UOS R/A madness and the broken satellite system

[NeriPoker]

I would just like to offer my thoughts on the UOS and the proliferation of rebuy and add on games. My opinion is that Unibet is far too R/A heavy in general, in particular the online festivals and that the satellite system that complements them is broken, especially for the low stakes recreational player.

The current UOS has 105 events and over 40 of them are R/A. The previous UOS which I believe was around September also had 105 events and 76 of them had R or R/A next to them in the lobby. Due to the huge number of R/A events this makes the UOS a particularly expensive festival to play if a player wants to play a number of events. A €5 tournament can easily be a €15 tournament. A €10 tournament can easily be a €30 tournaments. A €25 tournament can easily be a €75 tournament. This is simply unaffordable for a large portion of recreational players. I'm personally put off from playing many of these games simply because of the exponentially increasing cost of the buy ins. Most are way out of my budget as a low stakes rec player. Filter out add ons in the lobby and you see a good chunk of the schedule disappear.

As for the satellites. The low stakes recreational player has no chance with the current Unibet system. It's vital that tournaments have a solid and healthy satellite system. You want low stakes players targeting the bigger events and it's great for the game if one of them can get in to the target event and bink a big score. This is what the poker dream is all about but that strangely doesn't exist at Unibet who prides itself on catering to rec players.

The problem? The satellites in to the bigger UOS games are R/A too. To get into one of the €100 games I need to be willing to play a €10 game which can turn into a €30 game. If I do happen to win a ticket I then go into a target event with a single entry which is also R/A!!! So not only can I not afford the rebuy or add on (taking a big equity hit when everyone else does) I also have to battle against the obvious skill edge players at the higher levels have on me. Spending 3x the satellite cost to win a single ticket and then going into the target event with better players firing multiple bullets and adding on when you can't is crazy. Recreational players have no chance with this system. It's expensive and creates an uneven playing field for the very players you want to cater to

Please stop the R/A madness and create a better satellite system. Thanks for reading.

 

 

[Estzen]

I dont agree with that, because thanks that games are a lot deeper. You are not forced to rebuy and if some games are too expensive to you, then probably it would be a mistake to play it already anyway. The only diffrence that maybe I would make, is some smaller satellites like 2 euro ones, that also give like 1 big ticket or 2. So that some micro players could also hop in from time to time. But I would actually say that Unibets game system is a lot better compared to others. If you would play sats at stars, the varience would be much higher. Maybe, you made this post because you lost every satellite there is, but that something that should be understood - satellites will ALWAYS skyrocket your varience, because now -> you need to win a sat first and then also the game itself. If you start multiplyng the chances... UOS clearly doesnt lack players. If you are not able to afford to rebuy, then just dont. I wouldnt say it looses the ability to compete. Without the R/A the GTDs would be much smaller. I have started from the smallest and I m not able to say that the system isnt working. Its just , hypers and turbos are not 12 min MTTs. I also am not seeing that everyone is double stacking all the time, so I dont find it very accurate to say that some how something is very bad from R/A. 

If you cannot aford those games, just play those that you can. Unibet has many other games, not all touraments are Moonwalks. 

Getting to play sats to 1 euro games, with 0.20 <- I hardly find anywhere something like that. If you dont have the roll, then you just have to build it. 

[Farseer]

Pretty much disagree with the whole OP. Maybe only thing I might agree is that current satellite system is broken - but it is mainly because there are too few satellites to people get multiple tickets to effectively participate into R/A events.

R/A is only way Unibet is going to get tempting prize pools without running lots of overlays (either in satellites or in target tournaments). Main issue with UOS lately (like last 1,5 years) for me has been too few R/A's while in comparison there has been far too many high buy-in (usually re-entry) MTTs (Unibet Open being the worst), which were introduced in 2020 as a "substitute" for missed live events. That's part of the reason why I have been skipping UOS, another major factor being diminished promotions (mainly leaderboards). 

Of course R/A:s cost more than just freezeouts, but it is same for everyone. 5€ R/A is pretty similar to 15€ freezeout or 10€ re-entry from bankroll perspective, so one should note that when choosing which MTTs they can afford to play. 

[KrustyTheClown]

I agree 138%.

"Thanks to R/A the guarantees are bigger".
This is bullshit.
The player's liquidity on the site will obviously not be increased with these kinda tournaments.

