Hearthstoned

I’ve become vaguely aware of the way some in the poker world -- especially those in the hardcore online crowd -- are now taking up another game called Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

Saw something last month about Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier getting signed as a “Hearthstone Pro” for something called Team Liquid. Then yesterday an item came over the transom that Full Tilt had partnered up with G2 eSports’ Hearthstone team, further suggesting a kind of link between poker and this relatively new card-based game. (Or perhaps furthering the disassociation of Full Tilt from poker, the site having dropped the third word of its original name some time ago.)

Still in the dark about it, I went to Wikipedia to find out a little about the history behind Hearthstone and an introduction to how it is played. Got quickly bogged down, I’ll confess, by the second paragraph of the section on game play, which begins as follows:

“Hearthstone is supported by micropayments for booster packs, Arena Mode entries, Adventure Mode wing access and alternate hero skins. Unlike other card games, Hearthstone does not use a trading card system and instead allows players to ‘disenchant’ unwanted cards into ‘arcane dust’ resource, which can then be used to ‘craft’ new cards of the player’s choice.”

One reason why I couldn’t get much further along in my introduction to the game was the fact that I found these sentences so intrinsically humorous to read, with the scare quotes around those key words adding greatly to my amusement. And my disorientation, the effort needed to imagine the “Hearthstone universe” almost verging on the hallucinatory.

I believe there are a total of eight items in these two sentences for which I have almost zero idea what they signify, although for each I know I could speculate down a path that would surely lead me to an erroneous conclusion about each -- a conclusion that would likely seem just as humorous to the knowlegeable Hearthstone player.

I suspect an acquaintance with Magic: The Gathering or other similar games would likely make Hearthstone seem less opaque to the novice. Would also help to have both an intellectual capacity for such games and an inclination to learn them. As you might guess, I’m limited in both respects, so I have to confess that I’m still pretty clueless about all of the different game modes, how matches work, and the game’s 698 different collectible cards (!).

That passage above made me think about how just about every game has its own set of lingo, rules, scoring, etiquette, and other elements that seem like utterly alien bits of arcana -- or “arcane dust” -- to the uninitiated. Poker is certainly like that. Even games like tennis or baseball can be hard to explain to those without any prior acquaintance either as an observer or player.

Anyhow, looking forward to my next game of 2-7 triple draw when I plan to disenchant unwanted cards into the arcane dust before crafting new ones to add to my hand.

PS Gets the OK from NJ

My first thought last night upon hearing the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement had authorized Amaya to begin operating both PokerStars and Full Tilt in the Garden State was “finally.”

That such an announcement would be coming is something we began hearing not that long after New Jersey governor Chris Christie signed the state’s online gambling bill in late February 2013. Since then the likelihood of PokerStars’ return to the U.S. via Jersey has swung back and forth between just-around-the-corner to not-bloody-likely a few times before several hints over the summer punctuated by the phrase “end of the 3Q” made late September seem a real possibility again.

My second thought was that when news finally did arrive it coincidentally did so on the anniversary of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 being passed by the House and Senate (as noted in yesterday’s post). Something oddly symmetrical there, I suppose, given how the UIGEA’s history and that of PokerStars (and Full Tilt) have been intertwined over the last nine years.

After that I found myself less specifically thinking in generally positive terms about the news, not necessarily because of what will immediately come of it but rather how longer term the story of “U.S. Online Poker 2.0” will surely be a lot more interesting than it would have been otherwise. Felt like there was very little to look forward to before; now, perhaps, there are at least more possibilities, including more good ones for U.S. players wanting to play online.

That said, it’s been so long since U.S. Online Poker 1.0 -- an era that ended mid-April 2011 -- it is hard to think all that concretely about how last night’s news might conceivably lead to the reintroduction of the game online in more than just a few states here and there.

But it does feel a little like after enduring several orbits of garbage cards while sitting behind a dwindling stack, a hand with some potential has finally arrived. The attention is newly engaged, but the hand still has to be played skillfully. And luck still matters, too, going forward.

Learn, Chat, and Play with the Non-Pros

Post-Black Friday, I kept Full Tilt Poker on my laptop even though as an American I was no longer able to play real money games on the site. I occasionally goofed around a little with play money on there, although my main purpose for not deleting FTP was the fact that I still had money left on the site (even if my balance was no longer showing it).

A full two-and-a-half years after Black Friday, I submitted a petition to get my balance back, then in June 2014 (more than three years after BF), I finally received the cabbage.

Incidentally, I vaguely suspect that getting that transfer of my FTP funds from the Department of Justice might possibly have precipated my Fifth Third Bank account -- which I’d had for nearly 11 years -- being suddenly closed four months later with zero explanation. (Would be a suitably nutty postscript to the absurd funds-retrieval saga, if so.)

Meanwhile at some point a while back I got a new laptop, and didn’t bother to download FTP this time as I had little reason for it. I still enjoy play money games, but have always like PokerStars better, anyway, and so when I do play I just do so on PS.

