I still think that the maximum buy-in of Spin & Gos in the main liquidity pool should be given more thought.

Both 6-max and heads-up hyper-turbo pools have healthy traffic at buy-in levels up to $100 even at offpeak hours like right now, which is not likely to be killed by $30 Spin & Gos.

Moreover, if we look at iPoker, Twister has been attracting a significant number of players from ring games too, as seen from the rapid fall in its ring game traffic at the moment of the introduction of Twister (January-February 2014). That's due to a prominent place it occupies in the poker client and at websites - at the top level, parallelly to ring games and other SnGs. There are also special Twister promotions and ticket giveaways.

The reason why lottery SnGs have never been seen above the $/€10 buy-in level is that the sites that have rolled them out so far have much lower liquidity than pokerstars.com. Speaking of iPoker, Rio (€20) and especially Fort Knox (€40) jackpot SnGs, to which Twister would be a direct rival, have a hard time filling up, that's why the maximum Twister buy-in is €10. Pokerstars have no SnG format similar to Rio (except for the BotP based on a similar idea but awarding way lower prizes), so I don't think $30 Spin & Gos would be a grave threat.

As for $60 ones, I'm not so sure. If a few regs of $200+ 6-max hypers switch there, it may decrease the liquidity of the $200s dramatically.

Regarding deals - right, I'd vastly prefer Pokerstars 7 to have automated dealmaking like FTP. If this happens, I'll be all for the winner-takes-all payouts because they will offer room for gaining a little extra money just due to superior dealmaking skills.

spin and go is lol kill it before it lays eggs

for all the spin$go fans

did quick math based on FTP payout structure


turns out for every 33333 games played (assuming every prize pool is hit without ANY variance), total prize pool is 95000 buyins, total buyin is 100000 buyins assuming NO RAKE

for 10$ sng with 5% rake (10.5$) its gonna be
950.000$ prize pool vs 1.050.000 buyin. Pokerroom nets 3$ per game with 1.50$ of rake. GG


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i wouldnt hate on those games IF prizes were paid in total, room gets its rake and pays out the rest, but that hasnt been the case on ANY network, they always pocket few % of buying per every game.

The rooms take no additional rake apart from the cut in the average prize. The total buy-in that FTP charges for its biggest JP SnG is $10, or $9.50+0.50 if you wish, not $10+0.50, and 5 FTPs are awarded per tourney as normal (as if there was official $0.50 fee).
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Actually, the inconvenience that the slotlike payout structure causes to many people can be removed by letting the winner decide post factum whether to take a fixed prize ($28.50 in our case) or to launch a breakeven spin (hence a 'more lucrative' option than just playing with a casino slot that has a house advantage).

However, I'm personally against this because the idea behind the forced lottery structure is to deter the regs of usual hyper/superturbos, especially of the same buy-in, from entering, and thus to make the JP games softer

18m hypers please

We are trying to grow the game of poker. Spin & Go and other similar formats have proven to be quite popular, bringing new players to the site and engaging existing players very effectively. (Sidenote: the format would not be anywhere as near engaging to recreational players with the modification that you suggest)

Additional play across the site from new and existing players is generally a good thing for both PokerStars and the collective group of players who are regularly winning money on the site. In fact, growing overall site activity by engaging more recreational/casual players and engaging them better is pretty much the best thing that can happen for both PokerStars and for winning players.

Part of being a professional poker player is adapting to changing game conditions. At various points in time in history, the popular game has been draw, lowball, stud, limit holdem, and now NLHE.

Even in 'online' period that is a relatively short part of poker history, there have been many changes. Initially all the cash games were all limit. 9max used to dominate, but now 6max is more popular in cash and is gaining popularity in tournaments. Regular speed used to be the only speed, but now hypers dominate SNG. Omaha is growing in popularity. At one point 4 tables was considered standard for a professional ring game player and 8 games was considered to be extremely taxing for the best multi-tablers.

Conditions change. Successful players in the long run are those who adapt, while those who are locked in to trying to maintain an income indefinitely within a defined box of play are sooner or later going to find themselves less successful.

I see our responsibilities as a poker room operator to include:
-Implement new game types that meet evolving demand
-Create new demand through innovation
-Manage overall offering to ensure proper liquidity; for each potential new offering addition, balance benefit of additional incremental activity against liquidity dilution concerns
-Maintain a generally stable playing environment, not frequently changing direction or shaking things up without good reason
-When possible, provide notice to regular players about upcoming changes to the playing environment so that they have time to prepare and adjust

If we were to deploy 18-player hypers, there could be some small additional amount of overall SNG play but mostly there would be action moved from other forms of SNG, in particular other 18-player formats. Liquidity would be distributed amongst one more type of SNG. It may be that we deploy 18-player Hypers at some point, but it is far from a similar situation to Spin & Go.

