Are the $30+ spin n go max ACTUALLY beatable? I cant find any information/graphs on anyone beating these long-term. Too often it's 4,5 handed winner take all, which is much worse than a regular spin n go 2x. I am a sng professional and I have played about 1300 games at the $30's and am on 170+ BI downswing. But yet I play with alot of the same, decent russian regulars, so I'm confused. I am on a box curse though I seem to pick the lowest box at a 70% success rate, so that's that. But overall - I am scared to continue these, scared to continue pouring money and time into them, as Pokerstars has been known to offer unbeatable formats. (Tempest comes to mind) I do enjoy the format though, soft players, it allows for postflop and pushfold play, with many more ICM spots to profit from. If someone said to me , 200+ Buyin downswings are COMMON and they had a graph to prove longterm winrate, I would happily grind these out. But there is LITERALLY a handful of posts on these things, with no real graphs. Please help me. Thank you very much.

Also, should I be using chips/hands played graph? Is that most accurate?

Well the russian regs should be gone so A the games are better and beatable B the games dies. Haven't played 30s but from my experience at 15s games are beatable but the variance is so gigantic so i wouldn't play them for a living. Op poker posse used to play them and had similar opinions. Even if you get a good table and get a massive chiplead to allins variance gonna murder you. Nothing sweeter than to witness 5-1 chiplead crumbling away.

Hey Esa. Thanks for the reply.

Yes, in my thriving quest for information on these things, I came across OP poker , watched their videos, and have tried to reach out. They are now defunct, no website or anything . Which sucks. I also wonder, if because Op-james was a pokerstars pro, he would endorse these and not give the brutal honest truth, which is these are unbeatable. I hope they aren't , but a part of me thinks he was just promoting these, and not actually winning.

I am more concerned if these, past the insane variance, are in fact beatable. What you mention about the forced all-ins at the end actually has nothing to do with them being beatable or not. More variance for sure, but everyone has to deal with the forced all-ins. As you mentioned you can lose your massive chip lead during the forced all-ins, but at the same time you can also get lucky as a shortstack and end up 1st.

I just left a post on Smart Spin's staking page, asking if they stake for $30's, $60s, and $100's spin max's. Their reply was: They don't because they think they are not profitable. Yikes.

I feel like ive been answering my own questions, but am still hoping someone out there has 1 winning graph. There was a poster on here in the ITT forum. A previous sng pro who went on a spin max run for a few years, but he quit to pursue engineering. He was profiting at 15's but decided to stop the whole quest before he really dabbled in the $30's, $60's. Regardless of what stake it was, he could have in fact been running good. Because who knows how many games you need to get an accurate sample. There is just so, so much added variance. Besides regular poker variance, there is :Number of players in spin, bewteen 3-8 with 5 being the most common AND , most commonly winner take all, which is just brutal . Also How many hands before forced all-in, and forced all-ins. On top of that , the box picking. Like how many $30 , more than 2x prizepool spins do I need to win where I pick an insane 1st prize of (literally) $40, $40, and $365, to actually get to the long run?

If this means anything, Here is my graph so far. I didn't have tournament histories being saved at Pokerstars after a new update, so my results have been majorly skewed. In the process between pt4 and stars support to get this fixed. So ignore that it says I'm +6k and have a 16% ROI. As well, I'm missing a good 400 games, also in the process of recovery. Will post new graph after all the corrections have been made.

Is this the best way to track these?

Yeah I said wouldn't play them for a living because the variance will murder you. Nothing to do with if I think they are beatable or not because of the allin phase. OP is dead they didn't make any money from that and put in decent hours constantly. The ops discord is still alive but james hasn't posted there in ages so they have moved on from poker I believe. Fwiw I track them only for no ante phase to see how I'm playing. Don't pay any attention to actual winning because they are not tracked correctly and use only chips / game.

So, this is a years later update. These are all played at the $30 spin n go max games .


I have played semi-professionally these last few years. With Stars' new rakeback system, becoming a "select player w/ 50% RB" is attainable for me whilst still having a life outside of cards. Especially in this format, quick games and high rake. These games are fun as well, much more exciting and dynamic than regular spins. ICM also comes into play, which I am an expert at using to my advantage. So, ive decided to go full-time again.

The problem is, I still don't know if these games are beatable. I know skill-wise I am top 5 regs playing this format. It's been profitable , but not enough. There is no proper way to track these AND- It sounds silly for someone like me who has made a living off of high-variance games, but I constantly pick the worst boxes. I also have ran poorly in the handful of really big prize pools I've played. Often times a big win will involve picking between 2 shitty boxes and one mega box. Example from one I played months ago : $120, $200, and $1685, lol. I never take the cashout option because its -ev

IMPORTANT* Playing hyper-turbos for a lving, us regs LIVED by our EV graph. I have been molded into a stone-cold machine when it comes to losing, AS LONG AS I'M MAKING +ev decisions. Literally I could be losing the whole year and as long as my adjusted ev line was good, I would know to keep grinding and it would eventually turn around. I don't have these answers when it comes to spin n go max. And there is hardly any info about these. Anyone who's pursued these has stopped. (Past Pokerstars pro James from OP poker used to grind these, then he stopped. Although he claimed he got unlucky with box picking. Also stables and CFP groups will not let their students play these.

Long story short I am hesitant to pursue these. This is basically a cry for help lol.


CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME IF THE ABOVE GRAPH IS ACCURATE? I NEED SOMEONE TO SAY "Ryan, everything's gonna be ok. You have an impressive chip graph, and you haven't played nearly enough games for the shitty variance you have endured, to even itself out. In fact, there is so much variance in these, you probably need at least 20k games or more for your luck to start evening out. Because Ryan, you must understand that spin n go max, where the most common spin is a 5-handed winner take all with a shitty prizepool, is the most luck-variant format tha'ts ever been created. You must not only land in the good prizepools, but win your flips and pick your box right. Stars would never put out a format that's unbeatable, so just keep putting in volume and things will turn around"

^^ Is this what's happening or am I dreaming? Thank you in advance to anyone chiming in, much appreciated. -Ryan

"If Senzo Tanaka is his shidoshi, then show us the Dim Mak"

You don't pick the worst box. The winning ammount is decided before you pick the box. It doesn't matter what you choose.

Hmm. Can you please explain what you mean?

I think I understand what you are saying in that it all evens out in the long run? So if it's 3 pirzes of say $60, 80, and 140 its essentially the total of that divided by 3 and that's the prize? In that case, how many games do you think one would have to play in order for the box picking to even out ? That combined with hitting the big multiplies tbh it seems like 50k games or more is needed i dont know. But im scared to travel down that rabbit hole. Stars will not tell me if the game is beatable or not. Its frustrating. Ive been losing for 4 months now., which is bound to happen. Variance is just so insane in these. They rely much more on hitting big multipliers than regular spins; it's 5-handed winner take all most of the time. I just really wonder if they are beatable pre-rake with $1.95/30 going to rake!

How its going Fast-Livin? Is it Worth it to play them full time?

It literally doesn't matter which box you click, the prize is decided server-side before you even move the mouse.

So if the prizes appear as 10$ (you clicked here) 50$ and 200$, in actuality it was always 10$ and you never had a 33% chance of getting a higher prize, it is an illusion.