New owner Amaya is once again putting their stamp on Pokerstars, and now they are taking aim at the purity of poker as a skill game.
While the Full Tilt product (also owned by Amaya) has a casino attached in certain markets, and is generally more of the "experimental" platform, the Pokerstars brand had been kept pure to its original specifications -- basically a straightforward poker-only site where the only element of luck is in the cards dealt.
Amaya has decided to finally inject some of its casino gaming background into the poker purity that is Pokerstars, and the result is a little disturbing.
They have introduced new tables called "Spin N Go".
These are 3-player, winner-take-all, 500-chip-starting stack Sit-N-Gos, with quickly escalating levels of 3 minutes each.
That part sounds fairly standard. The nonstandard part comes from the payout. In a normal Sit N Go of this type, the winner would get 3x the buyin, minus the rake. But that's not what they get here!
A "slot machine" type spinner appears on the screen, and tells the players how much money they will win. It will range from 2-1000x the buyin. Yes, you read that right. You can potentially win 1000x the buyin by playing a 3-player Sit-N-Go. Of course, this comes at the expense of most of the table victors, who will typically only win 2x the buyin, rather than the 3x they would normally. That's pretty bad.
A regular player named "masuronike" is very unhappy about the situation, and did a good writeup of the situation: http://tiltbook.com/masuronike/blog/...aign=2014_9_21
Unfortunately, it turns out that over 75% of the time, the winning player will receive only 2x the buyin, rather than 3x. Furthermore, winning 25x or more of the buyin will only occur about 0.1% of the time, which means that a typical player running 1000 of these Spin-N-Gos will lose, even if they have a great overall win rate!
This is not only bad for grinders looking to turn a profit, but it introduces HUGE variance into the situation (which is entirely luck-based), as you really need to hit your fair share of those big payouts (200x or more) over a large sample of hands, or otherwise you will end up losing. This is similar to the need to hit royal flushes over a large number of video poker hands, or otherwise it will be nearly impossible to win (or come close to breakeven).
However, unlike video poker, regular poker is not supposed to have such a massive luck element, to where skilled players will eventually win over lesser competition given enough hands.
Daniel Negreanu defended these tables, in a weird 2+2 post, where he says that winners are a problem for poker:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...7&postcount=53I've seen a lot of talk about the poker ecosystem and what kills games, etc. Do you know what kills games and destroys the poker ecosystem above and beyond all the things mentioned? Winning players. Yup, you guys lol. The winning players as a whole win a lot more money than the company makes each and every year. Yet, oddly, they still offer VIP programs to the very people who are essentially "killing the games."
If Spin N' Go's deterred pros from playing, that actually HELPS the poker ecosystem immensely, it just may not help YOU personally. I love, love, love, and love this concept and if it helps to level the playing field a little bit, while allowing rec players to stretch their dollars a bit further than before, I think in the end that is a win for everyone- even the winning players who are upset about it now.
You guys don't even want to know what I would do to the VIP programs if I was in charge! I would focus on giving bonuses to the LOSING players exclusively. They'd play more, last longer, and the pros would get the money in the end anyway. I think it's overkill to not only have pros crushing all the rec players, but then also giving them the majority of the bonuses on top of that?
The mindset of some pros is backwards. You think they need you, when the reverse is true. They would do better as a company if pros didn't play at all. They need the rec players, THEY should be the priority, not the pros. If you lose rec players, then pros don't play anyway. If the rec players continue to deposit and play, then the pros will be there to get that money.
Look at it this way, PokerStars provides a service that allows some of you to make a living. You are not employees, and they are not your boss. As with any service, if you don't feel it's worth it to use, then you are free to choose a different service. That may seem harsh, but I get a sense that some people have entitlement issues that aren't warranted.
Cringeworthy statement by Negreanu, and a surprisingly flippant attitude about winning poker players coming from a rich guy who has made all of his money through poker and sponsorships.
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Originally Posted by Daniel72
