hard to disagree with anything Darsh is saying here it pretty much sums up my sentiments exactly. I want to play sngs on sky but the games do not run often enough. I was doing the hyper dons myself and then hit real bad variance I do not know if people would say some of my plays were bad or etc or not, but I saw some atrocious plays in these dons. I kept asking how am I losing to this my last session was horrific some of the worst luck I have ever encountered in poker and I have been around poker for some time.
Of course this is nothing new and I wont derail with a rant about bad luck there is plenty of that on the forums already and we all know it happens and have seen this a lot ourselves before if we have been around in the poker scene long enough.
What I will say is I looked up my results properly and found I was losing due to the extreme bad luck and the rake. even with this terrible luck if there was no rake I would be profitable.
the thing is the rake is so high that when you run bad like this it hits like a freight train. and right now I am just not ready for that sort of variance in the past on other sites I often found running bad was often comforted by decent bonuses and rake back, but some sites go as high as 50/60% rake back and charge less rake to begin with. you would have to rake £5000 a month to just get 40% rake back on what is already obscene rake levels when compared to other poker sites.
on top of this I have the client quitting out often which just frustrates me and then when I contact customer support they basically act like no one else has ever had this issue ever before and even say this has never been reported ever before when multiple people on these forums consistently mention contacting support about this. I then basically get the vibe they think I am some sort of scammer trying to get free bets compensation out of them. Which I just find very insulting and makes me more angry when I read how many other people are having issues.
hard to disagree with anything Darsh is saying here it pretty much sums up my sentiments exactly. I want to play sngs on sky but the games do not run often enough. I was doing the hyper dons myself and then hit real bad variance I do not know if people would say some of my plays were bad or etc or not, but I saw some atrocious plays in these dons. I kept asking how am I losing to this my last session was horrific some of the worst luck I have ever encountered in poker and I have been around poker for some time.
Of course this is nothing new and I wont derail with a rant about bad luck there is plenty of that on the forums already and we all know it happens and have seen this a lot ourselves before if we have been around in the poker scene long enough.
What I will say is I looked up my results properly and found I was losing due to the extreme bad luck and the rake. even with this terrible luck if there was no rake I would be profitable.
the thing is the rake is so high that when you run bad like this it hits like a freight train. and right now I am just not ready for that sort of variance in the past on other sites I often found running bad was often comforted by decent bonuses and rake back, but some sites go as high as 50/60% rake back and charge less rake to begin with. you would have to rake £5000 a month to just get 40% rake back on what is already obscene rake levels when compared to other poker sites.
on top of this I have the client quitting out often which just frustrates me and then when I contact customer support they basically act like no one else has ever had this issue ever before and even say this has never been reported ever before when multiple people on these forums consistently mention contacting support about this. I then basically get the vibe they think I am some sort of scammer trying to get free bets compensation out of them. Which I just find very insulting and makes me more angry when I read how many other people are having issues.
Thanks -it's weirdly reassuring to hear about other people's swing. I've had 3 bad swings recently. I believe I'm running a few standard deviations away from EV atm but I'll try to work on my game and hopefully it'll swing the other way.
However, it really doesn't help your profit if you're playing 6-7 DYMs including at £55 limit and the sky client crashes twice. When you have a 2bb stack every hand is crucial and believe I would have lost less if I wasn't away from the table due to client crashes.
I can hand on heart say that technical issues have cost me hundreds of pounds. I recognise your experience that customer service are surprised when you contact them about this. They said they would email me regarding compensation. I chased them but didn't hear anything so left it.
They advised me that you're less likely to have technical issues playing on the client rather than browser but the client has been terrible. Players in chat have advised me of the same thing: Play in browser - you may miss the first 1 or 2 hands Play on client - you risk it crashing and affecting every table.
I'll be moving back to browser - I can afford to miss the first 1-2 hands of a Turbo DYM but I can't afford it crashing in the end game which it inevitably does from time to time. It's a game of very fine margins and unfortunately one of the variables are which platform you're using to play.
Unfortunately I found out the hard way and wish I never contacted customer service and followed their advice.
If they lower the rake nearly every winning dym reg would become b/e because lowering the rake wouldnt bring any fun players to your games, just more regs.
hard to disagree with anything Darsh is saying here it pretty much sums up my sentiments exactly. I want to play sngs on sky but the games do not run often enough. I was doing the hyper dons myself and then hit real bad variance I do not know if people would say some of my plays were bad or etc or not, but I saw some atrocious plays in these dons. I kept asking how am I losing to this my last session was horrific some of the worst luck I have ever encountered in poker and I have been around poker for some time.
