As all regulars on PokerStars already know, a new formula has recently been launched: the Spin & Gos.
For those who have not yet played, the formula is simple: it's a sit & go 3-max hyper-Turbo in which there is only a single winner (no agreement is possible). The peculiarity of the formula is that the prizepool is drawn randomly to each Party (between 2 buy-in and 1200 buy-in).
According to the PokerStars blog, within 10 days, 7.3 M of games have been played. On all these games more than 787 players won over $ 10,000. 30 of these have won $ 30,000.
The positives
The positive side of this new variant is that it makes addicted (you can judge by yourself). It is also a comment that often comes up on the discussion forums. For this reason, many "gamblers" will play Spin&Gos.
A new formula that attracts players (especially recreational) is still good news for online poker (and for players who want to play poker for a living).
In addition, for a regular player, Spin & Gos are big aquariums. Players who play Spin & Gos are probably more likely to gamble as the regular.
The negatives
One of the negative point is that these Spin & Gos are only small buy-ins (between $ 1 and $ 30). In addition, the luck factor is very important since the prize pool fluctuates enormously. The Turbo formula increased your variance. For a player who wants to make money, it becomes very difficult. Your earnings will be much less "predictable" in the long term than if you play more traditional formulas of sit & gos as the 6-max Turbo for example.
The majority of the time, at a cost of$ 30, you will play for $ 60 (instead of $ 90) and you will have a small advantage. The rake decreases your winrate of course.
The other side negative is that this popularity of Spin & Gos is done at the expense of the other variants (it does not appear to increase the pool of players).
In this regard, PokerScout has noticed a drop of 9.2% traffic on the cash games PokerStars the Spin & Gos launch week.
Do not draw conclusions too quickly, but this is not a good sign for other variants.
Is the craze for this new variant will be supported or if it is only a boom of launch? Will the players return to the cash traditional games? For the moment, impossible to say.
Another question which cannot be answered yet is whether this variant will attract new players in the ecosystem or if it is only a displacement of the already existing players (to a form in which they will be less easily exploitable).
Several players have probably made a deposit on PokerStars after a long period of absence, but is these players will convert in regular players to renew the ecosystem or is these players will leave the poker until a new cool variant emerge to take advantage of a new deposit bonus? Once again, unable to say at the moment.
Profitable in the long term?
It can be something frustrating for the skilled player; he noticed a concentration of bad players in a specific variant, but on the other hand, the formula ensures that, even if it is much better to the average player, much of its profit in the long term will be dictated by chance.
The other thing that was also discussed above is that the amounts of the buy-ins are too small so that a regular player can make a decent profit. Even for Spin & Gos to $ 30, the biggest winner of the limit will be an extremely low winrate.
In short, the Spin & Gos are good publicity for online poker, but not the best place to win money.
Discuss this new forum PokerCollectif: Positive and negative Points about the Spin & Gos
