Planet Mark's Blog. Thoughts, News And Strategy For Poker Tournaments Of All Size

Spin and Go SNGs

Spin and Goes, the new random prize pool Sit N Go format from PokerStars has gone live across all of their sites. The format will be familiar to anyone who has played the Jackpot Sit N Goes at Full Tilt, or the ‘Twister’ games at iPoker. The rake is lower, the prizes bigger, and there are consolations for the runners up…

This post looks at whether these games are really worth playing, which are the best of the 3 now available – and provides some links to help you with strategy + a great offer of tokens to try these games.

Are Lottery Sit N Goes Worth Playing?

As always in poker, the answer is ‘it depends!’

The main thing it depends on is why you play poker in the first place. These games have a big appeal for their speed, and the chance of winning a big sum of money (up to 1200 times your buy-in). This is a welcome move away from the ‘serious’ business of grinding and should appeal to the recreational players out there… once the games fill with recreational players, specialists (including grinders at the minimum levels from lower GDP countries) will move in… forming some kind of equilibrium.

What happens with these games is that they have a ‘golden’ period when they are brand new.

Recreational players flood the games, the grinders are not yet established and there is plenty of money to be made simply by playing a solid game for the next couple of weeks at least.

Longer-term, my feeling is that these will simply become a quick hit type game. People will log on for a couple of them, and then find other games to play. It will be interesting to see whether they get busy in the evenings at the start of the 5-minute tournament breaks.

In short – if you are motivated and understand solid hyper-turbo strategy, then you have a couple of weeks to clean up!

PokerStars Spin N Go Offer

To give these games an extra kick-start, PokerStars are offering up to $50 in free entries for every new depositor.

So, if you deposit for the first time you'll get the following combo:

- $20 Cash

- $50 in Spin N Go Entry Tokens

- Entry to the $100k Privilege Freerolls

Here is how to get the offer:

- First, you'll need to register your account. From the drop-down menu choose 'Affiliate Marketing Code' and insert PSP3108 in the new box which appears.

- Next, head to the cashier, choose from a long list of deposit options and use the code FREE20, you have until the 26th of October to claim this package.

Thats it, you'll be ready to hit the Spin N Go Games - and since there will be so many first timers around, just a basic understanding of hyper-turbo strategy should be enough to help you clean up. Head over to www.pokerstars.com now and claim your welcome package. 

Which are the Best Lottery Sit N Goes?

PokerStars have made a big splash in the press with their lower rake deal.

This kind of information is aimed squarely at the more serious players, who (rightly) consider the rake (fees the sites take from the games) in making their choice of game.

At the same time, the whole format is aimed at recreational players – for who a 1% difference in fees makes no difference.

What you’ll need to balance this with is that PokerStars and Full Tilt attract the more serious types of players. While they are not always winners, the average player at these sites is more likely to be experienced and to have studied poker strategy. They are also a lot more likely to be multi-tabling.

This more than cancels out the better rake deal for me (after the ‘honeymoon period’ is over).

iPoker Twisters get my Vote (and $20 extra to try them out)

iPoker (Titan is my pick) brings together the biggest sports betting brands from the UK and elsewhere, and pools their players together on a common back end. This means there are far more recreational players compared to elsewhere – people who are just relaxing and enjoying an gamble rather than trying to squeeze out every cent of value from the games.

You’ll see the difference (try the tournaments for a real eye-popping experience).

My special offer of $20 extra for SNG Planet readers at the biggest iPoker site – Titan Poker – is an ideal way to check out the Twisters (and Jackpot SNGs too).

Just register with my code SNGPLANET, make a deposit (you’ll get a 200% match on this) and I will ensure that the $20 is in your player account within 48 hours (usually much sooner). Really, there is no need to sit with pro grinders at other sites when such soft games are available, check out www.titanpoker.com to see for yourself.

Hyper Turbo SNG Strategy

You can find some strategy information covering Hyper Turbo SNGs in this article. Remember, when there is only one prize, ICM does not come into play.

For general information on the faster SNG format, you can try this article on the Best Hyper / Super Turbo SNG sites.

GL at the tables, Mark

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