Of course this is nothing new and I wont derail with a rant about bad luck there is plenty of that on the forums already and we all know it happens and have seen this a lot ourselves before if we have been around in the poker scene long enough.
What I will say is I looked up my results properly and found I was losing due to the extreme bad luck and the rake. even with this terrible luck if there was no rake I would be profitable.
the thing is the rake is so high that when you run bad like this it hits like a freight train. and right now I am just not ready for that sort of variance in the past on other sites I often found running bad was often comforted by decent bonuses and rake back, but some sites go as high as 50/60% rake back and charge less rake to begin with. you would have to rake £5000 a month to just get 40% rake back on what is already obscene rake levels when compared to other poker sites.
on top of this I have the client quitting out often which just frustrates me and then when I contact customer support they basically act like no one else has ever had this issue ever before and even say this has never been reported ever before when multiple people on these forums consistently mention contacting support about this. I then basically get the vibe they think I am some sort of scammer trying to get free bets compensation out of them. Which I just find very insulting and makes me more angry when I read how many other people are having issues.
Thanks -it's weirdly reassuring to hear about other people's swing. I've had 3 bad swings recently. I believe I'm running a few standard deviations away from EV atm but I'll try to work on my game and hopefully it'll swing the other way.
However, it really doesn't help your profit if you're playing 6-7 DYMs including at £55 limit and the sky client crashes twice. When you have a 2bb stack every hand is crucial and believe I would have lost less if I wasn't away from the table due to client crashes.
I can hand on heart say that technical issues have cost me hundreds of pounds. I recognise your experience that customer service are surprised when you contact them about this. They said they would email me regarding compensation. I chased them but didn't hear anything so left it.
They advised me that you're less likely to have technical issues playing on the client rather than browser but the client has been terrible. Players in chat have advised me of the same thing: Play in browser - you may miss the first 1 or 2 hands Play on client - you risk it crashing and affecting every table.
I'll be moving back to browser - I can afford to miss the first 1-2 hands of a Turbo DYM but I can't afford it crashing in the end game which it inevitably does from time to time. It's a game of very fine margins and unfortunately one of the variables are which platform you're using to play.
Unfortunately I found out the hard way and wish I never contacted customer service and followed their advice.
literally a third of the time I had 1010+ and AQ+ and shoved or called a shove I lost. I know that may sound right at first glance but that means I was been called on a lot of my shoves and losing I mean really shoves should get through more then that. I counted as wins when I shoved and everyone folded so basically if when I have 1010 and AQ plus I either win the blinds or lose a massive pot 1/3 of the time I am obviously going to get crushed.
I looked up my results and beat the standard however lose to the rake. I am very close to 95% statistically significant confidence of been a losing player. but I genuinely feel I got luck **** so not sure what to make of this one.
I just think I have statistically significant evidence that I am profitable at heads up hypers and timed tournements and maybe I should just stick to those but its hard to get the volume in. I have some training videos I am working through on heads up hypers to improve and it is improving my game but the videos are a bit dated. Eg if you played the way they suggest against a good reg today you would be destroyed. However the fundamental concepts and understanding the logic of it does advance my game. so its knowing what elements to take on and what to discard I guess think and analyse everything and dont take anything as cast in stone here.
for me its about where to target to make the most profit potential. for a long time I have been a slightly profitable casual player and I am trying to advance to been able to make proper money from the game.
Cash games seem like something I want to avoid because you can run well all month and play solid poker and then have one or two bad sessions with enough bad luck and see your entire months profit wiped and can then be in the red.
turbo dons (I call them hypers because they basically are) seem very swingy and might have potential they definitely do if I can make sure I plug all leaks work on my game and etc and if the games run enough but I can see these dying out and I think I underestimated buyins needed I went with 100 buyin rule I think should be at least 200 buyins.
I could go for regular dons but just not sure if their is enough profit potential there.
Mtts seem like a good way to go but all sky poker seem to offer mostly is these bounty hunter tournaments and I am just not sure If I am profitable at these I see a lot of decent players making plays that do not seem sensible or logical to me.
