It was almost a year ago that I first wrote about side games, aka 'carnival' games, in good old no-limit hold'em cash games. At the time, in the second installment of that two-part series, I wrote:
"Conversely, the heavier [carnival games], e.g. 'squid' and 'mushroom,' destroy the balance of the underlying game."
I'm not always right – far from it – but this time I called the shot.
The proliferation of squids, fire trucks, mushrooms, and similar games is endangering the delicate balance of the game that has kept poker alive since the Moneymaker explosion.
No-limit hold'em is already volatile
Here's the thing: no-limit hold'em is volatile to begin with. Recall that up until 2003 when Chris Moneymaker changed the poker world forever, almost all cash games were played 'fixed limit.'
That is, if you are playing a '$10/$20' game, the big blind is $10 and the small blind is $5. On the first two streets of betting, all bets and raises are exactly $10. On the latter two streets, all bets and raises are exactly $20, no more no less.
Jason Somerville once famously announced that he had reached the final table of the 'WSOP $10k Min-raise Hold'em Championship.'
No-limit hold'em blows that guard rail out – stacks of chips can and do go in, as we've all experienced. This is exciting and, importantly, makes for great TV, livestreams, and vlogs.
I happily stipulate that fixed limit hold'em could not have been the vehicle for the boom that we saw after Chris won the WSOP.
Many carnival games push the volatility past the breaking point
While we, as a community, have decided that we're okay with the variance of no-limit hold'em in exchange for its excitement, I don't believe we're ready for, or tolerant of, the volatility that comes with the big side games.
I've watched enough YouTube to see the effect that significant carnival games have on the underlying poker game. Instead of watching people work out ranges, run cold-blooded bluffs, or dial in the max pain value bet, we get, "I've got two fire trucks, I'm all-in blind!", "I have KTo, crushing your range, I call. See you at the river!"
I guess, in the strictest sense, it's poker. But it's certainly not any kind of poker I'd want to play, or watch.
More importantly, the squids and mushrooms are silently, but inevitably, increasing the effective stakes and dollar variance of the game.
You think you're sitting down to a $5/$10 no-limit hold'em game. But if any of the 'heavier' carnival games are on, your variance could easily be twice (or quadruple) that of a traditional two-blind structure $5/$10 game.
Given that most people are under-rolled for the game they're playing anyway, subjecting that already marginal bankroll to 2-5x larger swings guarantees many players getting hurt, or wiped out altogether.
Lee, you're just a stick-in-the-mud
Granted, I'm famously a nit risk averse. But more than anything, I'm a lover of the game of poker.
I'm long past the point of needing to make money at the game, or worrying about where my profit comes from. I will play and win, or play and lose. Neither outcome will affect my day-to-day existence. But I want to be able to walk into my local cardroom and have a game at which to sit.
I'm not alone in this concern. There's a fellow, Charlie Wilmoth, who is a professional player, Hustler Casino Live commentator, and all 'round mensch.
He has a podcast called Third Man Walking, and you're welcome. In Episode 142, he has an interview with Hustler Casino Live regular Sandor Illes. Listen around the 50-minute mark where Illes says, "Everybody is playing outside the stakes they should be playing. The games are too big, the side games are too big. And I just don't think the side games were a great idea."
In Episode 145, Wilmoth follows up, because some people have accused him of only looking out for his self-interest as a pro. But at the 3-minute mark, he says, "I always try to think about things in terms of what's sustainable, because ultimately that's good for almost everyone."
Which sums it up nicely. You may accuse Sandor Illes, Charlie Wilmoth, and everybody else sending up warning flags, of worrying about their self-interest. But their self-interest largely aligns with that of everybody who plays poker.
If you ask the lions if they'd like to see the Serengeti paved and turned into condos and big box stores, they'd certainly say, "No." You might then reply, "Of course not – if they pave the Serengeti, then you starve." This is true, but what the lions are concerned about is true of everybody who has a stake in the Serengeti.
What's driving the proliferation?
