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Sky Poker - will they, won't they?
Tikay10
Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 174,163
An oft repeated criticism levelled at Sky Poker is that they don't always give the players clear answers on certain matters. e.g., Viva Las Vegas went off the agenda for 2 years, & with good reason, but players felt they wanted a clear answer. Eventually, of course, they got the answer, & Sky Poker sent an astonishing 40 players to Las Vegas this year. Not too many sites did that, did they?
I'm amongst those who sometimes feel that, but I don't make a noise on the Forum, I lobby them privately, as I believe that is a far better & more effective way of doing things. To my mind, they should just say yay or nea, though it's easy for those of us without the full facts to say that.
For balance, as a Business, they seem to do extraordinarily well. Online Poker is a declining market generally, with many rooms in freefall, yet against that backdrop, Sky Poker are still growing their business year on year. So they clearly know what they are doing. They make mistakes, yes, of course they do, but generally, they must be making good decisions. For all it's faults, not many, or even any, Online Poker Sites offer the quantity & breadth of Promos that Sky Poker do.
They also have a Forum, where players can voice opinions. And, with that, comes all the "Sky poker is rigged" nonsense. It's pretty obvious why almost no other Online Poker Sites have in-house Forums, because a minority of players just use them to beat the site up, or try & use the Forum as a replacement for Customer Care. And yet Sky Poker keep this Forum open, so all credit to them for that.
Anyway......during the UKPC, it gave opportunity for a bunch of us, players & Senior Management, to have a bit of a natter, & the subject of telling players what Sky Poker plan to do with certain things came up.
Two matters in particular arose, so I'll share the outcomes with you on this thread.
Again, not many online poker sites would do this, so wp Sky Poker.
Comments
Running Antes
Will they, won't they?
It now seems highly unlikely that these will get to the top of the list in the next 12 months. One day, yes, probably, but near term, no chance.
Why?
Firstly, & most importantly, resource will be allocated to more important things. An instance (far from the only one, but a good one) is the Mobile App. This was introduced a while back, & resulted in a stunning increase in business.
It's very easy to measure "Mobile" traffic, & analyse it intricately. If you all had a dozen guesses as to "how much?", none of you would guess how important is has been for Sky Poker.
Some sites still don't even have a Mobile App, & no plans to introduce one. Sky Poker do though, & they plan to improve it in several ways. (Multi Tabling, for example). This will yield very good returns indeed. Measurable gains.
So that's just one development that the resource will concentrate on. There are several others.
Running Antes?
In the next 12 months, no.
Why?
Well the allocation of resource to more important things is the main reason.
But let's look at Running Antes more closely. I am aware that many people think the site is deficient without them. Maybe, maybe not.
MTT's (which is where they would be applied) accounts for around one sixth of Online Poker site traffic. This is globally, but I would guess that Sky Poker are probably in the same ballpark. (Ditto SNG's, so that tells you how important cash games are). One sixth.
Of that one sixth, how many MTT's are suitable for Antes? The Super Roller, yes, absolutely. A handful of others, too. Maybe 4 or 5 per day, out of hundreds of daily MTT's? So a lot of effort for not much benefit.
There's also another side to running Antes.
Better players - the select group who get the lot in MTT's - will win MORE, & QUICKER, with running antes. The rest of you, the daily guys who play for fun, will lose more money, & lose it quicker. Running Antes favour better players - fact. Aggression is key, & with more dead money in every pot, those elite players will win more, & win it quicker. Which is fine, of course. But let's remember the recreationals, without whom poker would not exist.
So, the way the business see it, yes, Antes would be handy, but their absence is not the end of the world, & so development resource will be allocated to other stuff.
The Business do in-depth cost analysis of all these things, & quite rightly too. Anyone care to speculate how much additional revenue Running Antes would yield, overall, to Sky Poker?
And that's about the sum total of it for now.
SPT's
Oh my, welcome to the Hot Potato Department.
And yes - imo - Sky Poker could have been more forthcoming as to yes or no. Truth is, they were unsure, as there was a Gambling Commission obstacle which took a bit of sorting. So it was a bit "not sure" sort of thing.
The latest position?
It's been discussed at length of late, & most obstacles seem to have now been removed.
It's now reached the point where is has been agreed in principle & if there are no further issues to resolve, to try & re-start SPT's.
The plan at present would be to alternate them with future UKPC's. And until reach UKPC is contractually tied up, it's awkward to set dates etc.
So it would do (starting each February) UKPC - SPT - UKPC - SPT & so on.
Locations? Likely to be one in the North, one in the South, with the UKPC staying at DTD of course. In some ways, it'd be good to do the SPT's at DTD, but not everyone would agree. The problem is DTD look after us so well. So in all probability, one Northern venue, one Southern venue each year.
When? It's possible there will be one BEFORE the next UKPC. Maybe December, something like that. Then, say, May.
This is not a guarantee or promise. I'm addressing the complaint that Sky Poker would not say one way or the other. But I can tell you I've been asked to sort venues, dates etc, & submit them for approval - or not. I'm now working on this with Tighty.
We shall see, but if I could get even money they would re-start, I'd have a decent bet.
Nobody mentioned this issue, it was not discussed.
I'd like to keep this thread on topic, but if you want to start a thread about this, I'll be all over it, with the pros & cons.
All I'd say for now is that, if The Business wanted to implement this, it would be pretty easy I think.
Start a thread, I'll go deeper into the what & why's, & I guarantee to send it to the Suits for their perusal, too.
Incidentally, at each future UKPC & (if they re-start) SPT, it's likely that Sky Poker Management will try & meet informally with half a dozen players to take feedback, & discuss what's what.
I like a moan as much as the next poker player but I grudgingly accept that most of what needs to be focused on is not the ideas that are floated by the long term regs (as much as we may all love to see some of those changes - eg timebanks), rather there needs to be ways to keep bringing in new players and retaining the existing (mostly silent) recreational players. Which is a big win to the regulars anyway, just indirectly.
It's not guaranteed yet, but I reckon it's more than likely.
More news next week.
It's not down to me, either - I'm just carrying messages. But I'm really pleased Sky are happy for me to air the topic.
Was great to see you last week, hope you both enjoyed the UKPC.
Was a fun event, too, they were recording an episode of "The Big Game" or whatever at the same time, & we had a bit of a falling out with them. Pretty sure the event was sold out, too, despite being a £220 affair with a good structure & plenty of starting chips.
One of our players bust on the very first orbit with J-J all-in pre v Aces.
Paul Lambert shared a table with a lad named Dave Shallow. Oh my, that was a Dave Shallow Masterclass.
Twitch is a good shout, Doh.
Freeroll times (swanstu), yes, I'll pass it up. Think the problem with that one is it is impossible to please all, so they please as many as they can. Good shout, though.
The idea is that, fingers crossed, I'll be able to get a clear reply from Upstairs - yes or no, & why - to all of these questions, & that has to be good.
What DO they teach in schools these days?
Was grand to meet you last week - you looked EXACTLY as I had imagined. Very Scottish looking, if you get my drift.