I make a point of regulary sharkscoping my competition this is good because it helps me to be honest with myself and objective. eg if someone does something that looks like a bad play to me and takes my chips is it really a bad play or are they thinking on another level above me and actually out playing me? or could be the same thing against other players eg apparent bad play against other players. Usually I find they are fish/losing players but sometimes they show up as sharks. I am still trying to make sense of a strong shark who raised with k7 of spades under the gun and then checked every single street against me. I won with Ace high. I also did not understand why a strong shark called me with 1010 on an AAKKx board I had the ace but effectively they had ten high. if i was bluffing with Q or J x i still take the pot but then I guess it wouldnt make sense for me to bluff with Q or J x because I have show down value then. I am guessing they assumed I either had a small pair and was doing a total bluff or I had the Ace and so thought they had odds against my total betting betting range?
I see weird plays on sky poker all the time the vast majority of the time it is from fish but occasionly I see it from sharks and that makes me question things.
for the record my targeted income where I want to get to in poker is to be able to make £3000+ a month with 40 hours or less a week of play. I am currently noway near achieving that, but hope to improve.
its just trying to work out where the best games are to target for me.
I agree too, hypers probably aren't the solution, and with them being introduced, it would probably see the end of regulars running at all (even £5.50 and below).
I think the discussions around rake are neither here nor there and doesn't deal with the crux of the issue, which funnily enough, I think @percival09 does. Are the games fun? New and recreational players aren't looking at whether a SNG has 20%, 10% or 5% rake IMO.
I've put the majority of my volume over the years into DYMs because I could make a little bit whilst enjoying myself. However, it's not the most fun I've had playing poker. This, for me, comes from running deep in an MTT. And I think the thrill of this for a new player greatly outweighs any thrill they can get playing a SNG. Not to mention, all the promo from bigger sites (namely Stars) is heavily geared towards MTTs with their investment in Twitch streamers and recent big series' they've ran.
I did watch a podcast with Rob Yong explaining that these big series do mean more cash games and SNGs run. I would imagine a similar story on Sky when UKOPS is running (maybe?) Although, I'm aware Sky cannot run UKOPS once a month for example.
With that being said, I was a new player once, so why did I start playing DYMs? Well, good old channel 865 I remember watching it throughout my teens (naughty, i know), and the presenters mentioning DYMs as a great place to learn the game. So that's what I did and here I am, still coming back to play them today.
I was going to tie this post up with some solutions on how to get new players playing SNGs on Sky. I can't really think of any which is sad, but maybe the death of SNGs is inevitable, but I for one, hope not. MAKE SNGS GREAT AGAIN
They had Hyper DYMs before - I really don't think that's the answer. It will just give the turbo guys another format to grind for rake.
@Arrogant - I understand your logic but don't agree that it will bring in exclusively one type of player for the reasons DoubleMe touched upon.
Even if it attracted regs exclusively - great. More games will run.
I don't believe that high rake is good because it attracts "bad" players and keeps the "good" players away.
Personally I enjoy playing against people like Greg / Mayhem / Grimesy / Jingle / Skip etc because it helps to improve your own game.
Perhaps the fundamental question is this: Is it better for the SNGs to be high rake / low volume or lower rake / higher volume?
For any game type to run you need enough losing players. I don't think lower rake will suddenly get more players interested in DYMs. I think its similar to the complaints about less MTT freezeouts. These formats just aren't as popular. Regs aren't going to play games for the sake of it so while lower rake may help make players more profitable this will be offset if the games are more reggy.
FWIW - I do think the rake is high on DYMs.
Regarding certain plays from "sharks", no one is perfect so a play you consider strange could be inspired or could be a misclick or error by someone.
They had Hyper DYMs before - I really don't think that's the answer. It will just give the turbo guys another format to grind for rake.
@Arrogant - I understand your logic but don't agree that it will bring in exclusively one type of player for the reasons DoubleMe touched upon.
Even if it attracted regs exclusively - great. More games will run.
I don't believe that high rake is good because it attracts "bad" players and keeps the "good" players away.
Personally I enjoy playing against people like Greg / Mayhem / Grimesy / Jingle / Skip etc because it helps to improve your own game.
Perhaps the fundamental question is this: Is it better for the SNGs to be high rake / low volume or lower rake / higher volume?
For any game type to run you need enough losing players. I don't think lower rake will suddenly get more players interested in DYMs. I think its similar to the complaints about less MTT freezeouts. These formats just aren't as popular. Regs aren't going to play games for the sake of it so while lower rake may help make players more profitable this will be offset if the games are more reggy.
FWIW - I do think the rake is high on DYMs.
