They can be more or less profitable, it really depends on volume (can increase by adding more small sites to your grind), the stakes you play and how much respect other regs give you.

Example might be if you're making $1 per game on one game @ 6 games per hour, you're making $6hr. On another site say you're making $.50 per game at 20 games per hour, that's $10hr. Second site is a lower edge each game but it's more profitable.

That example can go either way too.

I'd suggest trying out any site that looks potentially good and just get an idea of volume/EV and run some calculations yourself. It's not always Stars vs non Stars either, some people play Stars + 1 site, some play many sites, some play non Stars, some Stars only. That tells me there's likely situations that are player-specific that might make a certain combination more profitable for you than someone else.

I'm currently only 2 tabling. Took coffeeyay's advice I saw on one video on playing less tables while learning the game. Started with 3 tables, but that was a little too much. 2 tables seems perfect for now, while playing 2 I can generate nice chipev's that make me happy. :> So I was wondering actually if there are some games on other sites that are maybe with higher ROI's achievable/ less variance. I guess iPoker's Twister might be a good choice with smaller multipliers?

We're talking about lottery SNGs, though, where table selection is almost impossible, not about HU hypers in transparent lobbies.

I'll be surprised if there turns out to be many people playing Stars spins as an addition to non-Stars ones. If their main site lacks traffic (which only happens at the top stake), it's more logical for them to add some other site than Stars because they're already used to playing outside Stars. If I were grinding Microgaming €50s, I'd be adding iPoker or Winamax €50s, Virgingames £40s, Adjarabet GEL 100s or just MG €20s instead of Stars $60s. Another viable option is to just play fewer games an hour at the site that you consider the best under the circumstances, but with more focus and thus a better ROI.

Or are there already special Skype groups for non-Stars high stakes?

Twister's new payout structure (on the right in the screenshot, the left one is the former structure; all the jackpots of €1000 and bigger are split in the 80/10/10 proportion)



has the lowest variance out of all 3-max lottery games, though the actual ROI depends somewhat on how often you hit 100x games and how well you play them. Still, a full-time grinder normally wins a 100x at least once a month (a part-time one - at least once in a quarter) so the variance doesn't bite that much.

Another low-variance 3-max option for non-US players is Microgaming's Fish Party: after the December 2016 change, merely 0.85% of the buy-in goes towards the progressive jackpot, the 500x's and 100x's are rare, so the majority of the ROI comes from the frequently hitting multipliers - 20x and lower. The problem with it, though, is that screen name changes are allowed once per month or 1000 hands (whichever is sooner) so regs can change their names every session and it's impossible to accumulate a large sample on anyone, it's only possible to adjust to the population tendencies.

Ah good catch, I was talking about HUSNGs in the damn Spins thread, ugh!

I think I agree with your assessment ****.

The only thing I'd add is that there are probably some people that play 1-2 non Stars sites during peak traffic times for Spins and play Stars all other times.

Can some non-Stars game regs share their evROI's at whichever level they are playing? It would be interesting to see. If someone answers, you could also tell how many tables you're playing. Some graphs would be amazing too.

The smarter grinders who are crushing at other, lesser known sites/games probably aren't about to 'blow up their spot' by telling the whole world how soft their games are and inspire other regs to join them.

I am not one of those smarter grinders.

Who knows, maybe it's our lucky day.

^

The best way to ensure soft games stay soft is to publicly post about them in a thread full of grinders, right?

Yeah, I wonder what inspired the4bettingmonk to brag about the Party games above.

Perhaps what he has in mind is quitting Party when it introduces the new VIP program at the end of May or a bit later, while enticing the other regs to start or keep playing at Party after it gets worse.

Edit: just in case you wonder, I have no access to Virgingames (a UK-only site) nor Winamax, and I don't have an Adjarabet account yet, just I know that >$40 lottery games exist at all those sites. Their value is questionable because of high rake or variance.

Oh, I'm undoubtedly one of the offenders. That was my point with the last line.

It'd probably be better for my overall equity ($ wise) if I shut my my mouth and never talked about having positive results/edge and simply grinded quietly, in relative obscurity. But clearly, I can't do that. I don't think I'd be happier if I had a few extra thousand in my accounts but zero contribution/interaction on forums like these.

Perhaps it's because it feels too isolating, or perhaps it's because I want to brag about the good times. Probably a combination of those things and several other factors that currently escape me.

In my impression, this is what makes a reg want to play at Stars. Stars regs are those who value fame over money. Those who prefer money to fame are those who grind elsewhere. Being a Stars reg and being a non-Stars reg are two ways of living with quite different mindsets.

At least, so it was in the Scheinberg era when Stars was exclusively poker-centric. Nowadays, Stars is becoming a more conventional multi-channel gambling venue (poker room + casino + bookie) so the difference between Stars and non-Stars regs is starting to subside.

I want to play at Stars because I can have a lovely custom avatar.

The # of people I've heard say that they started playing a game like HUSNG bc of Olivier, or a game like MTTs bc of Greenstein/Helmuth/Moneymaker is just absurd. I think there's strong evidence that celebrating successes can lead to an increase in popularity of a game from exactly the demographic most regs want.

Another point would be that the most profitable years for professionals in games like HUSNG, NL MTT, 6 max cash and HU Cash were the years that the games were most popular, not the years when less people knew the games could be beaten for good $.

