Pokerstars Launches Showtime Hold'em

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Introducing Showtime Hold'em


Dan Price | @PokerStars | 7 hours ago In News
Hot on the heels of Split Hold'em we are launching Showtime Hold'em - another new cash game format designed to get players questioning their strategy and thinking outside of the box.
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, we are focused on developing exciting twists on classic games that we think have the potential to both engage current poker players and bring back those who may have drifted away from the game as it became predictable or stale for them.
Showtime Hold'em will be extremely easy to grasp for anybody familiar with No Limit Hold'em. It is, in fact, the same game with one small but significant change. When you fold, your cards are shown face up to your opponents and will remain that way for the rest of the hand!
showtime-holdem-demo.jpg

Will conservative players be forced to loosen up to avoid being labelled as nits? Will aggressive players still be able to represent strong hands with multiple cards exposed? Will you keep bluffing the opponent folding big hands... until they catch on?
Testing the game internally was a lot of fun and I'm confident that Showtime Hold'em will provide loads of exciting moments as new dynamics emerge and players learn to play with more and more information as a hand develops. As with Split Hold'em, this game will not be a permanent addition to the pokerstars offering so play while you can!
We will continue to use the Seat Me system which means that when taking your seat at a Showtime Hold'em table, instead of manually choosing a table and a seat, you simply choose the stake that you want to play. For more information on Seat Me please see this previous blog post.
Dan Price, Ring Games Manager
 
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Above is taken from Pokerstars Blog.

Have you guys and girls tried it?

What do you thing?

What are your thoughts on this new format?

It is only available in cash ring game right now but would it be transferable to mtt & sng?
 
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Quite intriguing format.

More info the better the only downside is your info is exposed as well.
 
Ragequit

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It's basically like NLHE mixed with Stud. The exposed cards will make it easier for drawing hands to make +EV calling decisions. Small pocket pairs which may have been looking to set mine will fold more knowing their chances of hitting have been halved or even gone completely. Suited connectors will probably call less too in late position if many of their outs are already face up dead. Personally I think it will be a fad that only lasts a little while. Fish will not really get much out of it as they can't think anyway. But regs will be able to take advantage of this increased information and adjust their frequencies accordingly. R
 
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Pretty good points I agree with them.


It's basically like NLHE mixed with Stud. The exposed cards will make it easier for drawing hands to make +EV calling decisions. Small pocket pairs which may have been looking to set mine will fold more knowing their chances of hitting have been halved or even gone completely. Suited connectors will probably call less too in late position if many of their outs are already face up dead. Personally I think it will be a fad that only lasts a little while. Fish will not really get much out of it as they can't think anyway. But regs will be able to take advantage of this increased information and adjust their frequencies accordingly. R
 
Spaceman

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Unbelievable! I was thinking a kinda similar rule the other day! So many times you reach river holding something like TPTK, or two pairs and your opponent raises all in and you fold. I was thinking a rule to show cards after an all-in if the other player folds.

But thats kinda similar. Poker is a game of information. So many times you can play a lot of hands that never reach showdown. So you cant truly know what ranges the opponent plays, if he respect position, or if and when he folds his tptk, two pair. You have little info. With this rule you would be overwhelmed with info. And regs surely would have an advantage.

The thing is, it could make poker playing based on your opponent hard. So many times, we play just the board with completely air and fold when we see resistance from opponent. But if our opponent knew that, we would have to adapt and start playing the cards. :icon_puke

I also can see some completely bluffs that may be taken to maximum in order to not fold and saw their cards:p
 
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Ragequit

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Unbelievable! I was thinking a kinda similar rule the other day! So many times you reach river holding something like TPTK, or two pairs and your opponent raises all in and you fold. I was thinking a rule to show cards after an all-in if the other player folds.

But thats kinda similar. Poker is a game of information. So many times you can play a lot of hands that never reach showdown. So you cant truly know what ranges the opponent plays, or if and when he folds his tptk, two pair. You have little info. With this rule you would be overwhelmed with info. And regs surely would have an advantage.

The thing is, it could make poker playing based on your opponent hard. So many times, we play just the board with completely air and fold when we see resistance from opponent. But if our opponent knew that, we would have to adapt and start playing the cards. :icon_puke

I also can see some completely bluffs that may be taken to maximum in order to not fold and saw their cards:p
I think overall, it's bad for the game. Particularly for reg vs reg stackoffs. All the 3bet and squeeze ranges are going to be heavily affected. Bluffing frequencies will go way down. Getting folds preflop will get easier, but getting them postflop and moving opponents off their marginal hands will be much harder. Especially if they have 2nd pair with 1 or two top pair cards visibly folded on the board. Stud compensates for all of this extra info by altering who has the button etc. In addition, the last card is dealt face down so that not too much info is exposed. This holdem variant will not have that same integrity and will give too much of an edge to regs. This will ultimately lead to the fish being overcrushed and leaving the games after a short period. NLHE ensures fish reliable short term wins due to its inherent short term swings in their favour. This keeps them coming back as they are safely deluded into thinking they've mastered the game. This won't happen in this variant. It's a sinking ship
 
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Ok, so I gave it a try. My first impression was that unlike short lived split holdem, this game could last longer. And regs will love it when playing against fishes.

