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SuperNova Elite player Tomas ''Masuronike'' Kubaliak decided to start a petition against the recently introduced Spin & Go tournaments on PokerStars. Plenty of players have already signed the petition, most of them Supernova and Supernova Elite players.
As we have reported, PokerStars has introduced their own version of the so called ''lotto sit & go'' format, called Spin & Go. The format is very popular so far, but plenty of regulars have expressed their concerns regarding the problem that plenty of players have shifted to play Spin&Go's instead of their usual games.
Since Spin & Go's were introduced, the cash game traffic fell 9% on PokerStars.
One of the SuperNova Elite regulars on PokerStars, Tomas ''Masuronike'' Kubaliak decided to step up against Spin & Go tournaments.
He starts his post by saying that he believes these tournaments are dangerous to poker as a skill game.
In Spin & Go tournaments the actual prize pool is decided by spinning a wheel. After this players battle for anything between 2 and 1200 buy-ins of the S&G.
Kubaliak then states that even though the big number of recreational players that play the game could make it an attractive game of choice, the fact that only 30 out of every 100,000 tournament pays out a prize of 100+ buy-ins. He proposes the example of a very good player crushing the format, finishing in the money 36% of the time. After 100,000 games and with an average stake of $30, if you dont win any of the 30 Spin & Go's that your are statistically likely to hit and have massive payouts, you will be up only $1,168.
This means that pretty much all of the profit will be decided in Spin & Go's that a player statistically hits 30 times in 100,000 games.
Kubaliak then states that this format could ruin the whole ecosystem of poker and that there already is a 30-40% decrease in traffic of 6-max and Heads Up Hyper Turbo Sit&Goes.
He then posts an sample e-mail that he and several other players have sent to PokerStars' support team. In case you feel that this new format is bad for the game and you would like to see it gone, you can use the sample below aswell.
Dear PokerStars,
I would like to let you know that I am against the newly introduced SpinNGo format and I am asking for its removal along with many of my fellow players as the format has a huge gambling element a player has no way of affecting and also takes a big chunk of the ''poker as a skill game'' motion from the play.
If you like the Spin & Go tournaments and only dislike the extreme prize pool distribution caused by the 1000x multipliers, you can also send the other sample e-mail that Kubaliak has posted in his blog post. This one proposes that the maximum multiplier will be the 100x.
Dear PokerStars,
I would like to let you know that while I find the newly introduced Spin&Go format very exciting and enjoyable, the current range of possible prize pools makes the game extremely luck based which is discouraging me from playing it. Me along as well as many of my fellow players agree that we would be much more interested in playing SpinNGos if the prize pool varied less with the maximum of 100x multiplier, as the current situation makes the potential income from SpinNGos extremely unstable.
He then ends his post saying that even though the chances are pretty slim, he feels it's the community's duty to let PokerStars know about the effect that this format might have in the long run on the poker economy.