SKY POKER A CRITICISM

I'll probably post something about this subject on the Sky forum but thought I would get some other views here first. Logged into Sky this afternoon to reg for tonights Deepie and noticed that every single MTT in the highlighted section of the lobby is a Bounty Hunter (5 in all). Counting all the MTTs up to midnight tonight another 18 are Bounty Hunters and the other 18 are non BH including speed scary etc. This means BH's now outweigh the non BH tournaments. Now I know BHs are popular and the reason is that there are lots of fish play them and people put a lot of emphasis on winning head prizes but I feel it may be damaging Sky Pokers reputation. I have seen comments on other sites about Sky and the majority slam the site for poor quality of play and it's a Bounty Hunter site and not for the serious tournament player. What surprises me is that 861 is there to entertain us and help to improve our standard of poker, a fact that they are always promoting. In my view the number of BHs is encouraging poor play and this was also thought by 2 or 3 other players on the same Mega stack table as me last night . One even commented "I've just discovered this tourney tonight at last a tourney on Sky that rewards the good players". As you know I'm personally not a fan of BHs but I've tried to keep as impartial as I can and I'm not saying educate the fishes cos we all want them but feel there is way too much emphasis on the BHs now.

Hi Dagg.
I really don't know what to say about bounty hunters................

Some of them I like such as the 2K BH at 9.30PM (£11) and some of the higher stakes ones as I usually do ok in them. But as soon as you move to the lower stakes ones the dynamics seam to change and you really don't know where you are in a hand sometimes.

There is plenty of money to be made from them though, if thats the sort of thing you like and obviously there is a lot of demand for the lower stakes ones as they alway fill up. I think maybe this is down to the fact that as long as a player can take 3 heads, its pretty much a break even session as opposed to standard MTT's where more patients is required if you want to get into the cash.

I would say the low stakes ones are most popular because they are fast and furious, a shorter format and very low risk as there is always a chance that even a bad player can take 2 or 3 heads.

summary
They are popular because they are - Low Risk and Higher Return for less work and effort than standard MTT's?
(When I say "higher return" I mean more chance of making cash in heads)


I don't this we are gonna see a reduction in them any time soon unless we can make Standard & Deepies more popular imo.

I can't see a reduction coming as they are way too popular and while the fishes can get 3 or 4 heads to cover their buyins they will remain popular. I got tempted into a £5-50 buy in the other week when I logged in late and nothing else was available. Even at that buy in some of the allin calls were a joke. I believe the variance in them is way higher than the norm and thats why players have to play so many to try and iron out the variance. If you took the average "fish" from a BH and put them in a deepstack I'm sure they would struggle. Take the guy I was playing and you commented on last night. Chip leader at that time but failed to cash and we see that all the time. I'm of the view there are more bad players in BHs than any other format and it does Sky no favours at all.

Your quite right dagg
The standard of players on sky is terrible imo and I think sky encourage them with these type of formats. Until sky introduce better and regular structured tournies, I think it will be like this for the forseable future.

I think the variance on sky is much higher because of these types of players and its very difficult to dodge so much bad play at times, especially in MTT's.

Trevor have you seen the new schedule for main and mini events on the poker chat forum? Both now Bounty Hunters Monday to Friday. I am in despair and Sky will get the worse possible reputation and fully deserve it in my opinion.

All I can say Dagg is..............OH FFS's and i'm not even joking.

Too many Turbo's & Bounty Hunters means means higher variance. These type of tournies cant be approached in the same way as standard MTT's - the dynamics change completely imo.

Turbo's end up being shove or fold because of the blind levels.

Bounty Hunters end up being shove or fold because players keep shoving over the top, so you have to sit and wait for a monster and don't even get me started on the extra re-buys etc etc etc.

I don't even know what else to say, i'm still trying to digest it and work out if there are any nights left that I would still enjoy playing - Can't see myself being a BH or Turbo Expert tbh.

Will just have to see.

I'm of the same opinion Trevor. As a short term money maker it's a good move. As a long term business plan it's a disaster which will damage Skys reputation among the poker fraternity even further. I reckon I would have to play at least 3 BH's a night to try and even out the extra variance and with my BR thats impossible. My choice of games just seems to get smaller with every change Sky make and I'm not a happy bunny at the moment.