Pretty much, its paying to see what cards your opponent makes moves on you. Now overbetting or shoving has an added value. You don't get just the pot but info on opponent hand.


I find folding on river bets harder now. If you fold tptk or two pair or any similar medium strenght hand on a big river bet, the opponent will know you are playing nitty mcnitty and that info makes you vulnerable and exploitable.


So from my short experience, you get many more overbets in hopes of folding and showing your hand and more calls so they dont show their hand without showdown.

Ps. Also what Ragequit said stands true. Now since you can see the folded hands while you are in a hand already, its more info. So now if you have an ace, two other aces lets say folded, and there is an ace on the board, you know that your opponent doesnt have an ace in his hand.
 
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In my opinion it's not real Poker. The whole point of Poker is that players DON'T know what cards have been folded. To quote sklansky: Every time your opponents do something that they would not do if they could see your cards, you gain... Money is made in Poker by creating opportunities for opponents to make mistakes. Showtime holdem makes it less likely that opponents can make a mistake. This is not a profitable situation. As I've said below, I'm sure there are some cash sickos who will make a mountain of money from it but for how long? Once the fish have gone broke, which will happen very quickly in this variant, the average difficulty of the field increases. Supersharks who are illegally using advanced equity calculators during play will be able to feed their software with EXACT ranges for their opponents and annihilate them. Is that good for the game? I doubt it.
 
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This new format is a very interesting one however to me it won't give you a big advantage rather a small one to take inventory of outs.
 
playinggameswithu

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Ugh it shows you how nitty someone is. Like i fold AK to all in shoves now everyone will see that.
 
Ragequit

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Yeah exactly sometimes it's very appropriate to muck AK facing heavy action. Now regs will begin pushing wider once they see you fold that hand. On the flipside, you could use the exposed cards to train the table into thinking you're an supernit and then wait for their wide shoves with an optimal calling range
 
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I played it heads up for a while, cause all the other opponents sitting out. Well, that was truly an amazing experience. So much info really. What hands he raise, what hands he call, what hands he fold. What hands he fold on a flushy board, does he fold kings when ace on the board? I hope the game to stay around for a while, and extend to sng. Could really make some money to good players.
 
bekel285

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Yuk I don't like this idea. Everyone will know what moves I'm making.
 
Dora

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It's quite interesting. I should try this game format.
 
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In my opinion it's not real Poker. The whole point of Poker is that players DON'T know what cards have been folded. To quote sklansky: Every time your opponents do something that they would not do if they could see your cards, you gain... Money is made in Poker by creating opportunities for opponents to make mistakes. Showtime holdem makes it less likely that opponents can make a mistake. This is not a profitable situation. As I've said below, I'm sure there are some cash sickos who will make a mountain of money from it but for how long? Once the fish have gone broke, which will happen very quickly in this variant, the average difficulty of the field increases. Supersharks who are illegally using advanced equity calculators during play will be able to feed their software with EXACT ranges for their opponents and annihilate them. Is that good for the game? I doubt it.
Agree
this is not a real poker
But interesting mode
 
Raccoony

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It is interesting,but I really don't understand why PokerStars is even bothering with something like that.PokerStars is becoming like a poker video game.
 
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It is interesting,but I really don't understand why PokerStars is even bothering with something like that.PokerStars is becoming like a poker video game.


LOL yes.
 
Dora

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I tried this game format and I didn't like it. Not for me.
 
vov4ik

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I tried to play Showtime Hold'em today and I liked the game, I even won 6 dollars in it, it's better for me than Split Hold'em and ordinary Hold'em, I will now play it, it's good that PokerStars is releasing new kinds of games and many players try to play different games!
 
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I don't normally like their fad games, (spin and go etc).
This one I feel could be good EXCEPT it should be Anonymous, so it just remains fun at a table.
Showing all the cards with permanent usernames makes it a definite NO because it will just enable too many statistics to be harvested against regular players.
 
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Hi,
I do not really like, I prefer the classics, but I think that lovers can be found
... although this novedy is not not very good, because all players see each time that you fold and quickly begin to understand your range
 
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