Regarding certain plays from "sharks", no one is perfect so a play you consider strange could be inspired or could be a misclick or error by someone.
I agree on the whole that you may not get more players if you lower rake Although i do think it’s a possibility that players who play these kind of games elsewhere where rake is lower may come across if the rake was comparable
I do think you would lose less regs though. There are players who do ok at the games but the rake means that they win little if at all. If rake was dropped to compare with other sites then you might keep them
... Mtts seem like a good way to go but all sky poker seem to offer mostly is these bounty hunter tournaments and I am just not sure If I am profitable at these I see a lot of decent players making plays that do not seem sensible or logical to me.
There is a bit of adjustment required for bounty hunter MTT but I think they would be the standout choice for anyone looking to focus on a single format:
- At micro/low and maybe even mid-stakes they are probably the softest games around - They are hugely popular across many sites (almost universally so, I would say) - There is the potential for significant volume (assuming the individual has the time to commit to them) - They will probably be the game type which stands the test of time
It's always going to be down to personal preference. I really enjoy the format and find them profitable. The bounty element means you will see some wild plays and this can make them pretty high variance (especially so when trying to navigate the bigger fields on some of the bigger sites) but with a large enough sample any competent player should be able to achieve 20%+ ROI in these games.
They had Hyper DYMs before - I really don't think that's the answer. It will just give the turbo guys another format to grind for rake.
@Arrogant - I understand your logic but don't agree that it will bring in exclusively one type of player for the reasons DoubleMe touched upon.
Even if it attracted regs exclusively - great. More games will run.
I don't believe that high rake is good because it attracts "bad" players and keeps the "good" players away.
Personally I enjoy playing against people like Greg / Mayhem / Grimesy / Jingle / Skip etc because it helps to improve your own game.
Perhaps the fundamental question is this: Is it better for the SNGs to be high rake / low volume or lower rake / higher volume?
For any game type to run you need enough losing players. I don't think lower rake will suddenly get more players interested in DYMs. I think its similar to the complaints about less MTT freezeouts. These formats just aren't as popular. Regs aren't going to play games for the sake of it so while lower rake may help make players more profitable this will be offset if the games are more reggy.
FWIW - I do think the rake is high on DYMs.
Regarding certain plays from "sharks", no one is perfect so a play you consider strange could be inspired or could be a misclick or error by someone.
I don't think there are many if any formats on the site where I lose to a statistically significant extent against the standard. by that I mean would be losing in the game if there was no rake.
there are a few formats where it comes close to statistically significant to losing to the rake. Dons in any format has not gone well for me but in no don format have I ever lost more then the rake. In all honesty I probably need to work on my game for dons if I want to continue that format. However I would not refer to myself as a casual fish type player which seems to be how I have been cast here. I still lose less then the rake which isn't a boast but at least keeps me out of the fish category.
I often hear the argument that if you lower the rake it will attract more regs, and if you have high rake it will soften the games. I think their is a balance here. eg in the heads up hypers I notice duonross BenC and Nickd never play each other would this change if we if sky reduced the rake to 1%? possibly the fact is the edge a player has against another in these formats needs to overcome the rake in order for their to be an incentive to play. on other sites I have seen the games go for 5.20 and 10.40 where its 20 cent rake and 40 cent rake respectively but notice the average player has a lower ROI then on sky. there are regs who sometimes sit me who I do not want to play not because I feel they are better or can outplay me but simply because I question whether either of us can beat the rake against each other.
I played one reg a lot wont mention names but after a lot of games against each other I was down £5 I worked out I had won more then 50% of these games but we both got crucified by the rake.
there are leagues of players in the heads up hypers there is alvez and alancarr right at the top then there is duronross benc and nickd and in the lower leagues there is me bearlyther and goldenballz
in heads up hypers people keep away from each other in respect to the leagues. players may attempt to graduate at some point to higher leagues or may stay where they are without seeking the challenge but its different in dons.
I may not be in the same league as Bigfatfish timmyrara and darsh but im not a losing player in terms of the standard so with lower rake I could become another reg I guess the ultimate question would be to darsh if I was regulary hitting 1% roi would u want me in your games you would likely get more games running but I would then be eating into your profit margin.
