Will the 5 seat SNG's survive?

[jon666]

On 8/23/2023 at 8:21 PM, FreedoM said:

+1 

+1

[mugmaster200]

Id play these a lot more if they had a break at 55mins past the hour 

[Nutmeg]

I do not know what happened with SnG but in the old days, when I tested 9-10-handed, I was mainly playing SnG where I had enough chips and good enough tournament structure to start with for example with 100BB and 10-minute levels. I never liked 50BB to start with or too fast levels. The lower amount of players is fine if you struggle with the player base (6-8), the only issue for me is the structure, starting stack size, and reasonable rake fees, so we can more than break even and move up in stakes.

It is the same problem with MTTs, I find them quite expensive to enter. I am looking for example at guaranteed freezeouts (so we all have the same chance, I do not like multiple re-entries): like 10k guaranteed $10 buy-in or 50k for $15, 100k for $20 buy-in....

Have a good day

[Andy-Relax]

Sounds like you're looking for the year 2006 🤠

[Nutmeg]

Maybe. 🙂 100-300 player-capped MTTs with good structure would be great as well.

[jon666]

On 8/28/2023 at 1:51 AM, mugmaster200 said:

Id play these a lot more if they had a break at 55mins past the hour 

yep, it will be great change also for me .

I would like to add one thing - at least 4-5 minutes  level structure than current 3 minutes.

[Stubbe-Unibet]

On 8/31/2023 at 1:43 PM, Nutmeg said:

I do not know what happened with SnG but in the old days, when I tested 9-10-handed, I was mainly playing SnG where I had enough chips and good enough tournament structure to start with for example with 100BB and 10-minute levels. I never liked 50BB to start with or too fast levels. The lower amount of players is fine if you struggle with the player base (6-8), the only issue for me is the structure, starting stack size, and reasonable rake fees, so we can more than break even and move up in stakes.

It is the same problem with MTTs, I find them quite expensive to enter. I am looking for example at guaranteed freezeouts (so we all have the same chance, I do not like multiple re-entries): like 10k guaranteed $10 buy-in or 50k for $15, 100k for $20 buy-in....

Have a good day

@Nutmeg, you're exactly the reason I'd rather not turn the 5 handed SNG's into something super fast or a bounty format, but rather try and find a compromise.

Unfortunately, there're few left of you: the type of player that like the current format, slow formats in general or freezeouts. Less and less traffic is from desktop client. More and more traffic is from mobile. More and more traffic is from browser client. Sessions are becoming shorter. The current format is too slow and making it even slower would be the fastest way to kill it.
Will the changes proposed in OP save it? No, likely not. But it could help extend its life a great deal.

All this being said, it's not impossible we'll end up doing something like @Psycho79 and @SShcherbyna suggested earlier. I'm looking at specifications for a mystery bounty 5 handed SNG format, but it's idea stage at the moment and would be part of a rather radical change (for some) - it's unlikely to happen, so no reason to worry just yet 🙂 

1 hour ago, jon666 said:

yep, it will be great change also for me .

I would like to add one thing - at least 4-5 minutes  level structure than current 3 minutes.

Making the games slower is not on the table I'm afraid; for the reasons mentioned above

[FreedoM]

On 8/23/2023 at 3:55 PM, 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

@Stubbe-Unibet  So has anything been decided about applying all three options, and what's the chance of this happening in the next update?

[Caladrias]

As a player who built his initial bankroll specifically in these games, I would be very sad to see them go. As you know, I still am a big fan of the format even to this day, although I haven't had as much time to play poker over the last year as I used to have before. Pretty surprised though to see this topic title, I've fired up quite some 5-mans over the last two months and traffic seemed better than it used to be at some points in time. I see the €25s run decently well some evenings whereas they used to be close to dead for a while, and the €10s have traffic every evening. I would know because I'm in there again 🙂. Granted, probably a lot of the same players in all of them, these games always have depended a lot on regs in order to start.

With regard to the proposed changes, the 5 minute break every hour is probably the one that's highly needed. Not having this currently prevents many MTT players from firing up some of these on the side I'm pretty sure. When I decide to play an mtt session, I also like to fill up with sngs later in the evening when I start busting tables. I'll often only do so in the first half of the hour though, as I know I prevent myself from ever having a break otherwise. I'd imagine quite some other players feel the same, of which many won't even bother to fire up any at all due to this.

I don't see the other two proposals make any impact on the traffic in the games honestly, but also am not opposed to these. Antes from the start would definitely feel better, more in line with the current age of poker. 50bb or 66b starting stack doesn't matter much. The money in these games is won on the bubble when average stack is 10bb. The action early on is just about some coolers between regs on the one hand and about recs punting it off where they shouldn't on the other hand, until bubble play starts.

