Wizard

Thats 3/3.

Many thanks for running the promo, GL to all in the freeroll!

Pls Update with some background @MaxSang, curious on what your situation is and how you came up with this goal.

Best of luck, seems impossible but maybe I'm just too casual hahahaha.

@xRunningGood Level 1 of the 'achievements' in gamelab.

What do you expect that to look like in terms of hours per week, and number of tables played?

@BillyR23 Thats a good point, the way tables break resetting everything from scratch creates potential for mega tilt if your tables keep breaking when you 2/3 of the way there.

Happy New Year Degens.

Best of luck in 2023, hope to see some of you jokers at a Unibet Live event.

Thanks Andy!

There are 2 Events in Malta in Early 2023,

1) 'The Malta Poker Festival' (April 24 - May 1) themaltapokerfestival.com

2) 'The Festival Series' (May 15-21) thefestival.com/save-the-dates-the-festival-comes-to-malta-may-15-21

Is Unibet doing anything with regards to these events eg. satellites / packages etc.

I realise there might not be an official decision yet but I enjoy planning trips well in advance and my +1 will need some notice to get time off work.

Merry Xmas Everyone!

I have also noticed 400NL pool having 40 entries while 200NL has 6, this happens quite a lot.

Its complicated but I think its caused by a few issues:

1) Bootcamps tend to split the games between 100NL and below, and 200NL+. This means that all the regs who play a mix of 50NL, 100NL and 200NL may well quit all their 200NL volume in favour of lower stakes. The 200NL and 400NL regs just play 400 to max out leaderboard points in the higher leaderboard. So nobody plays 200NL. As someone who likes playing 100NL and 200NL this is extremely frustrating because the bootcamps incentivise dropping the 200NL games for 50NL games which is kind of nuts given the site rakes a lot more at higher stakes.

2) The highest stakes are kind of the far end of the bell curve, so include everyone who wants to play 400NL plus everyone who wants to play 500NL, 600NL, 800NL, 1KNL etc.

3) A lot of the 400NL regs are grinding for huge rewards and want to just max out volume at the highest stakes, they dont want to play lower and get less in rewards.

4) Effective rake at 400NL is lower (in BB/100) which means people are more willing to battle shorthanded, plus I think the 400 regs tend to be more willing to battle each other. I think a lot of the regs in the 200NL games are taking a shot and normally play 50NL or 100NL so they are incredibly quick to leave the moment they think the game is no longer good.

I think when it was scrapped the explanation was that it was an ecosystem issue (ie the recs were getting stacked incredibly fast and almost all the net deposits at 800nl were being won by regs, with very little raked).

It is much MUCH better for the site for a rec player with 800 euros to go have 2 BIs for 400NL or 4 BIs for 200NL, it will take them massively longer (on average) to go broke and they will pay vastly more rake in the process.

Is Banzai supposed to have disappeared from the client?

It just disappeared as an option my my poker client but I can still see it on my phone.

I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong, having a technical issue or if this is a deliberate change.

1) I'm really glad Banzai 2.0 is humming with lots of players in the mix, that's great for players and Unibet.

I was definitely very wary WRT the changes and the impact on the games but I would love to be proved wrong 🙂 Undoubtedly the games will be bigger and better with the casino brands entering the market as well.

2) Regarding the suggestion from @Panamera to have a kind of private game for the people putting in the most volume / running up the largest stacks: This sounds great but in practice the very high volume players are probably not hyped to play 10x their normal stakes vs the 4 other very high volume players. To use the party analogy, this is like organising a separate after-party with 'no girls allowed'. Not really what guys are looking for.

3) I like the idea of a leaderboard / promo for most hands as Sensei, great idea. IMO it should definitely be based on hands not time, if you base it on time you punish playing shorthanded and you encourage people to just tank every single decision which is garbage for the game.

4) @Stubbe-Unibet Congrats on the kid. They say 'nothing prepares you for parenthood' but I think you must have gained a lot of experience here refuting conspiracy theories, dealing with tantrums and teaching preschool level mathematics xD.

IDK if this is deliberate but all the 'health bars' above the avatars that will display the equity dont seem to be working. They just display no health on all the allins.

Edit by mod: moved to release notes thread to have all feedback on one place. 

First off I want to say thanks for the free ticket giveaway, these are always much appreciated.

1) The Banzai lobby is gorgeous, I really like the  retro arcade art style. It is also extremely functional showing the top stacks, giant play button and game lab.
This is a big improvement. I would imagine that better visibility in the global lobby showing banzai in the header may pull in more players esp casual ones. The table theme on B1 is gorgeous, B20 is ok and the B5 one I think is a bit jarring.

2) I am ambivalent about playing 5 handed vs 6 handed, I don't think its a big deal either way.

3) The change to remove SNs and give people random names is not something I'm a fan of. The current system worked, was universal and I saw zero complaints about it. The B 2.0 system seems very clinical and kind of breaks the 'biggest pots' replayers and leaderboards. IMO the pool of SNs is also bit small atm and could do with an expansion (I made a comment with some suggestions in the other B2.0 thread if this is the route B2.0 goes down).

