Will the 5 seat SNG's survive?

[Stubbe-Unibet]

It's no secret the 5 seat SNG's aren't having the time of their life. If the trend continues, it's just a question of time before we'll ultimately turn them off completely. I'd like to prevent this, as I do like offering a slower alternative to HexaPro. The rake isn't high enough to justify a big promo push and it'd obviously not be a sustainable solution either. So, we're left with game mechanic changes and I'm considering the following:

1. Add hourly break to SNG's, like we have on MTT's
2. Change blind structure as per below picture
3. Potentially change starting stack to 1500 chips

Let me know what you think!

[SShcherbyna]

14 minutes ago, Stubbe-Unibet said:

1. Add hourly break to SNG's, like we have on MTT's
2. Change blind structure as per below picture
3. Potentially change starting stack to 1500 chips

All three for me, please 🙂

But if you choose one thing, option 2 is the most interesting, in my opinion. 

Can you attach a vote on which variable players would most like?

[FreedoM]

5 hours ago, Stubbe-Unibet said:

• Add hourly break to SNG's, like we have on MTT's
• Change blind structure as per below picture
• Potentially change starting stack to 1500 chips

4 hours ago, SShcherbyna said:

All three for me, please 🙂

+1 

[SkilfulPoker]

Think these sound like healthy changes! 
regs will not like me for this, but if rake isn’t high enough for a promo, maybe increase the take a tad too? 
 

reason for this thinking is the losing / recreational players, probably wont care,  but it will give them something back as the increased rake could hopefully pay for some promos to make them more exciting for casual players. 

maybe Unibet open could subsidise it a bit and the promo could be a satellite to win a Unibet open for players who share a hand that gets the most comments in the community - this could draw more community signups also for people who aren’t aware how cool the community is 😎

just a few ideas, my first thought was this is why Unibet is for players , you don’t just do things you are actually consulting with the player base, very cool!!

 

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by SkilfulPoker

[SShcherbyna]

@SkilfulPoker I am of the same opinion. But it seems to me that Unibet does not want to go for something like this, because it has a reputation as a site whose rake is lower than that of its competitors and does not want to risk this reputation.
Or you and I greatly overestimate the impact of promos on traffic 🙂
And maybe it will be the second stage after structural changes. If these changes work, then maybe we will see a promo not due to an increase in rakes, but due to an increase in traffic.

Edited August 23, 2023 by SShcherbyna

[slothmandan]

"The rake isn't high enough to justify a big promo" lol, there's your problem - prioritising profit over user experience

[Stubbe-Unibet]

7 hours ago, slothmandan said:

"The rake isn't high enough to justify a big promo" lol, there's your problem - prioritising profit over user experience

You might not be aware, but we're not a charity. We are in fact a business; a business that wish to be profitable 🙂

I was the one to push for the period with rake free SNGs and leaderboards in the past, as well as rake reductions on for instance NL25. I'm not the enemy you seem to think I am 🙂

[ogogogogo]

The strength of unibet is to provide the experience that is not available in other poker rooms, copying the market leaders is the way to nowhere. I think it's very cool that unibet is interested in users' opinions on various issues, and does not increase the rake and does not even consider it necessary to notify users (as some do😄)

[Psycho79]

Hey @Stubbe-Unibet

 

I haven’t played many 5mans lately and had no idea the traffic has been as poor. Might be a general trend for sngs as the sites focus more on their mtt offers these days. 
Some of them, like GG don’t have sngs in their offer at all. Nevertheless, it would be a shame losing them completely, I have a huge sentiment for that format, the more 5mans are still somewhat unique table size too.  

What I think might help is turning them into fast paced pkos. These attract people way more, and would help achieving better balance between recs and regs which is important for a site like Unibet. 25bb starting stack and 3-4min levs should be enough making them fun to play together with a chance of getting ~50% bounties. 

Of course additional trigger needed. Let’s pay only the first place and pull out the 2nd place prize to create leaderboards prizepool. Who scores the most booties daily/weekly/monthly will get mtt tickets generated by that. 