Those points are more towards you feeling silly barone, I think things like your PGC thread contribute to making the format more popular with people you want playing the games. I don't think either of my points really have anything to do with a Party Spins reg deciding whether or not to tell people he's crushing (I'd imagine his most profitable decision in that specific case is to shut his mouth).

I might be ticked at you if I was sitting on some goldmine games and you spilled the beans about them, but I don't think sharing results in PS games is really gonna attract many new guys to them at this point. They're already (some of) the most reg-heavy pools and almost everyone plays on PS or knows someone who plays on PS, so I don't really think it's cutting too much edge to discuss PS results.

I also wouldn't begrudge anyone who wanted to talk about, say, 888 Blast strategy and started posting 4 handed hands/questions in this sub. But I might be kind of bitter if I was playing $50 Blasts and some guy came in this thread with "Hahahahah hey guys I'm crushing these super soft $50 Blast games, ditch PS and come play!"

As a note, I just play spins (almost 100% on PS) as a side game for fun every now and then, so don't take this as an actual Blast comment

Spins is different tho. Fish are coming into the game at an angle closer with casinos/lotteries.

There isn't a "celebrated spins grinder" (or a hu player deep or short of any form) in any of pokerstars team pros, nor do they promote playing spins professionally. Even tho I saw xflixx recently release his book on spins.

Blast is a unique game, very different from both spins and STTs due to some exclusive strategic considerations arising from the presence of the timer. If I were crushing the $30 Blast, I'd still be telling that it's tough whenever I'm online , because I'd be sitting in every game (as the player pool is small) and owning every rec as well as any HU/3-max reg daring to occupy my territory

It's possible to upload a custom avatar at Party. Just it has to get the approval of the support before it appears at the tables, and most players are too lazy to do it and they use an avatar from the default library.

There won't be major changes at Party with the VIP program imo- Bwin don't have any change planned afaik and they always run the better promos. Would be suicidal for party to hurt the regs in that scenario.

Main motivation for the post is would like to see more liquidity at the party games this summer, but yea will more than likely be playing something else. Also to clarify I make big mistakes with the bounty as well, it's a tough problem to solve :P Twister would be my first choice if it had some more recs.

Also there is a $500 reload bonus at party as part of the powerfest promo. I honestly believe the VIP changes they're making are minimal, however once again their PR team has dropped the ball big time!

Fair points, I think if I were struggling more there'd be a better argument for me to be quiet. A decent percentage of the people I'm 'inspiring' to play Spins will be -EV vs me, and only a small percentage will become elite crushers who steal my equity. That said, if I was playing on a smaller site and printing money, I wouldn't tell anyone. I've mentioned this before, but I only got into Spins because another regular boasted too much about how amazingly soft they were.

Link to the book?

Highly doubt they'll make a Spin grinder into a Stars Pro, most recent addition is Kevin Hart. There's a better chance of a Kardashian joining the team, my money's on Rob!

And not like Amaya's banging down my door to be a Stars Pro, but I personally would turn down such a position if offered to me, unless of course the ownership/direction of the company was vastly different than in its current form.

Having an extra opponent in the pool is +EV to you if and only if your edge over them is more than 1/3 (1/2 for 3-max games) of the net rake. E.g. in the SNG Hero pool with 2.25% net rake (5% rake minus 55% rakeback from the loyalty store, reloads and races), if a reg joins and you're not beating them by 0.75% of the BI per game, then their arrival is -EV to you. In fact it's desirable to have a bigger edge over the opponent (1.5% at least) in order to mitigate the variance.

In the current Party loyalty program, the monthly volume doesn't matter all that much because the prices for the most lucrative loyalty store items (SNG Hero tickets and T$) are independent of the VIP level. Thus it's not bad to win the same or bigger money by less volume due to a softer field, is it?

I'm glad to have one more soulmate

I agree that many bad players join just to "strike it rich," but isn't that also the case with MTTs? I don't think they need to be mutually exclusive. I think a game being talked about as profitable makes it even more likely someone "looking to strike it rich" will play.

--

Barone, would you take a Party or iPoker sponsorship offer?

Returning to klkr's initial question, I have to make a caveat that asking for a soft, low variance, easily learnable game is like asking for a rainbow-****ting unicorn. There are games that have 2 of the 3 qualities - pick the 2 qualities that you appreciate the most - but those that have all the 3, stop being soft pretty fast because they get saturated by regs, unless they're kept top secret in order to prevent the market laws from working.

I'm not familiar enough with their business practices, so until I'm informed I get to be in a state of blissful ignorance, meaning currently neither of those sites violates my sense of morality. I'd obviously want to research more about either company before allowing myself to be associated with their respective brands. For me, that was always a huge part of the Stars Pro dream -- getting to be a brand ambassador for a company I so strongly believed in, a company that seemed to put the players first and operate in the interest of fairness. With Amaya no longer being that shining beacon/gold standard, there's obviously room for one of the other companies to step up and take that torch.

So if either iPoker, Party, ACR, whomever came to me and said 'We want to do things the right way' I'd be willing to consider it. I don't even know/care how much I'd be paid, that sort of thing is secondary to me as I'm doing fine with my own grind/stable, I'm not about to shill myself out for something I don't believe in.