Tetris Spin and Go's Reviewed!

So the Tetris Spin and Go promotion ended yesterday and I'm sad to see it go. It was a fun promotion, all be it a rather random one, but nice to have something different happening in the Spin and Go's space.

The promotion ran from Feb 15th- March 28th, in that time I managed to play just shy of 3100 games. 

On the 2nd day I did try playing the $1, $2, $5 and $10 stakes to get on all their leaderboards but came to the conclusion that it took too long and wasn't worth the time.

With 3 weeks left I thought it would be profitable to try and make the leaderboard on $5s and $10s. I would play the $5s until I "Game Over"' and then play the $10s as normal. 

In theory this was a good idea but the reality was that I didn't run good in the $5s and I barely made the leaderboard for that stake, only once for a min cash of $10 lol. My run in them was rather breakeven, and this in turn sacrificed my rakeback I could have gotten by sticking with the $10s. I don't really mind tho, its was kinda fun to play in the $5s, there are so many more recreational players there.

My results; 

• 7 leaderboard cashes for $410
• Best result was 11th in $10 leaderboard

My best result, I remember winning so many flips that session!

Its a shame its ended coz during the end of the promotion I had patched up some leaks and was making deep runs more consistently. Once you reach 100k points in the $10s you should be guarenteed a cash prize. But at that point the games can be pretty cut throat in terms of Game Over'ing, 3-4 losses can make you go from green to the end!

Some of the 1st places' scores are insane thought. Because of the way the scoring scales up, most occasions I've seen 1st place be almost 1/3 score to 2nd place... something like 256k 1st vs 180k 2nd place! Each extra win you get when you run deep give you an insane amount of points! 

Here's my 2 cents on the promotion;

PROS:

• Bigger field of randoms to game (in theory).
• Better and fairer way of getting on leaderboard. Sure, there's luck on the multipliers but because of the larger sample size needed good players will reach the prizepools more often.
• Graphics look great espectially the new skin with moving pieces in the background and the leaderboard information.
• I found it fun and exciting to participate in. Strange to want to get 2x multipliers but at same time feels like win/win to ship a higher multiplier too. Quite a buzz when you run deep, feels like your in an MTT.

Great background skin with moving Tetriminos

CONS:

• Lack of proper marketing. I have not seen any promotion of this whatsoever. I have even seen some Pokerstars ads on TV actually promoting Spin and Go's but no mention of the Tetris promotion. Seems strange considering the Tetris trademark is clearly part of this which must have been a lot of effort to negotiate using it.
• Doesn't seem to be relevant to anything and date seems arbitrary? Could have attempted to tie it in to some significant time period like Xmas, Halloween, or maybe coincide with the Tetris online world championships?
• Rather complicated to understand and their webpage is confusing.
• 2x games are harder as players get the most line clears by winning it. So although the promotion might attract more recreational players, their looser shoves might not happen as often in the 2x mutlipliers of which before they wouldn't have cared about.

I've tried to look around to see if the traffic for Pokerstars is higher during this period but could not find any data. It would have been interesting to compare it although this time last year was pre-pandemic and one would think that traffic should be lower. 

Without the numbers it's really hard to say whether this promotion gained more recreational players then usual. From my experience I don't think it did, if anything I think it brought back regulars since this promotion is good for skilled players.

Overall tho, I'm happy that it did happen and it shows that Pokerstars is willing to get creative and mix things up in the space which is good to see. I look forward to their future promotions!

Take a breath, slow it down

No doubt in Feb I was really up for the grind putting in a lot of volume and hopefully seeing the same great results. But things didn't turn out that way and got crushed.

However I did learn a few things and also allowed me to experience the potential swings of what Spins would be like.

This month I've been focusing on a few things, took a break and dropped my volume, going from 3 tables to 2. 

I've been adjusting my ranges, and working on my postflop play so that its up2scratch

Week 1 going crazy on grind;

Redline is so bad, those are non showdown values. Meaning bluffs not getting through

Week 2 taking a breath, dropping 3 to 2 tables

Much better redline and chip ev (orange) and actual ev (green) is much better and closer

It was important to slow down and take a breath, and take a break every now and then.

I've also been experimenting with doing some standing up during sessions. 

For now I've been propping up my keyboard and mouse on small stools and switching my monitor to the top one, then standing up and playing. I have a 2 vertical monitor setup so its quite easy to do. Its been quite good to mix it up and also helps in the afternoon when you get food coma from lunch.

Now I really want a standing table now where you can adjust it up and down... maybe it will be a gift for myself at the end of the month if I get a good month.

Dream desk?

