Fish lose even faster in that game because of the dead money limping becomes very very bad. A game where fish lose more while stars rake less... Plz someone help with this one, I cant believe stars would make that kind of game ever.

Oops, my bad. Sadly, unfold pot is raked as well.



You should check out Joey Ingram's latest video on unfold. You have been quoted in his video

How long before they use what they've learned from sports betting and offer you a cash out during the pot at horribly bad EV?

They have this cash out option on their Spin n Go Max if you hit a higher payout or something(10x more)

Yeah, now everything makes sense lol. It was looking too +ev to be true. It is taking close to 1bb/hand from the table at 1/2. If we consider like 50% of the pots will be folded, thats around -50bb/100 for the table in rake + normal rake. Which would be around 7bb in rake for the unfold pot. If we consider regs end up fighting each other way less in this game, rake on normal pot could probably go as low as 2bb/100 in very optimistic scenarios. Making it around 9bb/100 compared to 5-6bb/100 the average 200z player pays in rake.

Was already developing strats to play this game, after that its gg.

Thanks for confirming with the official numbers. At least one news article I read said it would be rake-free, and the promo video that Stars put on YouTube also didn't seem to rake the unfold pots.
I haven't played this game, but I would imagine that if microstakes recreationals are unfolding with really bad hands like I've seen in the example videos, the 8% rake in unfold pots is going to make them go busto even quicker than in standard games, since the worst players of all (who hate folding and love "flipping") will basically be getting raked in 100% of hands. :/

players are in it are pretty bad.

probably more donks than 2nl/5nl etc. so probably worth the extra rake if its a concern

Since Amaya bought an Australian sportsbook every dollar I take from them feels a little better every time they're in the news.

Games arent running that much on 0,5/1 and 1/2, trying to start tables but everyone quits after some orbits. On 0.25-0.5 there is usually 2 tables running, a good % of players are massive whales, but its hard to put volume. Format is quite unpopular, I wonder for how long it will last. For regs I think its challenging and fun, but fish arent super excited about that.

I think stars should put some higher games in there, unfold pots are very small, maybe at unfold 500 or 1k the unfold pots look more exciting for fish. Atm the biggest unfold pot Ive played was $20 at 1/2.
At unfold 50 theyre always $1-$2 dollars. Maybe fish will be more excited when those pots get bigger?

But the antes cant go higher as a % of the bb, the game would become broken with higher antes, the size of them is insane already

I think Pokerstars are really onto something with Unfold Poker I like it.

I think we've all been there, no matter how long you have played for, even if you are completely new to poker:
We have all, at some point, thought: 'damn, I wish I hadn't folded before this flop.'

Here is some useful info about Unfold Poker, for anyone interested in trying it out:

1.) There are two seperate pots: the standard 'main pot' and the 'unfold pot'. In a sense these are two seperate games.
People who did fold can choose to play or not play, the 'unfold pot' game. Only people who didn't fold will play for the 'main pot'.

2.) If nobody 'Unfolds', then all of the 'Unfold antes' are returned to each player
Also, of course, if no flop is seen, then all the antes are automatically returned to each player.
In this scenario, the hand effectively has no antes.

3.) Players who decide to unfold compete for the 'unfold pot' only.

4.) To play for the 'unfold pot', you make just one single bet the size of the antes.
E.g. So, if there are 8 players at .01/.02 cents , each players' ante is 1 cent, the 'unfold pot antes' total is 8 cents.
If you wish to 'Unfold', you pay 8 cents once. There is no more betting. It's like a restricted 'limit' bet.


I think the idea is really interesting, it's like a semi-anti game, with an additional restricted limit game option.
The fact that 'unfold antes' can be returned *is really important*, making some hands have no ante at all.
And although it's a restricted 'limit' bet, I really rather like the idea that, if you change your mind after seeing the flop, you can get something back

Why can’t they go higher? It would make it far more interesting. You could do it on each street too, and if everyone folds at any point, the winner of the main pot keeps the antes for future streets. That way instead of incentivizing folding pre it incentivizes aggression.


There are tons of ways to structure it that would make it interesting and they chose something dull and inconsequential.

It's a side bet.

"I bet my hole cards are more useful than yours."

