Lol they couldnt have made it more obvious that they are an Amaya shill site.

Maybe, but yet again I find myself a bit contrarian to the 2+2 concensus.

This format has some real appeal for recs -specifically for recs who work for a living. You can fit it in to the little breaks in your day when you might check tweets/texts instead. If you get an awkwrd hand ou can ponder it.

Sure someone will be "solving" this NLHE HU format to give those that don't are about play the perfect ev response for each hand, s/w driven but with limited "friends" and a limit on simultaneous games it's not very grindable.

I can see it working for many working stiff recs, it fits in to their lives.

Is it a huge thing? Nah I dot thik so but a new entry point for poker players is no bad thing.

As for it being a return to the bygone days of alt.rec.poker email games - well what's wrong with that? It built a community and let players learn/discuss hands.

Once people get used to it I can see it being able to support 6 max, esp if some players can pre act by choosing an action assuming noone acts before them.

I can see this niche working for Stars.

how about in app purchase ....10bb paid to the rake to sneak a peak at the next card . AYA would soon pay off their 4bn debt

Meh, to be honest I think it's actually a pretty clever idea. Due to the dynamics of the game ($5 max, iPhone restricted) it is quite clear that it is aimed at recs. The idea of having a 'duel' with others will interest your average moron, but the best part is the unlimited time bank. It will create a lot more rec logins to see if their opponent has made a move yet and will most likely get them playing side games while they wait.

In reality, this is just a game to get them consistently logging into the site and being tempted by all the games in the lobby. Add boredom into the mix and you'll have recs staying up all night playing duels and eventually transitioning onto other tourneys.

This is much better than traditional HUNL tables IMO. Stars.... That's one step back to your old self

So your SNE money went to a Christiano Ronaldo advertisement check and the development of "duel"

Must be a sickening feeling.

Never thought Stars would have fallen so far in one year; especially when it has been entirely of their own doing.

I think peoples' opinions of the game matter. And they might matter more than the opinions of what people think 'others' might think of the game. Because everybody who plays poker shares the same love of games, which should qualify everybody to judge this new concept on the 'fun factor.'

Like haven't a lot of us played spins? They're quite entertaining, with the wheel, and with them being so quick to play - it's just that that 2x multiplier makes them hard to play profitably without a deep roll, unless you hit a big multiplier early on, or are getting decent enough rakeback to smooth over the variance by playing higher levels, etc.

This game sounds really slow, to the point of possibly being boring. But surely some people will enjoy it.

I'd love to know who the target market actually is, because I actually like turn-based strategy games. I've played chess and 'Words With Friends' on Facebook. With online chess, I've been waiting for my opponent to make his ninth chess move since about 2010. Hardly anyone plays 'Words With Friends' any more, do they? It's too slow.
I think the only way 'Duel' can help the ecology is if people get bored waiting for their opponent and fire up a regular poker game instead.
*Goes back to playing Candy Crush and AlphaBetty Saga instead, because those games are actually fast, fun and addictive.*

EDIT: It just struck me that one part of the target market would be live poker players, who challenge their buddies to a Duel while grinding an even slower game in a bricks n' mortar casino.

[ ] epic new innovative game

[x] play money and nanostakes

Why do ppl even care about this, its gonna be a failure. Also unlikely this duel thing will ever be for any meaningful stakes cause massive timebanks and 25bb stacks make it super easy to solve every street and make this game yet another unbeatable rake trap.

"Make no mistake, this app doesn’t bring “the same old PokerStars poker tables” to your mobile device. "

In my understanding this means that it is designed to be a standalone app,so none of the above will be true.

i dont understand why someone with 25bb would stop playing his 15 minutes game for a complete day. would be better if its 10 boards and push or fold mode.

idk this duel thing sounds like yet another spin&go varion type format to me.
more rake, smaller edges, less withdraw, you know the drill.
listen, i dont wanna sound like total PS hater here. If it drives new players to deposit to play poker/other formats. GOOD, DO IT. If u actually have these intentions, not purely ur own pockets ONLY (because in this case its Pokerstars ONLY who show predatory behavior, which it tries to `get rid of, justifying any change that so far only benefits themselves`).

