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.