@MattBates I see your point last night I did a terrible play where I misread the board thought I had a straight shoved all in and got called by the straight realised I didn't have it and had misread the board and was quite embarrassed. that obviously is not a common mistake for me because I would not be profitable if I regularly failed to read the board. so maybe others occasionally make mistakes too. If I can ask briefly would you say that bounty hunters should be played very similar to the standard freezeout mtt format or wildly different? I know I am profitable at the standard freezeout mtts but have stayed away from bountys because I assumed I did not know the different strategy need recently tried bountys and not done so well but not exactly a super large sample size so jury is still out. I am aware bluffs are less likely to get through, just is the strategy that wildy different to succeed? I read one article that said you should play like a standard mtt because if you make it deep you will naturally eliminate players and win bountys anyway is this more or less true I should the play be quite a bit different?
Attracting regs/recs are equally important. I joined the site as a terrible poker player and developed into a "weak reg".
The purpose of the thread is to see if we can get the games running again - not about attracting as many fish as possible.
I can't think any of the SnG players are happy that regs are leaving because the few games we play are "softer". Having a few recs is fine but playing on a table of them can be pretty depressing because the variance is so high. DYMs are often mid-short stack games and recs often want to shove the chips all in ASAP to avoid tough spots.
Recs may be inexperienced but they are not a subset of the "idiot" group. They'll realise just how difficult it is to actually "Double" your money.
If you're reasonable at poker you can win more money playing almost any other format. If recs want fun they can have more of it playing pretty much any other format. Cash games and MTTs don't suffer from the same problems. It is actually impressive that somehow Sky has managed to keep any liquidity in these games. Has anyone ever had a moment of excitement playing a DYM? lol
I used to play the DYMs a few years back and there was a good amount of competition then with £33s and £55s running regularly. I started with £10 and ran it to over £1k in 2 months, starting with the 0.55 DYMS then progressing through all levels until i got to £55s. Then i stopped playing for a few years, from all poker sites.
I came back a few months ago for a while but have been awol for over a month again. For me personally i do not enjoy the game as much as i used to, it is a game of tit for tat for the most part. I am focusing on crypto these days.
Sky just seem lazy, they are bringing nothing new to the table. When was the last time Sky had a double points promo going on? I remember a few years back when they were happening and tables used to fill up all the time, you seemed to get one every week. When was the last one?
Sky has been bought by Pokerstars during my hiatus and i see this going the same way as Full Tilt Poker did when they bought that also.
Can someone answer me when was the last double points promo please? It would be interesting to find that out.
Tikay if you are reading this then you need to let the Sky team know they are lazy and need to get the finger out.
Man comes on a poker site having not played for years, gets almost everything wrong in his post then calls the sky poker team lazy. How to lose friends and alienate people
@percival09 I think each game type has its merits. You need a relatively large BR to play cash and there are no ICM considerations so in many respects it is a different sport to MTT or SnG.
This isn't just about recs but anyone who enjoys playing SnG poker. If I didn't play the volume I played at SnG level, I would never have bothered playing MTT or even cash.
I joined in 2013 - my only income at the time was a student loan and therefore I only played SnGs and Freerolls. Somehow I made it to the UKOPS £550 event at DTD via a freeroll -> satellite -> satellite at first attempt despite having no experience.
If Sky didn't have DYMs running I would have lost interest entirely.
@Thudd The £55 level just doesn't run anymore. The £33 level runs very occasionally.
As for the rest of your post - I wouldn't go that far to call people lazy but I *think* there's something in what you say regarding the promos.
I don't know either the answer to your question but they were a regular promo when I joined the site.
As for the rest of your post - I wouldn't go that far to call people lazy but I *think* there's something in what you say regarding the promos.
I don't know either the answer to your question but they were a regular promo when I joined the site.
I've had a think since yesterday regarding promos for SNGs. Since I've been back on Sky (since lockdown) I think the promos have benefited SNGs. Although people may not see the benefit of freeroll promos (like the Mayhem and Eliminators) directly with SNGs, I still think these promos help traffic.
Of course, the lockdown boom is real and this was a factor too (definitely the biggest IMO). As Tikay stated throughout his daily write ups, traffic across the site was up by huge %s. This could be why we see posts like this now, with the lockdown boom easing. Although I wasn't playing a year ago, I predict the SNG traffic was lower a year ago than today. A reg may be able to add provide more detail here?
Finally, I saw the OP saying attracting regs and recs is equally important. I have to strongly disagree. Games die if you don't attract recs. That's why I find it odd when regs complain about certain promos and the lack of a 'SNG specific promo'. Although a player like me would probably make more with the current Premiership promo, I would much rather see more rec friendly promos.
Comments
I want to play sngs on sky but the games do not run often enough.
