Well! Its been an interesting week for the hypers regs of pokerstars. This week pokerstars introduced the 'Spin & Go' format to their software. Basically this new format involves an initial slot machine style spin of a wheel which decides on a number the prizepool will be multiplied by. Each game the 3 entrants play a hyper (3 minute) structure and fight it out in a winner take all sng. The draw of these games is the possibility of playing for a massive prizepool with a relatively small buyin. Obviously stars aren't just giving away money so the majority of games the 3 players will be playing for just 2x their buyin. Unfortunately the draw of the big score is enough to drive gamblers and fish alike to this new format and subsequently affect the traffic in other games.
This chart isn't entirely accurate as it's probably a little outdated but it gives you an idea of the potential jackpots you can hit for your money. The new 30 dollar games actually have a 36k top prizepool! I think it's fairly obvious to understand why this added element of gamble has seriously affected the fishpool in other formats and why a lot of regs (especially those breakeven ones who make their money from rakeback) are seriously worried for the future of 6 max hypers. A drop in trafic at all formats from HU hypers to fullstack cash has been reported and we can but wait to see how these games affect our future earnings and volume.
The reason for this new gambling style format? Back in August pokerstars was bought by Amaya Gaming and it was made clear from the start that they meant to introduce social gaming, sports betting and an online casino into the mix. At the time of the sale of pokerstars there was a real buzz and real hope in the poker community that sooner than we'd imagined America would come back to pokerstars.com and we would see a huge increase in the playerpool. This is something that we now unfortunately have to rely on if we don't want this new format to seriously affect our win rates. Amaya obviously want to bring America back into the market as this will be hugely profitable for them so it'll definitely happen eventually although for now we have to put up with the pretty major decrease in traffic almost certain drop in our win rate.
Imagine you owned a small yet profitable fast food shop and a Mcdonalds opens up next door taking 50% of your business. This is basically what's happened to us in the last week and I think its understandable why a lot of people are extremely pissed off at what Amaya seems to be doing to our beloved pokerstars. With the talk of online betting and an online casino things are likely to get a lot worse before they get a lot better.
Having said all this, things could be a lot worse! Games are still playable, America will be back eventually, there's still very good money in hypers for those willing to work for it and spin and go's are beatable and extremely soft (we just need to put a lot more time and effort into learning the new format). Another weird 'benefit' to the introduction of spin and gos is the fact that now in certain parts of the day the games are unplayable as little to no fish are about so we're stuck battling reg infected games. The positive to this is that during those hours I'm almost forced to study which can never be a bad thing! Luckily from starting with pokerhaven the emphasis has always been on quality over quantity so we are still going to be beating our games pre rakeback and SNE (100k$) is still extremely achievable next year so in perspective things really aren't that bad. If someone had told me before I started playing poker seriously that in 2015 I'd be attempting to hit SNE and be profitable pre rakeback I would laugh at them. So, enough moaning for the time being!
In other news I moved gym a couple of weeks ago and started again with my old nutritionist and coach John Otis Hollywood http://www.johnotishollywood.com/ with the hope to get silly lean in preparation to gain some solid clean mass next year. The new gym me and my training partner are now signed up at has a full size olympic swimming pool, a sauna, a steamroom and squash courts that I'm now using on a daily basis and I've found this to be of huge benefit to my life with less stress, better sleep and longer and more quality poker sessions. I find swimming in particular an unmatchable stress reliever and just generally a very relaxing way to start the day.
Just a cheeky update with my pre rakeback sharkscope graph to keep things in perspective :) This is starting at the 3.50 level and I hope to be playing 60s-100s by January of next year so rant over! To finish I'd just like to say (and I apologise for my language) fuck you Amaya! Unless of course you bring back America in which case thank you Amaya, you guys are awesome!
''So it begins, the great battle of our time.''