4) Levelling up your character is very different, its something I am used to doing in games like Assassins Creed or Fortnite, not gambling games. Personally there is a big divide in my head between gambling games involving real money and other games played for 100% entertainment. If I play Fortnite I'm playing for fun, its super casual and winning a new skin is a reward.
If I am in a poker game I'm just trying to win and I'm not bothered about levelling up an avatar or having a special avatar for eg. winning a random donkament.
There will be players (especially 'for profit' players but also some rec players) who don't care for anything other than $ won/lost.
That said I realise that some people will be excited to level up their character and become sensei, if you play poker purely for fun then maybe the avatars are a more meaningful.
I would suggest having something in monetary terms for being the sensei and maintaining your position over x hands. eg. a leaderboard, bonus points, cash, entry into a flip tournament for banzai tickets etc.
You definitely don't need to give away a whole UO package or anything but I think achieving sensei feels somewhat anti-climactic (debatably pointless) without some kind of 'real' reward beyond the avatar.

5) I think the option to rathole has the potential to be game breaking, there is a reason why you are not allowed to do this in any game online, on poker apps, in casinos or home games:
It is extremely frustrating to lose a large pot to someone who then ratholes so you have no chance to win it all back. The format encourages action and trying to spin up a stack, ratholing defeats this. The rake increase means its tough to push any kind of edge off 10bb so if people rathole down then the game becomes almost impossible to win in. Players might (not unreasonably) think that 10bb is a bingo-esque rake trap but that 20bb+ becomes a bit more 'real' poker and is beatable. My most memorable experiences of banzai (good and bad) are when I was playing a long mad session where multiple players spun it up and we played huge pots wtih a wide variety of holdings. This won't happen if people rathole. To look at it in another way, can you imagine playing in a live unibet event and someone wins a fat pot and just scoops most of the chips into their pocket, then the dealer says this is completely fine?

6) The 90 second limit to sit out is very very quick. I agree 8 minutes (or whatever it is in 100bb) is too long for Banzai 2.0 but its now almost impossible to answer the door, go to the bathroom, get a drink / snack etc. What I might do is have a timer with a cooldown eg. you can take a 3 minute break but then for the next 30 minutes only 90 seconds or something. You dont want someone taking 3 minute breaks every other orbit but you also should be able to play a 4h session with a bathroom break in the middle. This is a particular issue when you could stand briefly, sit down again but be sat on another table and have stacks reset.

7) I am massively less inclined to start games shorthanded and play when games are breaking (ESPECIALLY when we 10bb deep) due to the higher rake. With the previous rake I was ok with starting games including vs regs because I wanted the game to fill and the rake wasn't a huge deal, now I think I'm just burning and I should wait for the game to fill up and have deeper stacks before sitting. This is much more of an issue at off peak times at B20+ because you have to have regs starting games / maintaining games shorthanded otherwise not much runs outside peak hours.

8 ) The thunderclap / game shaking event for big pots is incredibly over the top, I kinda like it though. The fact it doesn't go off too often is really important, this would drive me insane if it was every hand. Every once in a while is good. 

9) The 'Heaviest Hits' of big wins is great, love it. Its really good for advertising the game, especially that it shows every individual player's biggest wins. You gotta celebrate everyone's wins, especially for rec players who are net depositors. 10/10.

10) I have played nowhere near enough volume to make a statement about how good the games are, seen a couple of very optimistic plays and also had a few stretches where the games seemed a bit dead / reggy. So basically standard banzai. The state of the games might fluctuate a lot as its a new game and there will be changes due to mobile users coming back, casino brand pop. entering the pool, promotions, different people playing over Xmas / NYE, previous banzai players playing more / less etc. I think its very likely the games are better for the next month or so (games tend to be quite good around Xmas / NY anyway) , not sure about long term. The nature of the promotions will impact the state of the games a lot, especially at the higher stakes (I will come back to this in a comment another time).

11) Not sure what impact no table cap will have, makes more sense with 5-max tables not 6-max.

Overall I'm kind of reserving final judgement to see what happens wrt the promotions and the state of the games long term. 

Thanks again for the free tickets, I hope at least some of this is helpful.

Best of luck at the tables everyone.

Some great/terrible names for the pool off the top of my head:

MuhamedAllin

CheckNorris

JackieJam

DonkeyYen

JoseAllin

TiltoOrtiz

JamesScary

SugarRaise

TonyJaam

PennyMcLean

AndrewRumble

IkeSmackston

StanleyChoke

FeelIvey

GazzyBeats

DodgePoke

VickiFloorem

LooseyLiu

NitolaAdams

AndreaLead

AlexFloatez

Im in

A few thoughts on the release and other things:

1) Changing the gamelab so the biggest pots no longer feature hands where someone 4b jams 600bb and everyone folds is a big improvement. 