I was doing the hyper dons myself and then hit real bad variance I do not know if people would say some of my plays were bad or etc or not, but I saw some atrocious plays in these dons. I kept asking how am I losing to this my last session was horrific some of the worst luck I have ever encountered in poker and I have been around poker for some time.
Of course this is nothing new and I wont derail with a rant about bad luck there is plenty of that on the forums already and we all know it happens and have seen this a lot ourselves before if we have been around in the poker scene long enough.
What I will say is I looked up my results properly and found I was losing due to the extreme bad luck and the rake. even with this terrible luck if there was no rake I would be profitable.
the thing is the rake is so high that when you run bad like this it hits like a freight train. and right now I am just not ready for that sort of variance in the past on other sites I often found running bad was often comforted by decent bonuses and rake back, but some sites go as high as 50/60% rake back and charge less rake to begin with. you would have to rake £5000 a month to just get 40% rake back on what is already obscene rake levels when compared to other poker sites.
on top of this I have the client quitting out often which just frustrates me and then when I contact customer support they basically act like no one else has ever had this issue ever before and even say this has never been reported ever before when multiple people on these forums consistently mention contacting support about this. I then basically get the vibe they think I am some sort of scammer trying to get free bets compensation out of them. Which I just find very insulting and makes me more angry when I read how many other people are having issues.
However, it really doesn't help your profit if you're playing 6-7 DYMs including at £55 limit and the sky client crashes twice. When you have a 2bb stack every hand is crucial and believe I would have lost less if I wasn't away from the table due to client crashes.
I can hand on heart say that technical issues have cost me hundreds of pounds. I recognise your experience that customer service are surprised when you contact them about this. They said they would email me regarding compensation. I chased them but didn't hear anything so left it.
They advised me that you're less likely to have technical issues playing on the client rather than browser but the client has been terrible.
Players in chat have advised me of the same thing:
Play in browser - you may miss the first 1 or 2 hands
Play on client - you risk it crashing and affecting every table.
I'll be moving back to browser - I can afford to miss the first 1-2 hands of a Turbo DYM but I can't afford it crashing in the end game which it inevitably does from time to time.
It's a game of very fine margins and unfortunately one of the variables are which platform you're using to play.
Unfortunately I found out the hard way and wish I never contacted customer service and followed their advice.
Let's get crazy baby!
@Arrogant - I understand your logic but don't agree that it will bring in exclusively one type of player for the reasons DoubleMe touched upon.
Even if it attracted regs exclusively - great. More games will run.
I don't believe that high rake is good because it attracts "bad" players and keeps the "good" players away.
Personally I enjoy playing against people like Greg / Mayhem / Grimesy / Jingle / Skip etc because it helps to improve your own game.
Perhaps the fundamental question is this: Is it better for the SNGs to be high rake / low volume or lower rake / higher volume?
literally a third of the time I had 1010+ and AQ+ and shoved or called a shove I lost. I know that may sound right at first glance but that means I was been called on a lot of my shoves and losing I mean really shoves should get through more then that. I counted as wins when I shoved and everyone folded so basically if when I have 1010 and AQ plus I either win the blinds or lose a massive pot 1/3 of the time I am obviously going to get crushed.
I looked up my results and beat the standard however lose to the rake. I am very close to 95% statistically significant confidence of been a losing player. but I genuinely feel I got luck **** so not sure what to make of this one.
I just think I have statistically significant evidence that I am profitable at heads up hypers and timed tournements and maybe I should just stick to those but its hard to get the volume in. I have some training videos I am working through on heads up hypers to improve and it is improving my game but the videos are a bit dated. Eg if you played the way they suggest against a good reg today you would be destroyed. However the fundamental concepts and understanding the logic of it does advance my game. so its knowing what elements to take on and what to discard I guess think and analyse everything and dont take anything as cast in stone here.
for me its about where to target to make the most profit potential. for a long time I have been a slightly profitable casual player and I am trying to advance to been able to make proper money from the game.
Cash games seem like something I want to avoid because you can run well all month and play solid poker and then have one or two bad sessions with enough bad luck and see your entire months profit wiped and can then be in the red.
turbo dons (I call them hypers because they basically are) seem very swingy and might have potential they definitely do if I can make sure I plug all leaks work on my game and etc and if the games run enough but I can see these dying out and I think I underestimated buyins needed I went with 100 buyin rule I think should be at least 200 buyins.