Separate leaderboards for 1-4€ and 10-25€ with adequate extra prizes. For instance at the lower level the daily top prize might be a 50€ Title Flight Tix. Any cent collected above that should go into the weekly prizepool with a Supernova tix on top. And so on, if anything has left, it goes into the montly leaderboards which awards the winner with a Supermoon tix. I’m sure the traffic can be good enough to cover at least one tix of each kind. Respectively, the prizes for 10-25Lbs might be 100€genTix/250€genTix/DSOpackage?

Splitting the leaderboards is important both giving a  shortterm chance to recs at all stakes, who only have time to play on given days, and baiting the regs with the monthly prizes to stimulate the traffic. Technically it's not even a promo, everyone should be entitled taking part in the leaderboards collecting the money from the buyins. I'm sure many people will like it and worth giving a shot. 😊

[Psycho79]

another/additional idea to mark the presence of the sngs in the lobby and make them more noticealble, is a longtime rejected idea of SNG SATS. Just Unibet open tree might be a good start. 5mans existing infrastructure would work perfectly with a 5x multiplier common in the Unibet sats. Just a few rakefree steps with one tix on top. 40cc>2€>10€>50€>250€ Final Tix. As mentioned above, Unibet is no charity, but no worries, rake in the Finals should be enough to make profits 😍 Why charge the microstakes players for chasing the dream of participating in a nice live event if you can flip the costs over the Highrollers 😅

These wouldn't certainly generate loss and i'm sure worth giving a trial period too.

They would also drag attention to the SNG lobby as mentioned and advertise both the new LBs SNGs and UO Live. 

[Andy-Relax]

35 minutes ago, Psycho79 said:

another/additional idea to mark the presence of the sngs in the lobby and make them more noticealble, is a longtime rejected idea of SNG SATS. Just Unibet open tree might be a good start. 5mans existing infrastructure would work perfectly with a 5x multiplier common in the Unibet sats. Just a few rakefree steps with one tix on top. 40cc>2€>10€>50€>250€ Final Tix. As mentioned above, Unibet is no charity, but no worries, rake in the Finals should be enough to make profits 😍 Why charge the microstakes players for chasing the dream of participating in a nice live event if you can flip the costs over the Highrollers 😅

These wouldn't certainly generate loss and i'm sure worth giving a trial period too.

They would also drag attention to the SNG lobby as mentioned and advertise both the new LBs SNGs and UO Live. 

For this one, you're suggesting turning what is already now a niche format, into an even more niche one. 

Rake in the €250s should be equal to or the lowest you can find on any regulated site and all the sub qualifiers are in the 4-5% range if I remember correctly.

[slothmandan]

8 hours ago, Stubbe-Unibet said:

You might not be aware, but we're not a charity. We are in fact a business; a business that wish to be profitable 🙂

I was the one to push for the period with rake free SNGs and leaderboards in the past, as well as rake reductions on for instance NL25. I'm not the enemy you seem to think I am 🙂

Lol fair enough, rubbish snarky response from me got the sarcastic reply it deserved, at least the forums are actually read by staff and not autobots!

FWIW I am new to your Poker site. If you are struggling for traffic on SNG's then I don't personally think your suggestions are enough of a change to encourage a step change in people playing them, except for potentially your new blind structure. My experience of your site is that when looking through the SNG's, the options are very limited - is there a reason why you only do one type of 5 person (and 2 to be fair) NLHE SNG's? Have you previously tried PLO, or NLHE PKO, or a variety of Regular/Turbo/Hyper tournaments? Or 9 person tables? Maybe too many options would mean not enough people signing up to any one tourney, but I believe some variety would be encouraging. 

Tbh - all of the recommendations from Psycho79 are really really good - PKO, SNG leaderboard's and SNG SAT's. If you could trial any of these I think that would be a great place to start.

Btw I like everything else you offer - the Alias' are fun, the table animations are hilarious, the look and options for the tables are also nice, and lack of HUD allowance is awesome. 

[Stubbe-Unibet]

8 hours ago, Psycho79 said:

Hey @Stubbe-Unibet

 

I haven’t played many 5mans lately and had no idea the traffic has been as poor. Might be a general trend for sngs as the sites focus more on their mtt offers these days. 
Some of them, like GG don’t have sngs in their offer at all. Nevertheless, it would be a shame losing them completely, I have a huge sentiment for that format, the more 5mans are still somewhat unique table size too.  