2) The graphics on the Banzai 2.0 game are cool but I think they would be quite intense while multitabling. Can I request that there is an option to have more plain backgrounds avaliable? Four tables of banzai each with Bruce Lee in the dojo might be a bit much for me.

3) 'Squeezing / Peeling' the second hole card I don't really get. Its not really a sweat peeling a hole card vs say peeling the river when you are all-in. 

4) I assume that the promotions will mean rising up the banzai ranks to become 'Sensei' has some kind of monteary reward beyond the avatar / bragging rights?

5) It would be great to have some emoji to communicate to other players with messages such as:

i) 'I'm going on a short break and will return' To let people know you aren't sitting out for 8 minutes then just leaving. This is an issue in offpeak times when its not clear when someone sits out if they are done for the night or just having a break for the bathroom / to get a drink / let the cat in.

ii) 'Open another table?' (this might have to be on a cooldown to prevent people spamming it vs recs).

iii) 'GG'

6) I don't understand why regular SNs are removed in banzai, is this to do with the alt casino brands not having a mechanism to pick SNs?

7) With regards to the casino brands launch mission and the weekly missions for casino brands: Are these for Unibet players or casino brand players?

If its just for casino brand players then this is an odd advert, though tbf if it fills the tables with rec players from the casino brands then it would be GREAT.

Much love to the dev team gremlins and happy xmas everyone.

Think its 50/50, either you win or you don't.

I like it.

Its not based on hands, its based on rake.

Its also a binary option in that you either rake the 800 within 2 weeks and get the reward, or you dont rake the 800 and get nothing.

Stubbe thinks the 2s and 5s will run at negative rake in the 15 min intervals that guarantee a 125x multiplier. This is despite 2 and 5 hexas having very high volume.

If you start running 100s (where volume is already tiny) then you might get hardly any games running and it ends up being a massive 'overlay' in the sense that the games in that 15 min period will rake nowhere near enough to cover the 12,500 euro prizepool in the big multiplier. 

Unibet is not gonna design a situation where 12 games run at the 100Euro Hexas in 15 mins and the site loses like 10K Euros from paying out a 12500 Euro prizepool for the 125x multiplier while barely taking any rake in the period. Obviously we get overlay sometimes (a site that never has overlay is burning money in not making more ambitious guarantees / promotions) but it doesn't make sense to set up a situation where a couple of the higher stakes regs just get giving 10k for putting in 15 minutes worth of volume.

IMO Hexa extremes only make sense at the lowest levels where there is sufficient volume to run the jackpot promo, sufficient volume to split the pool (between regular hexas and extremes) and its very casual so nobody really gives a fuck about how 'beatable' the format might be wrt the amount of play you get at 10bb vs the rake.

Thanks Andy,

I will be incredibly specific in future emails.

Every month I request a copy of my poker data. Unibet does not permit players to utilise HUDs / hand catchers / tracking software so this the only way for players to track results.
I really appreciate the time spent sending me this data.

Unfortunately, I have regularly encountered issues with the data received, including:

1) Duplicated results eg. The results for 25nl are identical to the results for 50nl, which means at least one of them is wrong.

2) Files are password protected and I have to phone / chat with support to get the password.
I then have to spend 15 minutes on the phone / use online chat to find out the password, which sometimes means running into a CS rep who has no clue what is going on or who initially gives me the wrong password. This seems to happen almost at random, I have requested that I just get sent the files with no password and was told that this isn't possible, but the majority of the time it is not password protected. 

3) Cash game results presented in aggregate, so no ability to look at individual games / stakes / days. 

4) Certain stakes are completely omitted.

5) Stakes combined incorrectly eg. 50NL and 50 Banzai combined into a single stake, or all Banzai combined into a single game.

6) No title on some pages so I can't work out if a file is covering MTTs or SNGs.

7) Only cash game results are shown with no info on hexapros, sngs, mtts...

There have also been issues where I received incorrect data, I emailed for a second time, received the data a second time and it had the same exact issue that I just requested help with.

To make it super clear, I'm asking for all the data for my play in a given month, including all the specific data for every single individual stake:

eg. Cash games: 50NL, 100NL, 200NL, 400NL, B20, B50, 50PLO, 100PLO, 200PLO.

So for 50NL I can see hands played, flops seen, rake paid, profit/loss. 

Then for 100NL I can see hands played, flops seen, rake paid, profit/loss. 

And so on for every stake. 

I don't play as many tournaments / hexapros / sngs but I would like the data for that as well.

Some months the data comes through perfectly the first time, which is amazing. 

I just received monthly data which was missing the majority of the data I was looking for. It had 50NL, 100NL, 200NL, 400NL but no PLO, banzai, sngs, hexapros, mtts etc.

I imagine many high stakes / high volume players are asking for similar data so I'm not sure if everyone else has the same issues or if I'm not asking the right question when I request data. Maybe its pure luck which CS rep gets it and some are unfamiliar with the request.

I really appreciate the help and I once again I want to thank Unibet for spending the time sending poker data.

Cheers

Wizard.