PokerStars has launched a multi-table tournament (MTT) format for its novelty games! The biggest online poker website in the world is now displaying a few novelty game variants in the tourney lobby so its players can have a crack at them.
The move does not come as a big surprise as Severin Rasset, PokerStars’ Director of Poker Innovation and Operations indicated last year that the poker room would consider introducing novelty games in multi-table tournament format on account of player feedback.
As early as two months ago, the tournament lobby of the world’s largest online poker site started to display a novelty game option but nothing was loaded.
List Of Novelty Games Introduced
In the highly competitive online poker industry, operators are consistently looking for ways to keep the interest and excitement of players and to grow and expand their player base. Coming out with new games every now and then proves to be an effective strategy as players often become thrilled and enthusiastic when something new is on offer. But the challenge for online poker rooms is developing new variants that will have the right amount of appeal and staying power to enable it to last for the long term.
PokerStars has experimented with the novelty game concept in 2018 to see what works and does not work with its global player base. In March 2018, the company introduced a set of new cash games for its players. It began with Split Hold’em, followed by Showtime Hold’em in May and then Unfold in August. By November there was Fusion, with the most recent addition being 6+ Hold’em which was introduced in January 2019.
While a lot of players would have wanted these games to remain in the lobby for good, they were intentionally designed to be temporary, except for 6+ Hold’em which looks set to become a permanent fixture. PokerStars’ decision not to offer the games all at once was understandable, as the player base would only get divided if all of the new games existed simultaneously.
Today, players can enjoy three of the novelty games in MTT format.
Novelty Game MTTs Now Available
PokerStars began introducing its novelty game tournaments last week. Fusion, Showtime Hold’em and 6+ Hold-em can now be played as tournaments with turbo or hyper-turbo blind levels; entry fees are affordable too, ranging from $1.10 to $11.
The $1.10 tournaments have a corresponding guaranteed prize pool of $100; $500 for the $5.50 buy-in, while $800 in guarantees is up for grabs for the $11 buy-in. Another game shown in the tourney filters but not available to play yet is Showtime Omaha.
Let’s take a quick look at each of the novelty game tournaments currently available at PokerStars.
Showtime Hold’em
Showtime Hold’em is played in similar fashion to the popular game of Texas Hold’em but with one dramatic twist: all folded cards are turned face-up for everyone to see for the duration of the hand. As a result, each player has access to more information, giving them a chance to develop deeper strategies as they play.
Fusion
The game of Fusion combines elements of two different games: Hold’em and Omaha. Players begin with two hole cards like in Texas Hold’em, but after the flop, each player will receive more cards, until the game transforms into Omaha with four hole cards dealt for everyone. For your final hand, you will use three cards from the board and two from your hand. Betting rounds are essentially the same, and the player with the best Omaha hand wins the game.
6+ Hold’em
This is PokerStars’ own version of the increasingly popular Short Deck poker variant. While the game is played much like Texas Hold’em, there are a few major differences: All deuces to fives are removed from the deck leaving just 36 cards. Only the button posts a blind, while everyone posts an ante (referred to as “button blind”). Card rankings also differ: a flush ranks higher than a full house and three-of-a-kind beats a straight. If you’re in for an action-packed game, then this one’s for you.
About 17 novelty game tourneys are scheduled for each day. Based on stats from July 1, two tournaments have already been completed as displayed in the lobby. The tournaments are currently marked as “Test” or “Trial” probably because they are still new and PokerStars is still figuring out how things will turn out as the days go by.