What I think might help is turning them into fast paced pkos. These attract people way more, and would help achieving better balance between recs and regs which is important for a site like Unibet. 25bb starting stack and 3-4min levs should be enough making them fun to play together with a chance of getting ~50% bounties. 

Of course additional trigger needed. Let’s pay only the first place and pull out the 2nd place prize to create leaderboards prizepool. Who scores the most booties daily/weekly/monthly will get mtt tickets generated by that. 

Separate leaderboards for 1-4€ and 10-25€ with adequate extra prizes. For instance at the lower level the daily top prize might be a 50€ Title Flight Tix. Any cent collected above that should go into the weekly prizepool with a Supernova tix on top. And so on, if anything has left, it goes into the montly leaderboards which awards the winner with a Supermoon tix. I’m sure the traffic can be good enough to cover at least one tix of each kind. Respectively, the prizes for 10-25Lbs might be 100€genTix/250€genTix/DSOpackage?

Splitting the leaderboards is important both giving a  shortterm chance to recs at all stakes, who only have time to play on given days, and baiting the regs with the monthly prizes to stimulate the traffic. Technically it's not even a promo, everyone should be entitled taking part in the leaderboards collecting the money from the buyins. I'm sure many people will like it and worth giving a shot. 😊

It's not so much that the 5 seats have seen a huge drop last year. The most significant drop obviously came around the introduction of HexaPro, but it's been a slow and steady decline ever since (while the product has grown significantly). 

• Fast paced PKO's. In my opinion, this is much better-suited as a HexaPro variant. We have discussed such a game in the past, and even though there're no immediate plans to add it, it's definitely one of the more likely candidates for the future.
• Leaderboard. If we ignore the technical complexities, I'd love to try something like this. Unfortunately I believe we've realistically got little to gain from such an initiative while the work isn't insignificant. I'd also believe that if we put more effort into the format than changing blind structure and starting stack (little dev work), it has to be something that has a decent shot at being relevant even in 3-4 years; it has to be casual player friendly mechanics and mobile first (leaderboards are the opposite). 

Keep in mind that even if the current traffic isn't great, we have got players that really seem to like these more traditional (or old-fashioned) SNG's, and I think there could be a compromise where we don't turn it into 20bb hypers or PKO's. They might die eventually anyway, but it should at least help, if we take steps like suggested in OP.

[Stubbe-Unibet]

4 hours ago, slothmandan said:

Lol fair enough, rubbish snarky response from me got the sarcastic reply it deserved, at least the forums are actually read by staff and not autobots!

FWIW I am new to your Poker site. If you are struggling for traffic on SNG's then I don't personally think your suggestions are enough of a change to encourage a step change in people playing them, except for potentially your new blind structure. My experience of your site is that when looking through the SNG's, the options are very limited - is there a reason why you only do one type of 5 person (and 2 to be fair) NLHE SNG's? Have you previously tried PLO, or NLHE PKO, or a variety of Regular/Turbo/Hyper tournaments? Or 9 person tables? Maybe too many options would mean not enough people signing up to any one tourney, but I believe some variety would be encouraging. 

Tbh - all of the recommendations from Psycho79 are really really good - PKO, SNG leaderboard's and SNG SAT's. If you could trial any of these I think that would be a great place to start.

Btw I like everything else you offer - the Alias' are fun, the table animations are hilarious, the look and options for the tables are also nice, and lack of HUD allowance is awesome. 

PLO SNG's we simply don't have the traffic for at the moment (see PLO MTT's). 9 seat SNG's face a similar problem, but 9 seats are also generally a dying format I don't believe you'll see anywhere in 3-5 years (we're considering making all 9 handed MTT's 8).
Ultimately, offering too many different games will be negative for every game format.

And don't worry; no AI taking over this platform anytime soon - you're stuck with me 🙂 

[SShcherbyna]

15 minutes ago, Stubbe-Unibet said:

it has to be casual player friendly mechanics and mobile first (leaderboards are the opposite)

Do the leaderboard and "mobile friendly format" interfere with each other? These two things can coexist well. Of course, the "friendly mobile format" should be a priority, but a parallel fight among grinders will not prevent recs from playing several tournaments while riding the subway.