Unibet has no big guarantees for micro players anyway.
It's not like a €3K GTD on a €5 R/A tournament is gonna get a Pokerstars player to switch sites.

[KrustyTheClown]

In my opinion the "one shot only" thing is also inherently part of the "DNA" of a poker tournament.
Why not just play cash games instead?

[IanSimpson]

I like the direction that this UOS took in that it had fewer r/a's. I particularly think the major Sunday events benefit from not being r/a (as some haven't been this UOS) since they're headline events that people get most excited to try and qualify for and/or take a shot at.

I agree that r/a are bad for recs for the reasons OP explained. I'm not against having some in the schedule, but it's hard for a rec to be able to qualify for a major r/a when in order to play the event comfortably, you need to budget at least 3 and possibly 4 or more buy ins. The format particularly excludes people wanting to take a shot above their bankroll given it is unknown how many bullets will be needed.

I also disagree that the only way to build prizepools is through r/a's. Plenty of other sites reach sizable guarantees without this format and there isn't a reason Unibet couldn't also.

[OTTO]

In my opinion there are far too many satellites that cannibalize each other.

Example:  There is a UOS  €25 qualifier, a UO  €25 qualifier.  Smaller Qualifiers for supermoon , supernova,  UOS, tickets qualifers, qualifiers to  Milky Way , Neptune and and and....  Why not just qualifiers to  €10  €25  €100  ect. not just specific qualifiers.  When you win a €25 Qualifier you should be able to register for any €25  buy- in tourney.  With the massive amount of qualifiers, I registered accidently for a UO Qualifier- tourney,  I thought it was good for any €25 UOS  event.  The only tourney that I can use it for is a qualifier for €250.

For a small site there are far too many Qualifiers.  This is confusing for recreational players and players new to the site.

Edited December 11, 2021 by OTTO

[WuDu]

13 hours ago, NeriPoker said:

As for the satellites. The low stakes recreational player has no chance with the current Unibet system. It's vital that tournaments have a solid and healthy satellite system. You want low stakes players targeting the bigger events and it's great for the game if one of them can get in to the target event and bink a big score. This is what the poker dream is all about but that strangely doesn't exist at Unibet who prides itself on catering to rec players.

The problem? The satellites in to the bigger UOS games are R/A too. To get into one of the €100 games I need to be willing to play a €10 game which can turn into a €30 game. If I do happen to win a ticket I then go into a target event with a single entry which is also R/A!!! 

 

 

 

I agree that R/A tournaments are trash, so I'm completely avoiding them. However when it comes to satellites, your concerns are not really valid. Think about it, in a regular MTT, the prize money is distributed based on the number of players. People re-buying, leads to a bigger prize pool but not a bigger player pool, thus there's more money for the guys at the top. However your chances to reach the top decreases if there are other players playing yolo-style rebuying all the time.

However if you look at qualifiers, the prize money at the top is capped.The most anybody can win is a 10/25/50/100/250 Euro ticket. So if you have players rebuying all the time, the additional prize money automatically goes to the next next spot outside the money. That's not so bad for a recreational player. Also, a 5 to 1 ratio is the standard for satellites at Unibet. So if you want to play a 100 Euro MTT, paying 10 Euro + 10 Euro for the add-on is absolutely normal.

[Rushbie]

Couldn't agree more with the need for more freezeouts in general. It's understandable for routinized regs side to have R/A's as much as possible and max latereg everything, but from simple players perspective it's pretty fricking far from enjoyable and easy, simple decision to always have the need to calculate or -even worse- guesstimate the worthiness of the games every single time when looking at the reg-button. Not to mention the undirect, fluctuative costs they come with. I don't know the optimal, magical ratio between the games for players in overall, but know for sure the lack of FO's in the schedules is why I haven't even bothered to think about competing on UOS leaderboards. With the low amount of PLO's, playing 3 weeks mostly the R/A's and re-entrys? No thanks. Not happening.

When it comes to guiding ppl to absolutely stay away from bigger stakes they usually don't play (Estzen), even the thought of playerpools being somewhat safely homogenic on every different level is just nuts, IMO. The whole "protecting recs" -thingy is horrifyingly often misunderstood as "protecting little children" in the depths of imagination. Even for the sake of maintaining the long term ecology, the needed excitement of getting and going for the next levels is what the fun is all about for many. Paying dues, taking shots every now and then when willing and being capable of doing so.