High Stakes Poker in 2020 is awesome

Its back! Actually its been back since December 2020 and I didn't realise...

Nearly 10 years since the last series, High Stakes Poker is literally what it says in the title. Super rich people playing poker for tens of thousands of dollars in each hand.

However its not just random people, there are famous poker players, businessmen, sports personalities and amateurs too.

Episodes have Gabe Kaplan and AJ Benza commentating on the hands, to try and guide the viewer through the situations and explaining each player's thought processes.

The game itself is rather casual with players chatting about random things and shooting the shit. Most of the time they're not even talking about poker! Which is what makes it entertaining, as its not just all about the poker.

For any poker fan of the old series, they would remember the legendary moments of the previous seasons, Tom (Durrr) Dwan being insanely lucky, Daniel Negreanu being insanely unlucky... multiple times... in multiple seasons, Mike Matusaw running is mouth and needling other players and Phil Hellmuth complaining and being teased (most of the time by Matusaw).

So what of this season? I'm only in a few episodes so far and right now its a spoonful on nostalgia.

They brought back the 2 original commentators, as previous seasons only had Gabe by himself. The format has also been restored to its original version, same music, same casual music, mostly same branding. No awkward interviews on the side with a sexy lady anymore, just literally recording the action and keeping it all casual.

Didn't really like the graphics showing players and bet sizes and at first but now quite like it, and its nice that there's that added production value. Also finally they do a much better job of making the viewers know the stack sizes of each player in the hand and when there is a straddle too, which used to be quite confusing.

Personalised avatars and poker information look modern!

Of course not all things are same, times have moved on, and so has poker. The plays itself are agressive and you wont see a 7 way limped pot, there's plenty of raising and re-raising before you see the flop.

Bet sizings are interesting too, from the usual pot sizing to 1/2 or even 1/3 pot happening. I'm no cash game player but it seems that even the amateurs are able to understand how to extract value and they're not scared to bluff big as well.

So far really enjoying it, I think some would be disappointed with the lack of action, but for me that's what makes it great, it doesn't feel forced and I love the casualness of the table. It not reality tv, its kinda more like a documentary. 

Tom Dwan is much more muted compared to his previous seasons, but still a strong winner.

Never heard of PokerGo before but they seem to be doing a good job. Understanding their audience and keeping in mind the fans that love the old show, but also updating what needs to be updated.

From the same channel it has created another series which is really interesting called the High Stakes Duel which is Heads Up (2 players only) cash game with 2 legendary poker players. The first season featured Antonius Esfandiari vs Phil Hellmuth, and next up is Daniel Negreanu vs Phil Hellmuth.

Hoping that High Stakes Poker will keep going on and have many other seasons to come!

Forget Feb...

 Its been a rough month not gonna lie. 

No doubt I ran insanely good in Jan and I was pretty scared of the inevitable run bad. I also didn't get as many chests at all as Diamond ones take ages to get enough points, so not much extra profit from that.

Red line indicates that my non showdown winnings are low, it did seem that players didn't fold as much to my bluffs 

Last week I had a long stretch of no chip ev as well, it happens.

Games: 2863

Hours played: 106

Total: -$1087

1sts: 35.6% 
2nds: 34%
3rds: 33.2%

Winning days: 9 of  27
Losing days: 18
Breakeven days: 0

Multipliers above 5x won: 
25x: 1/2
10x: 8/20

Rakeback (Diamond chest)
$50 in starcoins

Final total: -$1037
Chip EV: A terrible 38

To me, this seemed like it was mostly about the tale of two different 5x multiplier EVs;

February's 243 5x multipliers EV graph 

January's 191 5x multiplier EV graph

The 5x multipliers are pretty important in Spins, as they help you climb upwards in your sessions. Of course it is possible to do that without them, but with the 2x's being only a double buy in, it makes it very difficult because your winrate would need to be over 45%+ consistently. There's no doubt that there are things I need to improve on but with this high variance system you are at the mercy of how the cards fall, especially heads up.

 

Interesting how many more 5x's I got this month compared to last month, however I did get one less 25x so feels like that kinda balances it out. Just didn't work out due to the bad run tho.

I managed to ship 8 out of 20 10x's tho which is pretty good! Seems like I have a better winrate in those then the 5x's.

I was very close last month to take a shot at the $25s actually, but I wanted a bigger buffer since the jump is quite large from the previous stake. Would have been interesting to see what could have happened but in a way this has helped prepare myself mentally and bankroll-wise for what a long stretch of variance is like... and its not fun.

I'm sure there are aspects of my game needs improving and its likely a lot of regs have adjusted to some of my plays. Hopefully March will turn it around.