Edited August 24, 2023 by SShcherbyna

[Psycho79]

@Stubbe-Unibet

I agree with @SShcherbyna Don't think the two options exclude themselves. Pacing up the action and adding booties would actually make them more friendly cause it's taking away a part of the regs edge and distribute prizepools more randomly, works in recs favour, at least I think this way 😀 Same factors stimulate popularity of Hexas or don't they? 😅

Also the bounty "counter" works well every month within the missions and I'm certain there was a similar mtt bounty competition back in 2017 already...Don't think it would be a technical issue. 

Any other from that I'm also a fan of the classic 5mans and used to play them a lot in the past. Was just my suggestions to help, I love Unibet and you can use some of these ideas or not, I just don't believe only changing the structures is gonna save the games. 

Have a nice day!

[Psycho79]

@Andy-Relax

I think we can agree the whole site is a niche, that's why we are here 😇 going that path you can say every game here is also a niche. 

My suggestion was actually turning the 5mans into pkos, the step sats was just a side idea. You don't like it, I understand. Thought raking the last step a bit more is possible but you know all the regulations, won't quarrel with that. Still think would be a well working model though.

Have a nice day!

[Andy-Relax]

12 minutes ago, Psycho79 said:

@Andy-Relax

I think we can agree the whole site is a niche, that's why we are here 😇 going that path you can say every game here is also a niche. 

My suggestion was actually turning the 5mans into pkos, the step sats was just a side idea. You don't like it, I understand. Thought raking the last step a bit more is possible but you know all the regulations, won't quarrel with that. Still think would be a well working model though.

Have a nice day!

No regulatory issues with changing the rake but why would we want to punish the players that play the regular sats with a higher raked final just to create a new qualification path (that would also take liquidity from the regular qualifiers and reduce rake paid overall) that is rake free and in a format that is dying? 

There are examples of spins not working as qualification routes as even during COOPs, the time it takes to get one of those games going is much longer than reg games and outside of the big liquidity pools, it takes even longer. You're taking a small and dying pool of players that like SNGs and then eliminating x% of that pool by isolating it to specifically live qualification. Niche on niche 🙂

I agree with you that just a structure change isn't really going to do anything but I also agree with Stubbe that making them PKOs is not going to save them either. If you've ever played a Battle Royale on GG you'll know how depressing the reward is for winning one of them, and there are 50 players in those. Maybe as KO they'd work but they don't seem that popular on stars as 18 mans or whatever they are even after Stars doing a big push at launch.

Spins killed the SnG. Anything at this point is putting a plaster on an axe wound.

[Wizard]

FWIW I started out in poker playing 6-max SNGs / HUSNGs and transitioned to  6-max cash, in part because it was clear that there wasn't going to be long term progression within SNGs. I'm not talking specifically about Unibet, this is just what is happening in the industry.

WRT the proposed changes:
1) Maybe some MTT regs flick in a 5 player SNG sometimes???
2) Love it. IMO 5 seat SNGs and all MTTs should have antes in play from the start. It makes for more meaningful play from hand 1 and encourages action. Nits are punished and loose action players (LAG regs or recs) are rewarded. I actually like the idea of a cash game with antes as a daily special. Call it Ante-Hero Afternoons?
3) Sure why not.

I don't think any of this matters much though, as Andy said jackpot SNGs killed single table SNGs (be it HU, 5max 6max 9max whatever).

Every poker site has pushed jackpot SNGs very hard in advertising and promos, rec players like the jackpots and all the regs just follow the recs. This comes at the expense of SNG volume.

It is also very hard for Unibet to push against the industry wide movement, for example there is virtually nobody streaming or making content about SNGs, its all cash or MTTs (MTTs being very popular on twitch).

If someone asked me 'I want to make it in poker, what format should I play' i would tell them to avoid sngs because there is no ecosystem above nanostakes, learn either cash or comps because those run at every stake.

There is also a kind of economy of scale in terms of liquidity. Rec players do not want to wait around for a game to start, they want to click 'register' and be immediately playing hands. So if volume is lower in SNGs they just go play Hexas / cash that will snap run, meaning volume is even lower in SNGs, so people have to wait longer for a game, so they play Hexas / cash.