We have not made any decisions on rake or buy-ins; there is no firm implementation plan at this time. You are learning about Spin & Go very early in the process, earlier than we have ever before provided such notice, because we have recognized an opportunity to improve on how early we provide such notice and want to do better than we have in the past. Now that Spin & Go are available on PokerStars.es, our capability to deploy on .com is no secret to our competitors, so we are able to provide you notice in public.

Like many other poker players, I happen to find the format to be quite a lot of fun. I hope that many of you come to the same conclusion after you have the opportunity to give it a try. The Jackpot SNG on FTP are quite similar to Spin & Go. If you are interested in this topic, consider popping over to FTP to try a few before making up your mind.

Thanks for the lecture about how to be a long term successful poker player. Can you quit as the SNG guy already?


***Edit, noticed you were not baard*** Either way, can you not lecture us on so basic stuff.

Spin & Go's are just a casino gimmick. You are looking to find ways to really milk the fish while giving them large amounts of false hope which will probably never come.

Inb4 countries in the future ban gambling because it's doing nothing for the economy.


From a business point of view, it's great, from a player's point of view it's lame as hell.

I personally don't really care that much about your site but I would probably burst into laughter if you get banned from a lot of countries.

Your arguments are pretty funny. You seem to always point things like you guys are doing what's best for the "site", constantly "evolving" because we are finding ways to make ourselves more money(you the site).

I buy/re-sell things for a good % of my income, with your logic as a company, perhaps I should evolve into buying heroin and reselling it?

Such lol tactics going on here.

This format and similar formats are proven to bring additional players to the site and increase engagement of existing recreational players, not just in the short term but with sustained positive effect. I am explaining to you transparently why we are making this decision. You are free to distrust the explanation; this is your choice.

I can't play on FTP so I wouldn't know . Anyway, if you read between the lines it's already been set that they will be launched on the main Pokerstars network, but not much else.

A couple considerations I would like to make:

-Do not implement them to all buy-in levels. I'm not saying €10 should be the maximum, but don't just slap them to every buy-in level. I think the game should not have the same status/profile as regular SNGs but should be more considered as a fun gimmick.

-Flatten the pay-out structure a bit for the highest multipliers. Like I stated before, I don't think this is a negative for any party involved. Keep between 65 and 80% for the winner and spread the rest for the two others.

-If you want to print money during Golden SNGs, let the Golden SNG bonus accumulate with Spin & Gos. You can take the variance and everyone will love it, and if a x10 x1000 one ever pops off you'll have a magical story to tell .

It's the fact you are making it into an online casino vs poker.

You said it's bringing players in but it's also removing players as well from other areas. Great, you bring in more players to Spin & Gos.

Let's make an example:You launch Spin & gos.

20% of my fish go to spin & gos now.

Do you think these new players will replenish the fish? Probably not.
Do I think you will adjust rake accordingly for other games to combat that? Probably not.

Do I believe the spin & gos will be soft, surely.

Do I think they would be worth grinding, possibly could be. But I'm feeling like cattle being herded to where the master says to go.

You're essentially just looking to be as greedy as possible.

They offer the large payout for low investment mechanic a MTT offers without requiring a huge amount or time or effort, but I don't see why this is a casino gimmick? If anything I think regs should be able to increase their ROI in this format over regular pay out format thinking about it, only variance will just be a whole lot bigger. Every SNG that launches is exactly the same as the one before it until the RNG has determined what pay-out will be offered. It is just a spin on the Golden SNG format that works differently. Please tell me why it's different .

Well, with that statement you describe both lottery games and skill games. The statement works for every form of poker and every kind of casino game that exists.


Real mature, and real relevant.

I'll admit I was a bit harsh and rather irrational with my post. However, I do feel it's nothing but looking to milk the economy at a quicker rate than they are. I guess casino's need to compete with each other while the $$$ cow is still there.

Same with players.

Milk them spin & gos while they are hot.

Just because I'm bored I'll tackle your follow up (that isn't repeating the same nonsense) as well.

I think Pokerstars knows more about fish behavior than you do, anyway even if what you are saying is right why should Pokerstars care? And you're also forgetting that if your fish move to spin & gos some of your regs will follow.

I feel like you're a whiny brat that is afraid of every little change that doesn't fit within your parameters, but lets be realistic nobody cares about our feelings. Maybe Pokerstars listens if there is a massive revolt against Spin & Gos, maybe not. But most likely there wont be a massive revolt and they'll just try it out. Maybe your games will suffer, maybe they wont. And about being cattle being herded to where the master says to go, well that is true for 99,9% of the world's population to some degree. Welcome to being normal.

We are going to create the offering that we think is most appealing to recreational players, within certain constraints. In a sense, recreational players are the primary masters that our poker site aims to serve.

We of course want to maintain integrity/fairness of games and a meaningful/significant skill element, which definitely is there in 3-handed SNG.

And as a player who is focused on profit, not fun, recreational players are your masters too. This is the way the poker economy works. If you want to win, the game you play is selected by the players you can beat.