Pokerstars Tetris Spin and Go's Explained!

So last week Pokerstars released their promotion Tetris Spin and Go's combining the much loved block falling puzzle game with their lottery Sit n' Go's.

Despite their attempts at explaining how it works, I feel that their attempt was quite insuffiencent and so I'm going to explain it better here.

To start the challenge go to the Spin and Go lobby, pick the stake you want to play and click join. For each different buy in of Spin there are different leaderboards so you will have to join them seperately to enter each one. Once you've clicked join then you will be entered in the challenege each day without needing to join again.

As far as I know, the first games you play each day will count towards the challenge.

Start up a Spin and Go to start!

When the Spin and Go loads up you will see a banner which tells you how many line clears you will get for winning it.

So winning this Spin will earn you 4 line clears. 

Line clears are the lines in Tetris that disappear so the more you have the higher your level will go, and the higher your score will be. Your level goes up every 5 lines clears. You accumulate more points for being at higher levels.

Example of what the Tetris board looks like

You can view the Tetris board as a new tab on the bottom left of the game, where the chat and game info are. Here you can see your level, lines and current score. 

As far as I know, the board is just a graphical representation of your board, it doesn't actually drop Tetrimanoes like the game.

The lobby will also show the same board, but I've found that it doesn't update as quickly. Usually the most newly opened Spin should show the most current board.

I prefer the minimal theme but otherwise the table looks pretty cool with Tetriminoes moving around in the background;

This theme can be disabled via the "Table" dropdown on the top left corner where you can click the "Disable Optional Graphics" setting 

Depending on the multiplier and finish position you will get a certain number of line clears.

The score is calculated after each spin and it goes as follows;

The board will show its status of how filled up it is. There are 3 statuses, green, amber and red. Above it shows the green state. The more your board fills up, the higher the status it goes. Once it goes past red it is Game Over and the challenge ends.

Example of Amber board status

Red board status, nearly Game Over!

What the board shows once the challenge is over

Depending on the finish and multiplier, the board state will change accordingly;

Table showing how the status changes depending on your level

As you can see, the higher the level the harder it becomes to improve the board status meaning that you will Game Over much more quicker, meaning fewer bad placements can end the challenge.

The leaderboard tab will show your current standings in the challenge.

From my experience for the $10 stake, 100k+ points should land you in the top 50 for $50.

I managed to a top 10 finish already which was great, I absolutely ran like god winning every flip and then demolished my opponents heads up with double stacks. 

Getting this score took about 30 Spins. A colleague created a simulation and it showed that it

16 hours later, I came top 30th if I recall correctly for $50 which was nice.

The interesting dynamic that this promotion brings is that it gives more meaning to the 2x multipliers, which tend to be softer then the higher ones due to the fact that you can win more. So in theory, this should make the games harder as players will be tryharding more then usual in those games.

However this should bring more recreational players to the games, but from my one week's experience this hasn't seemed to be the case for me, it seems the same. This might be due to the lack of proper marketing for this promotion.

This strange video was the only main thing I found to promote this, and it doesn't really seem that related to Tetris at all apart from the number 4.

This promotion will last until the end of March, so check it out!

Paying back the EV

 It was bound to happen, I've been paying back the run good that I had in Jan...

Last week I was 74 buy ins below what I was expected to lose

It can be soul crushing to happen but it is an inevitability. According to this post, using a Spin and Go simulator running 10k games and a player with a 36% winrate (my Jan was 39%),  40% of players had a low point of losing 63 buy ins, 20% was down 111 buy ins!

The tough thing is to keep playing, keep hitting the tables every day and when things are going bad its hard to find the movitation. All you can do is keep studying and keep playing. You can take a break, which is what I used to do, but if you don't play you don't get paid!

Another persepective is that variance keeps you grounded, and I've been studying more and looking for ways to improve my game. I think I'm out of it now (touch wood) and gonna try and get back on track.

This morning I saw some tables with "Line clears" on them which was strange but apparently there's a new somewhat random promition combining Tetris with Spin and Go's.

Why is there a random guy there? Couldn't they have designed this better?

New Spin lobby look!

You get this "board" whilst doing the Tetris leaderboard challenge

Anyways, this thing seems brand new and is a bit buggy (leaderboards got taken down for a while). The instructions are confusing as hell you can try and translate it;

https://www.pokerstars.uk/poker/promotions/tetris-spin-go

Will keep an eye on this promotion and probs blog about it next week. Seems strange how Pokerstars didn't really promote this much at all, what's going on with their marketing??

King of Spin and Go 10 Challenge!