Finally, I'd like to plea for these games to keep existing. As said, these allowed me to move up in stakes when I discovered poker. They are very learnable (both theoretically and intuitively), low variance compared to mtts/spins and only take about 30 minutes. A rare and valuable combination in poker games these days I would say. It's why I still love to only play this format when there's a period where I don't have a huge amount to play poker. They allow for a small two hour session to be played and still end up with a nice little profit the majority of the time, for people who aren't a fan of cash games. I honestly often think of these vanilla sngs as the equivalent of cash games for people who like to have some ICM fun 😅. And even though they are very learnable, I still see regulars who play these games every single day make incredible mistakes during bubble play. This is exactly what leaves the door open for players to put some effort into learning even just a little bit about these games and quickly become a winning player in them to build up a small starting bankroll. It's very damn hard to do this in mtts or spins as a beginning player, without being put off by the long losing streaks that are inherent to these formats. 

Hope to never see these games disappear, and I'll try to fire up some extra whenever I can to help their cause, having seen this topic about the current doubts around them 😉. Looking forward to see what changes you'll decide on.

[Stubbe-Unibet]

Appreciate all the feedback 🙂 Will do a small investigation internally and see how much effort each of the changes is. My assumption is the break won't be easy, while the two other changes are likely straight-forward.

19 hours ago, FreedoM said:

@Stubbe-Unibet  So has anything been decided about applying all three options, and what's the chance of this happening in the next update?

Depending on work required, my plan is to implement all three changes suggested in OP 🙂 

[jon666]

hi Stubbe,

what is a probable date to implement these changes ?

 

[Stubbe-Unibet]

On 10/25/2023 at 12:11 PM, jon666 said:

hi Stubbe,

what is a probable date to implement these changes ?

Probably Q1, but can't say for sure. Would like the changes to be introduced in same release

[4MinMiler]

I'm kinda with @Caladrias and @Nutmeg here. I like the SNG format and feel likes it is a great way to build a bankroll. I'll like that it is 5 man and i like the relatively slow structure. I can understand what you're saying though about mobile and shorter sessions, that also rings true to me and might be part of the reason that I play less of them now, as I play more cash these days. Good luck with whatever changes you make, but personally make them a hyper turbo isn't the answer because you have hexapro for that format.

[NewPlayer69]

The 5 man SnGs are perfect the way they are I don't understand how you are chosing to make adjustments. Just because something is less popular than something else doesn't mean there isn't anything wrong with it. 

I can still find 5 man SnGs any time of day I want. I play them from time to time but won't plan to if that new structure is introduced, might still play if starting chips is reduced to 1500 but seriously I don't understand the problem.

Break idea is OK.

Edited October 31, 2023 by NewPlayer69

[Stubbe-Unibet]

1 hour ago, NewPlayer69 said:

The 5 man SnGs are perfect the way they are I don't understand how you are chosing to make adjustments. Just because something is less popular than something else doesn't mean there isn't anything wrong with it. 

I can still find 5 man SnGs any time of day I want. I play them from time to time but won't plan to if that new structure is introduced, might still play if starting chips is reduced to 1500 but seriously I don't understand the problem.

Break idea is OK.

@NewPlayer69, if you read the thread, it should all be explained 🙂 It's not about the popularity relative to HexaPro

[FaiDeaEmo]

I would also prefer if the 5man sitngo`s would remain the way they are and adding the break same time as tournament break would not be a major downside .. but other changes ? can`t know until we test the waters i guess ... Just feel like by not having them at all It would be a major downgrade to what the site is offering as a whole.. we got what? cash which is everywhere and most popular format after tournaments or more popular?, tournaments and two fast game formats which attract short term gamblers, hexapro and banzai , and ofcourse the middleground between all this are those sit and go`s which arent slow like cash or mtts but not hyperfast either .. its just the middleground between all your games you can play on unibet.. I suggest u keep that middleground one way ore the other.. with small changes that u think would help and if they don`t maybe just change back after some time to how it was.

[NewPlayer69]

If you have to make them faster aim for the bare minimum changes, so do the 1500 chips change. I don't want antes from start!

 

[Leroism]

Don't make them faster, everything has to be fast nowadays. Most of the time I dont have time to go sit dedicated for 3+ hours for tournaments, so these are excellent for that.

Only big (huge?) oversight is that they dont have synched breaks with tournaments. This has an extremely adverse effect in my opinion. I can only speak for personal experience, but when I have only 2 tournaments left that do not seem to be going broke any time soon. adding some of these sitngo's would be the obvious choice for me. But now I do not want to because they would force me to sit out if I want to use my break time for, you know, an actual break.

 

As a big multitable sng grinder back in the day it hurts me seeing SNG die though. Now tournaments have become the new SnG I guess with such small fields.

Hexapro is nice to grind but lacks depth because of the shallow stack sizes of course.

[Leroism]

On 8/31/2023 at 3:32 PM, Nutmeg said:

Maybe. 🙂 100-300 player-capped MTTs with good structure would be great as well.

Capping MTT's is kinda of silly imo. 

Something I would play more personally ( but Im not sure if its the answer) if you would make it a 2/3/4 table SNG. But I am afraid there is no traffic for that. But maybe a good promotion can get that kickstarted, but you guys are the experts in that I suppose. 

There is just no money in these 5 player things to appeal to people.