You can already do most of this with hyper HUSNGs, ~3 min avg game time, you can play on your mobile.

Maybe this will appeal more to players because of how it is marketed, but my guess would be absent throwing a lot of marketing money behind it, this game won't really catch fire like spin and gos did (spins had a great deal of marketing money behind them, but are obviously a naturally appealing game and has some new player attractiveness as well).

Not surprised 2+2 doesn't like it, we're clearly not the target audience. It's a social game, not a serious poker game.

From what I see, this was inspired by Trivia Crack.

Right....I've downloaded it to have a look at it, and can't really see an easy way to start playing?

It looks like there isn't a way to just jump into a game...you have to set it up yourself and invite other players.

If that's the case it seems like waaaaaay too much of a faf to get any traction. Or am I getting this wrong?

It seems dumb to me. But I guess we will see what happens.

Yes, I also couldn't work out what they were going for but after after reading that pokerfuse articles I see this.

"PokerStars also sees the new app as a better way to give more players the chance to play with their favorite PokerStars Pros". Thinking about it, they could get their pros to play these matches with little more effort than sending a few tweets. Maybe they see it as a way to bring the guy who see these pros on tv but doesn't actually play online. Give them a change to play against the guy on tv for $5.

Next step seems to be to move these players to the standard games. "the ability to download the traditional PokerStars app has been included right inside of the Duel app."

You worked for Bullfrog? Cool. Did you work with Demis Hassabis?

Found another article that makes it sound a lot different:

http://www.parttimepoker.com/duel-by-pokerstars-can-asynchronous-poker-really-work


It sounds like there might be *two* things that'll be different about this game?

1. The hour/day-long time bank
2. All the hands are dealt at once, and each street has to be completed before moving onto the next one?

It sounded like the author maybe hasn't had the chance to try the app himself, but he's talked to someone who has? This article's different from the other one though, because this author describes it in terms of possible edges - he made it sound a lot more interesting than it did before in the other article lol ..

I joined just after Theme Park's original releases. The first thing I worked on was the SNES version. Demis had gone back to university at that point, but we crossed paths a few times in subsequent years.

Loved this game on the SNES, also loved Syndicate on the Amiga which you namechecked in another post.

If this is the 'new mobile-only poker variant with elements of social interaction that will engage new audiences' that Stars had been promising for months, then mark me pissed off. I'll stick to non-Amaya jackpot SnGs for the good part of the year then.

Some poker site should make a move and deploy HoldemX for serious real money stakes. That would be a real innovation.

Well,Pokerstars trying something new to bring new players in. Cant see how that can harm.At least they are trying to bring in change to a dying poker economy otherwise.Hope it will have a positive effect for all.

I read that PokerStars Dual is an Android & Apple App that being trialled only in Norway at the moment. Maybe that's why you can't "really see an easy way to start playing"

...or steal them from existing poker variations so that a bigger % of their deposits goes in Amaya's pockets instead of regs'.

It's very different from the introduction of Expresso at Winamax (and, a year later, its clone Spin & Go at Stars) - in that case, the game wasn't reg-proof and, in fact, big money could be earned there from the get-go by those who weren't afraid to switch over from other poker formats. And the new players that it brought were the ones who were OK with losing big money fast (for a chance to get their dose of jackpot excitement).

As The Duel targets those who prefer to lose money slower than in traditional online poker (and would be too greedy to (re)deposit at all if there was no Duel), the best that can happen after its introduction is that the new attracted players will switch to all kinds of existing download poker variants, so Stars' ecosystem will gradually repair itself to the level of other sites... but, as the buy-in will be capped at $5 for possibly hours or days of play, there won't be such an instant market imbalance, such muddy waters, such a big opportunity to capitalise on a new fish tank as there was when Expresso came out.

_________________________________________

Edit: a key question is how many duels one will be able to have going at a time.

There's a limit of 100 friends, but if I could play with them all at the same time, it could be viable and profitable enough.

After all, there are many Filipino players at chess.com who have hundreds of correspondence games (some even over 500) going at the same time. What's strange about them is that they decide to 'grind' games with no monetary value... their behaviour would be understandable if the play was for a stake, but as is, they take 2 days per every move and annoy the hell out of opponents.