Back in the day many folks were wishing for side-bet action. Only a dozen years later and here it is.

The play money version has been down for a couple of days, although the cash tables still seem to be in play. Wonder if they're working on a restructuring?

I checked out playing Unfold for about 30 minutes when it was first introduced, and totally agree with you. I can only play for play money, so can't speak to whether it plays any differently for real money. Anyway, from my experience, in its current format the Unfold part isn't rewarding enough or interesting enough to make me want to keep playing it for any length of time, much less on a regular basis. The Unfold pot is so small compared to the main pot that it's barely worth getting in, and with only one street of action for the Unfolders, it's frustrating having to wait for the rest of the hand to finish out when you can't participate further.

It seems like the premise should be a good one since we've all undoubtedly had experiences like, "Of course I folded my 2,7, which I never would have played anyway, then the flop came 7,7,2." I think where Stars has gone wrong is that when those improbable flops do show up, you want to be able to get back in the hand and be part of the main pot and action, not some piddly little side pot, since you likely have the winning hand. I don't know how that could be accomplished fairly, but the current structure certainly doesn't address that kind of situation very well. Might as well just play regular HE, and allow yourself to have a small pity party the relatively few times when that improbable flop does show up.

The current structure is more like Stars saying, (continuing to cater to the recreational model, I guess), "well, you folded and then you hit the flop with something either you didn't know enough to play or a hand that you were correct not to have played, but since you did hit, we'll let you pay a little bit to give you a chance to win a small consolation prize." Totally ignores that the major draw of gaming is the chance to win big payoffs. Just my $.02.

If you wanted it to work as a side bet like royal match in blackjack, here is what I would do. Everyone posts an ante that goes into the Unfold jackpot. You win the Unfold jackpot if you folded and would have won the main pot if everyone had stayed in. I'd probably add something where you have to have folded your hand before you made it, so you don't have an incentive to fold a made full house if the Unfold jackpot is somehow bigger than the main pot. Maybe you should get 25% of the Unfold jackpot for a straight or flush, 50% for a full house, and 100% for a better hand.

I used to wonder the same. Even thought five-card draw high might make a massive comeback for that very reason.

The more that I think about it, however, almost anyone under the age of 30 likely learned NLHE as their first form of poker. Older folks like me first learned poker by playing 5CD and stud, then later discovered the fun variants of them.

Perhaps what we're seeing is essentially the equivalent of that: PokerStars is attempting to rekindle the players' interest by rolling out new novelty versions of the game they played as kids.

Unfold concept doesn't seem to make much sense when you have a lot of fishy rec players, who pretty much limp every hand instead of folding. That was what was happening when I tried the game (playing for play chips, since I can't play for real money). Because the majority of players were limping, the Unfold pots were always really small.

What about this variant....very simple. If you have a pocket pair ie 22 and flop is 45A you have flopped a set because your PP can flop a set by hitting a 2 or the sum of your cards a 4. AA can flop a 2 for a set and so on. A real set trumps the "combo" set.

Anyone ever played or heard of this?

They're limping every hands because it's play money.

True, but this is also often the case in micro stakes cash games. I play micro stakes cash on other sites, just not Stars because US players can't play for real money there. I've also observed some of the cash games on Stars, and even when playing for real money, the Unfold pot still is very minor compared to the main pot.

Unfold to be taken down soon probably next week.

Could well be replaced by Fusion or Six Plus Hold'em

pokerfuse.com/news/poker-room-news/210027-pokerstars-folds-unfold-poker/

I got the feeling they invested a lot of time and money into building and promoting the Unfold game, which was supposed to be a "permanent" addition to the client. It seems the 'new-game development' team at Stars is on quite the downswing. That's three failures in a row isn't it?

From what I know, Split Hold'em and Showtime Hold'em were always meant to be a temporary offering and they were quite well received. I wouldn't be surprised if they bring those formats back and maybe even under MTT format. There's a few more to come.

Actually logged onto Stars for the first time in forever to try this format at penny stakes and confirmed what I thought... that this is another revenue stream as the unfold pot gets raked as well when played and not enough money goes to any player that could ever materialize into a cash-out.

In it's current form it's a gimmick that can show up a few weeks a year and should make no difference. It's not permanent.