be insane - as 72% of the time you'd be making a loss, $30 invested for an expected $24 return. When you count as well the fact that out of 100,000 you might get an extra 3000-6000 2xgames I don't know what kind of bankroll you'd need to sustain this as a beatable source of income - I imagine you'd need 25,000 buyins ($750k at $30's) at the very least - you'd make a lot of money in bonuses ofc ~$120k id imagine which will hep to smooth the variance over a little...

I think these are just unbeatable to all intents and purposes, and if stars are offering unbeatable games (blackjack, roulette etc) then poker as a game of skill and not a gambling game loses alot of credibility which given how pokerstars raves on about "legislation" I think is an issue for them.

I think since 2011 and especially since the launch of online casino in New Jersey that is increasingly a non-issue. It was a position Stars had to have at the time. Not sure they need it now.

In the sense that the conversation went

PokerStars: It's not gambling
Governments: It is
PokerStars: It's not!
Governments: It is
PokerStars: It's not!
BAN HAMMER
Governments: IT F***ING IS
PokerStars: K

Confirmed unbeatable. Stars obviously don't want regs playing them. Regs were suggesting prizepool structures that weren't so variancey (that must be a word :)) so they might be grindable. Stars reacted to this by increasing the variance substantially and making the rake literally unbeatable.

I'm going to tentatively dip a toe in this thread here.

Is the complaint from poker pros that their living is being taken away from them by the introduction of these games, which are more appealing to recreational players than the cash games they currently play in, and from which pros are profiting more from?  And that the spin and go format itself is unbeatable to sustain a professional income?

If so, what complaint is actually valid?  Who ever said anyone had a right to earn a living playing poker?  If you choose a path as uncertain as that, then you have to accept the risks.  Same goes for pro sports bettors who have their accounts limited, etc.  Since when does the bookie have to continue to accept bets from someone who only wins consistently?  If the bookie stops that players account but can profit from losing players, well what would you expect them to do?  It is the very antithesis of a profitable business model to just accept winning players without taking any action.  Who opens a pub and then pays some of their customers to drink there?

Just as someone who enters any line of business really - any number of market forces can make their living unsustainable where once it flourished.  I have had to consider this in lines of employment before, as has my partner, my boss, etc.

Have I got the right handle on this situation?

yes you have

Yes it does seem the gravy train that these 'pros' have been making their living from could be shuddering slightly

So much could be said on the pure naivity and self importance of their argument but it's really not worth the effort.

Pokerstars do seem to have stuck two fingers up to them knowing there isn't another site out there with such traffic - a case of needing each other but the pros needing them far more I think

Vblue i would say you are correct.

I think that's a bit unfair. They have been sold a story for over 10 years by every single poker site that if you work hard, study and play a lot of poker you can be a winner. Poker is a skill game. You can win! Come be a winner with us! This has been the entirety of online poker marketing for most of its lifetime. So you can't blame the pros for believing what they said.

Indeed - again, Betfair did exactly the same thing, even having advertising with 'Winners are Welcome at Betfair'. By the time they worked out that, actually, winners weren't all that great, Bet365 and Paddy Power had smacked Betfair about.

FYP

 Betfair did exactly the same thing, even having advertising with 'Winners are Welcome at Betfair'. By the time they worked out that, actually, winners weren't all that great, betfair had decided to recruit Paddy Power's CEO to turn betfair into a poor man's bet365.

Winners are still welcome on the betfair exchange.  It is just getting harder to win as betfair direct all the 'mug' traffic to their sportsbook product directly.  The vast majority of new betfair customers probably don't even know the exchange exists until they start showing potential to break even or win then they get limited and sent to the exchange in order to place their bets.  Betfair exchange pros have to be smarter and even more savvy than before because the pool of mug business is getting smaller and smaller but it's still possible to win mainly because so many 'winners' who are not winners long term get badly restricted by betfair sportsbook and/or other firms and you forced to the exchange in order to get a decent bet on.

FYFYP

I am surprised so many people here believe this.  The relationship is clearly symbiotic.  Betfair failed to realise that without people making markets, there are less bets.  It is the same with poker, if nobody starts the games they don't run.  People aren't going to deposit if the games aren't running so often.  Just because somebody else is making money doesn't mean that getting rid of them means you make more. 

I'd say that Betfair have managed to make the same mistake with both the exchange and poker. 

It is just such a shame that this had happened just at the time we can't all switch to Winamax :(

I don't think it is unfair.  People get sold all sorts of dreams.  Most pro poker players are not naive vulnerable sorts.

Playing poker professionally/sports betting professionally is possibly one of the least contributing ways to make a living that there is.  Do UK players pay any tax at all on their earnings, provide any kind of service, provide any entertainment to others, etc?  Sorry to be so harsh, but I think that sympathy will be lost on many outside of the world of the pro player.

I'm playing devil's advocate in some respects, but I think it's a valid point of view.

Call

You spotted that huh?