HUSNGs are a bit different because you only need 2 players for it to run and you will get regs just waiting for a game so I see those having much more of a future.

TLDR: SNGs are dead, long live Hexapros.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by Wizard

[Wizard]

FWIW I can't see SNG satties being a thing, agree w Andy there's no way these run.

[Psycho79]

@Andy-Relax@Stubbe-Unibet

You're asking the community for the feedback about the SNGs and then doing everything to prove how I am wrong about my suggestions. Looks like a waste of time and energy. I've always been enthusiastic about coming up with ideas but I'm not really emotional about whether you use them or not, don't need any justification against those. Do whatever you gotta do, if it means getting rid of the 5mans from the offer I will be sad but cannot do anything about it. But why this thread then?

Yes actually I play the Battle Royals sometimes. In fact, the top prize is 10-13buyins total with the booties, which is ~30% prizepool collected from 30players. Very similar to 45mans on Stars actually. Wouldn't call that depressing, rather standard. They also have leaderboards for these, every stake separately. I know they have different possibilities but not scared to try out things, sometimes it works. If you think the format is dying maybe it's time to come up with something new****

Yes, Stars had to make many of their SNGs "on demands", even them suffer the lowering liquidity, maybe would be a solution here as well, but....I know

Last suggestion: *** use popularity of Banzai. 10bbs SNG, all in or fold or not, whatever, something somewhat refreshed. Just the Banzai shout. No booties, no LBs, might be simple enough....

Best of Luck!!!

[Andy-Relax]

So you don't want us to explain why suggestions don't make sense and were not part of the original options Stubbe posted for feedback on and just ignore them instead?

Not sure what Battle Royales you're playing but 1st/2nd are getting about 3.5x the buy-in and the winner was getting roughly another 4.5x maybe in bounties. Admittedly I only looked at 1 $1 and 1 $10 so #samplesize but 13x sounds like a stretch unless you're running really pure on bounties.

[Psycho79]

[Andy-Relax]

Those cheeky monkeys not showing the full bounty until it's over. I only looked at it HU, apologies.

[Stubbe-Unibet]

53 minutes ago, Psycho79 said:

@Andy-Relax@Stubbe-Unibet

You're asking the community for the feedback about the SNGs and then doing everything to prove how I am wrong about my suggestions. Looks like a waste of time and energy. I've always been enthusiastic about coming up with ideas but I'm not really emotional about whether you use them or not, don't need any justification against those. Do whatever you gotta do, if it means getting rid of the 5mans from the offer I will be sad but cannot do anything about it. But why this thread then?

Yes actually I play the Battle Royals sometimes. In fact, the top prize is 10-13buyins total with the booties, which is ~30% prizepool collected from 30players. Very similar to 45mans on Stars actually. Wouldn't call that depressing, rather standard. They also have leaderboards for these, every stake separately. I know they have different possibilities but not scared to try out things, sometimes it works. If you think the format is dying maybe it's time to come up with something new****

Yes, Stars had to make many of their SNGs "on demands", even them suffer the lowering liquidity, maybe would be a solution here as well, but....I know

Last suggestion: *** use popularity of Banzai. 10bbs SNG, all in or fold or not, whatever, something somewhat refreshed. Just the Banzai shout. No booties, no LBs, might be simple enough....

Best of Luck!!!

@Psycho79, sorry you feel that way, but don't think I shot down your suggestions at all, and of course appreciate all feedback!

I do stand by what I said though: bounties in SNG's would make a lot more sense for a HexaPro style game (so it'd be mystery bounty) than as a replacement for the most traditional and old-fashioned game we're offering. So rather than see this as me shitting on the idea, I think the takeaway should be that I have similar thoughts about bounties in a SNG format, albeit a very different SNG format 🙂

My point with the leaderboards - it was late and maybe I wasn't very clear - was simply that it is a reg mechanic. I don't mind a leaderboard, we do them all the time, but one thing is a leaderboard as added value, another is consistently charging additional rake for such a leaderboard that'd only benefit the regs. I do not believe this goes hand in hand with a mobile-first and casual friendly game.