Pokerstars has a daily challenge for Spin and Go's where you can win money if you make the leaderboard you can win money.

The way it works is you play 10 Spins and for each multiplier type you get that many points and you will get another amount of that multiplier if you win that particular Spin. You can choose when to start the challenge but after that the next 10 Spins is what counts.

For example;

You start the challenge and get 10x multiplier and win it. 10x multi = 10pts, winning it = 10pts, total is 20pts.

The points are capped at 20pts per game though.

The best strategy is to start the challenge just as your about to win a 10x. It only starts counting once the game closes, so if you can remember to start it then you guarentee 30pts immediately.

55pts should guarentee a prize which is top 50 at the $5/10 level.

Looks like 48pts should get top 50 at the $25 level.

Last week I managed to get top prize after winning two 10x's which came up in my challenge. When I saw the first 10x I started the challenge, then another one popped up!

Was given quite the gift in the 2nd one as what I thought was a good reg decided to rejam his 43 into my TT for some weird reason.

The next few games were a good number of 5x's and 3x's and I shipped some of them too to finish with 75pts!

It's a weird system honestly, but I guess Pokerstars wants the recreational players to have a chance at it too, if they manage to win a multiplier then they could be on the leaderboard as well.

I had previously made the leaderboard twice, so it has been quite a bit of bonus money to add to my bankroll. 

Things are going well with the overall grind, my plan is to get abour 150 buy ins before moving up to the $25 stakes, it will be quite an adjustment to get used to the bigger swings moving from $10s to 2.5x that amount so I want to have a decent buffer.

Spin and Go'ing during a global pandemic

Hello 2021, and I'm back!

I decided to move back home last month and work on my pokerings again after a long hiatus. The past 3-4 years I have been life skilling it up learning coding and working in that industry. Whilst there, I started playing again pretty casually about 6 months ago.

This month I had been working on adjusting a few things in my game and doing more studying. Last year's results have been poor and things really turned around this month. Surely its gonna be hard for 2021 to be worse than 2020 right?

60 Chip EV in Numbers

One of the frustrating things from researching Spin and Go's was to actually get some real numbers in relation to Chip EV. I am aware of SwongSim which is a Spin and Go simulator which gives you a good idea of the types of variance one might get. For more information I found this post helpful, as well as this video by Coffeeyay. So here's some real numbers...

I spent the first 9 days playing $5 spins building the roll, before taking a shot at the $10s. This was my 2nd shot and it went much, much better then the first time. One thing to keep in mind moving up was that the biggest daily downswing I had at $5s was 16 buy ins, so it was important to mentally prepare for that.

I managed to play just shy of 3k games in total this month.

815 x $5 Spins (7% rake) @46 chip ev

2163 x $10 Spins (8% rake) @66 chip ev

Hours played: 114

Total: $1650

1sts: 38.9% (HEM3 Says 39.3% not sure why)

2nds: 31%

3rds: 29.8%

Winning days: 23 of  30

Losing days: 6

Breakeven days: 1

Winning day streak: 11

Biggest winning day: 45 buy ins

Biggest downswing day: 14 buy ins

Highest ITM day: 50.4% over 113 games

Lowest ITM day: 23% over 65 games

Biggest Chip EV day: 170 chip ev over 96 games (16k)

Spin Challenge leaderboard cashes: Top 5 twice $37.50 each

Multipliers above 5x's: 

• 3 x 25x
• 8 x 10x

Rakeback (Diamond chest): $700

• $325 in starcoins
• 15 x Free $5 Spin Tickets winnings: $125
• $250 cash prize wow

Max diamond chest gift on my last session of the month!

Final total: $2425

Soooo yeah I ran pretty good lol. Not that I didn't work hard at it, I've been studying a lot of spots and also been using ICMizer daily to make sure I'm not missing end game heads up shoving.

These changes to my game have for sure changed my non showdown winnings, which is debateable in the Spin community as to whether it makes a difference or not. Either way, I do believe that getting these extra folds leads to a bigger stack, which in turn should give you the lead more often then not.

This month's Chip EV

Terrible 2020 6k game sample 

3k games is a small sample, but hopefully things can continue. I'm aware that I ran good, and am pretty scared for when that variance happens. Would really like to reach the $25 stakes.

I hope that this post will help others see what kind of variance and money to expect. Money will be completely dependent on the frequency of high multipliers you get and ship though, so its always best to look at the Spin God stat CHIP EV to get an idea of how well your playing.

Happy grindin' peeps, have a great Feb and for the love of God let this pandemic end soon...

The P-Log is back for 2021?

 I'm back! Poker is too... posts to follow soon...