The sats haven't been interesting for a long time, cause nothing beats the sensation of finally winning a ticket from R/A sat to some significantly bigger games, and noticing that to be able to play reasonably the only available games for it, one have to spend multiple times that money.. Again.
The fun and will to repeat it all easily just ends there.

Of course for individuals that are familiar with everything, it's not that bad to think about ways how to finetune and wish for the most valuable schedule with R/A's on a personal level, but when it happens massively on a small site by the regs, it all comes with the cost of losing overall enjoyment from the simple perspective of easy fun and gaming joy for a lot of others. And that's bad.
Unless the R/A fanatics really wants to play infinitely with eachother.

Anyway, have a nice weekend y'all 🍻

Edited December 11, 2021 by Rushbie

[SickOldIMLOF]

Poker zoomers dont appriciate how good and comfy they have it now. These days I play casually and only on Unibet, but I still remember the golden years of grinding, years before Black Friday. 

I wonder if anyone here remember rebuy tournaments meta of going all in every single hand during rebuy period. AA? JTs? 23o? Doesnt matter - snap all in. I think it only lasted for a few months, but what a time to be alive that was. Also keep in mind that back then not only we didnt have synchronized breaks site to site, every single tournament had different random break time. Yet we would still play 20+ tournaments at once, smashing these rebuy buttons. Worried that 10€ rebuy will cost you 30€? Try 200€ or even more. Was it smart and profitable? Nah. Was it fun and memorable? Hell yeah. 

At least we will have some Banzai UOS events today for degenerate spazzing like in the good old days. 

 

Edited December 11, 2021 by SickOldIMLOF

[MrBandes]

I am also unsatisfied with UOS tournaments. Why are there no 2 euro tournaments ?!

Nano tournaments are too small, 0.25 or 0.50 cents buyin, the only 1 euro tournaments are on the two sundays, but those are two day tourneys, which make them less desirable for me for that buyin. And there are the 5 euro tourneys which are next higher, i have to skip the rebuy+addon 5 euro tourneys, and i can only play a few of the 5 euro freezeout tourneys. So inbetween the nano and low i miss the tourneys. Like the Galaxy tournament which is 2 euro addon+rebuy tourney, similar tourneys should be more also in the UOS, but more 9-seated. I am disappointed now that i can't play low ones, but i don't want to play nanos because they are a waste of time (for me).

About qualifiers, getting a 10 euro ticket is much easier than getting a 5 euro one. Now we had at least this daily 21:35 5 Tix 5 Euro ticket qualifier, this was an improvement, but apart from that i also skipped the 5 euro qualifiers for a long time now. 

Maybe next time it will be better. If there will be daily 1 and 2 euro tourneys, i will probably play almost ALL of them on the two weeks.

[Tekes]

I disagree with OP, I enjoy playing R/A tournaments. I hope you won't remove any of them, they are actually one of the reason I play on unibet and I know I'm not alone with this. If you guys keep complaining soon we will have schedule full of banzai tournaments, in those you can actually lose 5x the buy-in in few minutes.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Tekes

[FreedoM]

Might be wrong but I think in most Unibet R/A-MTTs you start kinda DeepStaked with a normal to slow structure and you don't really need to put more than 2-3 buy-ins in most cases. You can't really say that about R/A-MTTs from other sites, can you?

[Farseer]

On 12/11/2021 at 3:34 AM, IanSimpson said:

I also disagree that the only way to build prizepools is through r/a's. Plenty of other sites reach sizable guarantees without this format and there isn't a reason Unibet couldn't also.

There is a clear reason in my opinion why Unibet can't do it: lack of player base.

If I want to play a 1 re-entry tournament, why I would play like tournament which has 50x or 100x buy-in prize pool instead of 1000x or even 10000x buy-in prize pool? Another reason why players would skip Unibet would be, that other sites have more of those tournaments running so they won't have to play on multiple sites if they don't want to.

Real freezeouts are my preference over them, but they are getting rare and Unibet has higher rake on them than other sites like 9+1 so wouldn't play them.

[Le_Ena]

I don't agree. I love Unibet satellites and the tournaments structure. Unibet, thanks. 

 Oh@Estzenhej:) I saw you at uos tournaments, once we were heads up at the final 💪 great job

muca

Edited December 13, 2021 by Le_Ena

[Estzen]

@Le_Enaah yea, have seen you a lot lately. Yeah nice battle 😉  You can also check out my UOS blog in the section 😉 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Estzen