I could go for regular dons but just not sure if their is enough profit potential there.
Mtts seem like a good way to go but all sky poker seem to offer mostly is these bounty hunter tournaments and I am just not sure If I am profitable at these I see a lot of decent players making plays that do not seem sensible or logical to me.
I make a point of regulary sharkscoping my competition this is good because it helps me to be honest with myself and objective. eg if someone does something that looks like a bad play to me and takes my chips is it really a bad play or are they thinking on another level above me and actually out playing me? or could be the same thing against other players eg apparent bad play against other players. Usually I find they are fish/losing players but sometimes they show up as sharks. I am still trying to make sense of a strong shark who raised with k7 of spades under the gun and then checked every single street against me. I won with Ace high. I also did not understand why a strong shark called me with 1010 on an AAKKx board I had the ace but effectively they had ten high. if i was bluffing with Q or J x i still take the pot but then I guess it wouldnt make sense for me to bluff with Q or J x because I have show down value then. I am guessing they assumed I either had a small pair and was doing a total bluff or I had the Ace and so thought they had odds against my total betting betting range?
I see weird plays on sky poker all the time the vast majority of the time it is from fish but occasionly I see it from sharks and that makes me question things.
for the record my targeted income where I want to get to in poker is to be able to make £3000+ a month with 40 hours or less a week of play. I am currently noway near achieving that, but hope to improve.
its just trying to work out where the best games are to target for me.
I agree too, hypers probably aren't the solution, and with them being introduced, it would probably see the end of regulars running at all (even £5.50 and below).
I think the discussions around rake are neither here nor there and doesn't deal with the crux of the issue, which funnily enough, I think @percival09 does. Are the games fun? New and recreational players aren't looking at whether a SNG has 20%, 10% or 5% rake IMO.
I've put the majority of my volume over the years into DYMs because I could make a little bit whilst enjoying myself. However, it's not the most fun I've had playing poker. This, for me, comes from running deep in an MTT. And I think the thrill of this for a new player greatly outweighs any thrill they can get playing a SNG. Not to mention, all the promo from bigger sites (namely Stars) is heavily geared towards MTTs with their investment in Twitch streamers and recent big series' they've ran.
I did watch a podcast with Rob Yong explaining that these big series do mean more cash games and SNGs run. I would imagine a similar story on Sky when UKOPS is running (maybe?) Although, I'm aware Sky cannot run UKOPS once a month for example.
With that being said, I was a new player once, so why did I start playing DYMs? Well, good old channel 865
I was going to tie this post up with some solutions on how to get new players playing SNGs on Sky. I can't really think of any which is sad, but maybe the death of SNGs is inevitable, but I for one, hope not.
MAKE SNGS GREAT AGAINFWIW - I do think the rake is high on DYMs.
Regarding certain plays from "sharks", no one is perfect so a play you consider strange could be inspired or could be a misclick or error by someone.
Tbh i thought those days were over
Although i do think it’s a possibility that players who play these kind of games elsewhere where rake is lower may come across if the rake was comparable
I do think you would lose less regs though. There are players who do ok at the games but the rake means that they win little if at all.
If rake was dropped to compare with other sites then you might keep them
- At micro/low and maybe even mid-stakes they are probably the softest games around
- They are hugely popular across many sites (almost universally so, I would say)
- There is the potential for significant volume (assuming the individual has the time to commit to them)
- They will probably be the game type which stands the test of time
It's always going to be down to personal preference. I really enjoy the format and find them profitable. The bounty element means you will see some wild plays and this can make them pretty high variance (especially so when trying to navigate the bigger fields on some of the bigger sites) but with a large enough sample any competent player should be able to achieve 20%+ ROI in these games.
there are a few formats where it comes close to statistically significant to losing to the rake. Dons in any format has not gone well for me but in no don format have I ever lost more then the rake. In all honesty I probably need to work on my game for dons if I want to continue that format. However I would not refer to myself as a casual fish type player which seems to be how I have been cast here. I still lose less then the rake which isn't a boast but at least keeps me out of the fish category.
I often hear the argument that if you lower the rake it will attract more regs, and if you have high rake it will soften the games. I think their is a balance here. eg in the heads up hypers I notice duonross BenC and Nickd never play each other would this change if we if sky reduced the rake to 1%? possibly the fact is the edge a player has against another in these formats needs to overcome the rake in order for their to be an incentive to play. on other sites I have seen the games go for 5.20 and 10.40 where its 20 cent rake and 40 cent rake respectively but notice the average player has a lower ROI then on sky. there are regs who sometimes sit me who I do not want to play not because I feel they are better or can outplay me but simply because I question whether either of us can beat the rake against each other.