I can only go on my own and anecdotal evidence. Surprised some poker pros can manage to get dressed in the morning by themselves. In fact I'm not sure all of them do :)

Played a $7,200 last night.

After feeling the adrenaline rush of hitting it, I finally understand why people sit and play slot machines for hours.

I did not win.

Don't understand why they don't allow deals in these? Surely they should want all 3 players to have $2400 than one with $6000?

you're right yes.

However poker has been sold as a game of skill, not a game of chance for a long while, and pokerstars themselves have promoted this both as a way of marketing to customers and in defence of legal opposition to the way they have operated.

It's a skill game, and a skill game because people can make a sustainable living from it. Stars have encouraged professionals to play on their site forever, so for the tack to change to high raking unbeatable games is of course going to irritate pro players.

Lowering variance would attract regs.

They dont need or want these games to be grindable.

I would assume that they don't allow deals so that the variance is big enough to keep out the pros that might be incredibly douchey and pressure recs into taking bad deals if they nail a jackpot

Not allowing deals also avoids this conversation

Pokerstars: Win up to $90k in our Spin n Go games
Punter: How many people have won $90k?
Pokerstars: Ummm...

Just offer everyone an equal chop before the sng starts.

If not everyone agrees with 30 seconds, off we go.

Doesn't that defeat the object of the game?
 

Full tilts version does (or did - not sure if they still do) offer deals but the jackpot games I believe pay all three places...I think that would be a better change.

Stars pay 10% of first place prize to 2nd and 3rd for jackpot games

Seems fair then - at least everyone gets some thing

i was speaking to a friend last night that plays hyper turbos at the highest stakes.

he was telling me that the edge that the good players have from the best players is stalling accuracy.

stalling is tanking before folding obviously.

you can manipulate when the blinds will go up if you wait a certain amount of time because the big blind will increase on a short stack if you choose or you can make sure you get the button when the blinds are bigger and thus make more chips shoving than if the blind was smaller etc.

in the lobby it doesnt say the blinds are going up in 30 seconds, it just says within one minute, so they have clocks and alarms going off at all times.



[06/11/2014 04:22:45] : giving u dat btn (sun)
[06/11/2014 04:22:49] Patrick Leonard: :D
[06/11/2014 04:22:50] : nah just my sng instinct
[06/11/2014 04:22:50] Patrick Leonard: nice
[06/11/2014 04:22:50] : its ridic
[06/11/2014 04:22:52] : but quite literally
[06/11/2014 04:22:57] : the biggest edge in the HS hyper sats
[06/11/2014 04:23:03] : is who can stall the best
[06/11/2014 04:23:05] : it starts hand #1
[06/11/2014 04:23:14] Patrick Leonard: haha srsl? :D:D
[06/11/2014 04:23:17] : yuppp
[06/11/2014 04:23:19] : literally have charts
[06/11/2014 04:23:22] : that help me stall
[06/11/2014 04:23:28] Patrick Leonard: ahahahah
[06/11/2014 04:23:32] : #sngproblems
[06/11/2014 04:23:33]: :d
[06/11/2014 04:23:37] Patrick Leonard: so sick
[06/11/2014 04:23:51] l: yea its quite absurd, if u dont stall in the HS sats, v tough to win
[06/11/2014 04:23:54] : even some of the recs stall
[06/11/2014 04:23:56] : who play a lot
[06/11/2014 04:23:59] Patrick Leonard: wow
[06/11/2014 04:24:07] : yea like *******
[06/11/2014 04:24:09] : will stall
[06/11/2014 04:24:11] : its obnoxious lol
[06/11/2014 04:24:21] : when i was mixing during wcoop
[06/11/2014 04:24:26] : i had 3 different blind timers going lolll
[06/11/2014 04:24:34] l: 1 for ht sats, 1 for 25bb 6m hts, 1 for my turbos

There must be something inherently wrong with a game structured in such a way that a winning strategy kills the game.

It's why I sopped playing hyper turbos.

Why Stars don't make each level a certain number of hands (10? 8?) rather than 3 minutes I have no idea.

the good regs on betfair were doing this years ago.  Clock management has always been a big factor in turbo stts either snap folding or tank folding depending on what suits your situation.  Surely can't be anything new on stars?  Still makes me laugh in dtd sats when people ask why you are timebanking when it's hand for hand and they have no idea it's for this reason.

Makes games slower and punters will play less games in a session and they will make less rake.  Can't be any other reason surely?

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Ladbrokes *way* back in the day had 'ultra hyper turbo' 10 seat sats to their nightly big game. IIRC start with 10BB and by the second hand the BB was like 5x the average stack, time bank was still 30 seconds. Usually got around 100 runners and made 10 seats.

A few of us quickly caught on that if everyone limped the first hand, max timebanked the flop, turn and river to a 10 way showdown then 9 of you were probably going to get a seat.

Took Lads quite a while to catch on.

Optimal time banking in low level sats is a key part of any players edge IMO.