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This is not to say that we do not care about or listen to our regular players, but making game offering and software priority decisions with the comfort of our regular players as highest priority would not be in the long term best interests of regular players or the site.

We do aim to maintain good relations and mutual respect with our winning players, and do want to deliver improvements from time to time to make the experience of grinding on our site pleasant. Still, improvements we make to improve the experience for the segment of players that could be considered our mutual customers are arguably more beneficial to your bottom line.

Show some respect, Doch. jmho


@ Bard/Steve, are you able to say anything with respect to my earlier question? (Which specific STTs are impacted on .es and forecast for .com?)

The .es offering is different, but there are probably some comparisons to draw. Baard will take a look and provide a general indication but not specific numbers.

Shhhh, don't tap the grinder glass

18m hyper spin n gos

proof please, or is this just thinking out loud?

Also EVERYTHING you say is in complete contrast with the standard preserving of an ancient game by ''keep a pokerformat that is not that popular alive by not putting in other formats that people want'' stance that Baard has told me time and time again.

Seems like you are spinning twoplustwo arguments around on the twoplustwoers to try to argue that it is ok to launch what is essentially a casino game with very high rake onto a pokersite called pokerstars.

As long as the rake is fair and proportionate to that of a normal Hyper of similar buyin I like the idea behind the launching of "Spin and Gos" and can definitely see SnGs becoming more appealing to recreational players with this type of format.

Since the spin portion is breakeven I don't really see why this is such a deterrent to Regs entering the games. You're still going to win three times the buyin amount minus rake on average over the long haul when you cash in these type of games.

Personally I think I'd enjoy the excitement of these games a hell of a lot more than the current state of the Eighteen Man Turbos that I sometimes launch into my grind.

Please do something about all the mass tabling regs in the Eighteen Mans that as a result stall on just about every hand. When factoring in the no-action from the early blind structure of these tourneys and then this stalling at the later levels from these regs, it makes for a far less enjoyable poker experience for all.

Where is this so called innovation when it comes to things such as updating antiquated SNG blind structures or revamping the MTT schedule

I don't think it is possible to prove to you what would happen if 18-man hypers were deployed without actually deploying them, nor is that our goal. It is our job to evaluate information available and make these decisions. We have reviewed the situation before and will continue to do so from time to time.

These are maintenance projects that we need to progress on more quickly but they are not innovation of the type that has the potential to significantly increase the overall pool of players at PokerStars.

Not a fan of spin&go idea really but won't mind them as long as they arent spread higher than maybe like $30 or $60 bi level. During the non peak hours there's already absolutely dreadful traffic at every single format and at every single BI level $60 and above besides 25bb 6max hypers.

@Structure argument, that 'maintenance project' is a really easy fix and it's truly laughable (imo) nothing has been done about it; how can a rec player be having fun when sitting there pre ante with a bunch of ******s taking forever to act every hand running a 14/11 or tighter? Or another argument, how is the structure fun when @ starting stack at T100 of a 6max turbo you should likely be folding a ******ed amount of hands from utg/hj, hands like SPPs, weak-middling Axo's etc....how can that be fun for a rec player? Could literally just c/p structure Awice has offered up and it'd be a drastic improvement over what's currently offered.

Also as a sidenote, since you seem to actively be responding ITT (unlike Baard ), can you see about adding $238 6max 10bb hyper sats to the $700 event #3. Ya'll have released 10bb sats for every other event (714s>2100 ME, 357s>1050 #4, even 357 and 119 WTA sats to 2100 and 700 #3) but seem to have forgotten the $238>$700 PKO event #3 sats.

For who? Pokerstars' bottom line?

If it's proven and you're being transparent; please tell us the proof and save everyone a lot of time? Or is this a case like the 18m hypers where because you can't know what will happen with them until you deploy them, you are just going on what you guys think will happen, rather than the available data?

I'm fairly confident Stars knows a lot more than any of us about what sort of promotions, added games and formats have drawn newly depositing players onto their site or got others to return.

It's highly doubtful that there are many players out there currently not playing on Pokerstars that would suddenly jump onto Stars and start playing with the addition of Hyper Turbo Eighteen Mans being introduced.

I mean, come on.... There isn't some guy sitting at home not playing poker online that is saying to himself; "Boy you know what, If only a poker site had Eighteen Man Hyper Turbo SnGs I'd be playing poker right now."

These games would probably be more popular than 18man Turbos for various reasons but that doesn't make them a selling point or attractive to new players wanting to learn and play SnGs.

Played some of those Jackpots on FT today. I really think this format will become popular; much to the same that Zoom and Rush style have become popular in the cash games.

A couple things to note:

1) no table selection. I thought that was interesting.
2) there is a more intimate feel to them. Much more action at the tables too which recreational players will enjoy.
3) they are going to be real tablet and portable gaming friendly. That alone should bring in some more recreational players to the pool.