I don't know why we're seeing the proliferation of carnival games in the mid-upper stakes cash streets, particularly private ones. Better said, I have a pretty good idea of the reasons, but I don't know what portion each contributes.
It spices up the game
I find two-blind no-limit hold'em intriguing, and can play for hours and hours without getting bored.
Then again, I think that about fixed limit hold'em, so I'm sure I'm an outlier.
Side games such as mushroom, stand-up, and squid create 'state' across multiple hands. That is, in a traditional cash game, there's no connection between hand N and hand N+1. The deck is shuffled and we start all over again.
With those side games, there's a narrative that builds across multiple hands. So they add a new dimension to a game that normally doesn't have such a narrative.
It makes for more variance
Some people are just variance junkies. Legendary gambler Nick 'The Greek' Dandolos famously said, "The best thing in the world is gambling and winning. The second best thing is gambling and losing."
Carnival games add variance – a lot of it – to plain vanilla no-limit hold'em. Like most drugs, some people find that after a while, the same dose doesn't give them the high.
A variance junkie who's been playing a lot of no-limit hold'em may find that he needs higher highs and lower lows to get the same rush.
It levels the playing field
Its inherent variance notwithstanding, no-limit hold'em has a cheat code that makes it profitable for certain kinds of players.
If you play a strong snug range preflop, put in the appropriate 3- and 4-bets, and fold preflop when you're supposed to, you reach the flop so far ahead of the field that simply avoiding post-flop stupidity will keep you profitable. Charlie Wilmoth calls such people "Preflop charts in trench coats."
Such people bother the gamblers and variance junkies. Those folks often recognize that they're taking the worst of it against the trench coats, but they can't quit the variance habit.
Games such as stand-up and fire truck punish the trench coats, and so far, very few people know sound strategy for the carnival games. Everybody is wandering around lost in the strategic forest, and the gamblers think, "Well, I'm pretty clueless about this spot. But at least those trench coat guys are too."
Ego and machismo
There is a culture of machismo around no-limit hold'em. Always has been, which makes it really attractive to the young male set that dominates the game these days.
Being called a nit is in the worst kind of insult, despite (or perhaps because) being a nit mostly aligns with playing like those preflop charts in trench coats. Play the 23% preflop VPIP you're supposed to. Don't do anything stupid post-flop. Profit. Drives the gamblers crazy so they insult people who play that way.
I know – I've gotten my share of those comments.
Even people who know better find themselves succumbing to peer pressure. High stakes vlogger Mateos describes being in his regular game in the Bay Area – it always has a $20 straddle. Somebody had put on a $40 re-straddle. He added an $80 straddle because, "I don't even know why I'm doing this. I'm just recreating. And I'm theoretically playing as a job."
It's okay, Tito, nobody likes a nit.
End the madness
Clearly many people enjoy watching the train wrecks that carnival games cause.
I mean, they continue to grow and spread on livestreams, and I assume that the producers of those livestreams know what their audience wants. But I argue that the huge majority want to watch the carnage on their phone, but do it while sitting in a relatively safe $N/$2N no-limit hold'em game. With few or no carnival games.
More importantly, the ecosystem will not survive widespread proliferation of these games. They are too volatile, blow the effective stakes through the roof, and are ultimately unsustainable.
Providing blood sport for livestream viewers is pointless if the gladiators are either wiped out or simply tire of losing money. Sandor Illes again: "I know very wealthy people through poker. Very few people can stomach or tolerate – I don't care how much money you have – losing tens of thousands of dollars over and over again. It's just distasteful."
A word to the casinos that host these semi-private games and private game hosts: just because one particular whale in your pool wants progressive squid, that doesn't make it a good idea.
Will that whale go to a different game? Maybe. But if progressive squid damages the players in that game to a degree that they stop playing, then you should be very glad the whale was in your competitor's game, and not yours.
All things considered, we've done pretty well with this no-limit hold'em thing since Moneymaker. Don't let bright shiny carnival games destroy everything we've built.