I played one reg a lot wont mention names but after a lot of games against each other I was down £5 I worked out I had won more then 50% of these games but we both got crucified by the rake.
there are leagues of players in the heads up hypers there is alvez and alancarr right at the top then there is duronross benc and nickd
and in the lower leagues there is me bearlyther and goldenballz
in heads up hypers people keep away from each other in respect to the leagues. players may attempt to graduate at some point to higher leagues or may stay where they are without seeking the challenge but its different in dons.
I may not be in the same league as Bigfatfish timmyrara and darsh but im not a losing player in terms of the standard so with lower rake I could become another reg I guess the ultimate question would be to darsh if I was regulary hitting 1% roi would u want me in your games you would likely get more games running but I would then be eating into your profit margin.
@MattBates I see your point last night I did a terrible play where I misread the board thought I had a straight shoved all in and got called by the straight realised I didn't have it and had misread the board and was quite embarrassed. that obviously is not a common mistake for me because I would not be profitable if I regularly failed to read the board. so maybe others occasionally make mistakes too. If I can ask briefly would you say that bounty hunters should be played very similar to the standard freezeout mtt format or wildly different? I know I am profitable at the standard freezeout mtts but have stayed away from bountys because I assumed I did not know the different strategy need recently tried bountys and not done so well but not exactly a super large sample size so jury is still out. I am aware bluffs are less likely to get through, just is the strategy that wildy different to succeed? I read one article that said you should play like a standard mtt because if you make it deep you will naturally eliminate players and win bountys anyway is this more or less true I should the play be quite a bit different?
The purpose of the thread is to see if we can get the games running again - not about attracting as many fish as possible.
I can't think any of the SnG players are happy that regs are leaving because the few games we play are "softer".
Having a few recs is fine but playing on a table of them can be pretty depressing because the variance is so high.
DYMs are often mid-short stack games and recs often want to shove the chips all in ASAP to avoid tough spots.
Recs may be inexperienced but they are not a subset of the "idiot" group.
They'll realise just how difficult it is to actually "Double" your money.
I came back a few months ago for a while but have been awol for over a month again. For me personally i do not enjoy the game as much as i used to, it is a game of tit for tat for the most part. I am focusing on crypto these days.
Sky just seem lazy, they are bringing nothing new to the table. When was the last time Sky had a double points promo going on? I remember a few years back when they were happening and tables used to fill up all the time, you seemed to get one every week. When was the last one?
Sky has been bought by Pokerstars during my hiatus and i see this going the same way as Full Tilt Poker did when they bought that also.
Can someone answer me when was the last double points promo please? It would be interesting to find that out.
Tikay if you are reading this then you need to let the Sky team know they are lazy and need to get the finger out.
I think each game type has its merits. You need a relatively large BR to play cash and there are no ICM considerations so in many respects it is a different sport to MTT or SnG.
This isn't just about recs but anyone who enjoys playing SnG poker. If I didn't play the volume I played at SnG level, I would never have bothered playing MTT or even cash.
I joined in 2013 - my only income at the time was a student loan and therefore I only played SnGs and Freerolls.
Somehow I made it to the UKOPS £550 event at DTD via a freeroll -> satellite -> satellite at first attempt despite having no experience.
If Sky didn't have DYMs running I would have lost interest entirely.
@Thudd
The £55 level just doesn't run anymore.
The £33 level runs very occasionally.
As for the rest of your post - I wouldn't go that far to call people lazy but I *think* there's something in what you say regarding the promos.
I don't know either the answer to your question but they were a regular promo when I joined the site.
Of course, the lockdown boom is real and this was a factor too (definitely the biggest IMO). As Tikay stated throughout his daily write ups, traffic across the site was up by huge %s. This could be why we see posts like this now, with the lockdown boom easing. Although I wasn't playing a year ago, I predict the SNG traffic was lower a year ago than today. A reg may be able to add provide more detail here?
Finally, I saw the OP saying attracting regs and recs is equally important. I have to strongly disagree. Games die if you don't attract recs. That's why I find it odd when regs complain about certain promos and the lack of a 'SNG specific promo'. Although a player like me would probably make more with the current Premiership promo, I would much rather see more rec friendly promos.
FWIW, I consider myself a recreational reg