All of which means I’m not really in the loop so much anymore when it comes to the news like that from a couple of days ago that Full Tilt Poker -- or just “Full Tilt” (as they style it now) -- has made some fairly significant changes to the client affecting their cash games.

For starters, it sounds like there is no lobby anymore and thus no way for players to choose particular tables. Rather, they choose their game and stakes, then get seated automatically.

Over on the Full Tilt blog, Dominic Mansour, Managing Director at Full Tilt, likens the procedure to seating in live games where players get on a list or “tell the poker room manager what game they want to play and the poker room manager will take them to a table with a free seat so they can start playing right away.”

In a video about the changes, it is explained that “online ring game lobbies can all too often look like fast-moving spreadsheets, which can be a little confusing” -- which is kinda true, actually, even for some of us with lots of experience on the sites. (Such is why filters are needed on Stars.)

Relatedly, when games become short-handed reseating automatically occurs to merge the tables, which I guess could be said partially to resemble what happens in live rooms as well. In any case, the major difference here is not being able to select particular opponents against whom to play, although I guess players can still choose not to play against certain players by simply getting up after being seated with them.

Another big change is the removal of all heads-up games, which according to Mansour had become “adversely affected by the minority of experienced players who targeted ‘weaker’ opponents rather than take on all challengers” -- i.e., by the practice of “bum hunting.” He also argues that heads-up games were “intimidating and confusing” for new players, who maybe couldn’t figure out why people were sitting out and opponent selecting.

They’ve also gotten rid of higher-stakes non-hold’em offerings like stud, draw, and mixed games, although the comment from Mansour regarding that change doesn’t specifically address why. “The new structure will present a clean offering for all players and we consider these ring game changes to be key to Full Tilt’s ongoing commitment to provide a level playing field and attracting and retaining more casual poker players,” he says.

I used to think a lot about the “ecology” of online poker, although never really felt as though I had too much insight into how it all worked (despite occasionally opining on the subject). Clearly Full Tilt is responding to its having slipped traffic-wise since the site’s relaunch in November 2012, falling well behind other second-tier sites like 888, partypoker, the iPoker network, and Winamax, and the still-U.S.-serving Bovada (Bodog).

These changes seem designed to focus on promoting the segment of the player pool (recreational players, including new ones) where the potential for growth still exists while diminishing the importance of serving full-timers or professionals. I suppose I get it, although for those who are fans of the site and long-time players on it, I can’t imagine they are all that enthused by such radical moves.

Thinking back to the original Full Tilt Poker and its launch more than a decade ago, it’s a 180-degree turn away from the “Learn, Chat, and Play with the Pros” campaign of old, as well as a distancing from the faint echo of that idea demonstrated by “The Professionals” campaign that arose with Full Tilt 2.0 and has since been abandoned.

I guess trying to sell amateurs on the idea of playing with pros was always sketchy as a marketing strategy, even if learning from the pros and chatting with them might have once seemed an attraction. Now it seems there is a desire to sell the idea that the poor newbie will be protected from the pros so as to be able to learn, chat, and play exclusively with those on their own level.

Or maybe just to chat and play, and not learn so much.

Forward-Looking With Amaya

I took close to an hour out of the day today to listen to that Amaya conference call in which the new owners of PokerStars and Full Tilt (since August of last year) discussed earnings from last year’s fourth quarter. Or rather I should say I listened to the sucker while performing various farm chores, as an .mp3 of the call has been uploaded here.

Chris Grove of Online Poker Report has also spent some time listening to the call, and in fact has transcribed the whole thing here, if you’re curious.

Among the headlines coming out of the call were CEO David Baazov’s statements -- “forward-looking” and thus subject to the usual disclaimers about such, natch -- regarding the future growth of poker (“we are still a poker-first business” he reiterates), as well as about other areas of interest for Amaya in the coming months and years.

“Our goal is to double the poker sector in the next five years,” stated Baazov, adding that the “three primary ways” Amaya aims to achieve that goal will be “entering new markets where we currently have little or no penetration in real-money poker,” “creating consumer demand and excitement through innovative marketing and promotions,” and “continuing to innovate the product to attract more players and reactivate lapsed players.”

Immediate response to the idea of doubling the poker sector within five years varied from expressions of doubt to outright cynicism, although if you think about it in the context of online poker five years is a lifetime.

Baazov spoke further of particular areas of the world Amaya desires entering, including those states in the U.S. with current online gaming legislation and those considering it (in which Amaya is actively lobbying). He talked as well about the other “verticals” including casino games and sports betting, the latter having only modestly launched in a beta version this week.

The other big headline coming out of his comments had to do with the declaration of an intention to enter daily fantasy sports, an area currently dominated by FanDuel and DraftKings. That latter intention obviously raises eyebrows here in the U.S. where the majority of us aren’t currently included in discussions of online poker or online casino games (and likely won’t be for some time).

CFO Daniel Sebag came on after that to talk specifics regarding the 4Q bottom line and what’s anticipated going forward, then Baazov hopped back on to talk briefly about the current investigation by the Autorité des Marchés financiers (AMF) regarding some trading occurring around the time Amaya acquired the Rational Group as well as the company’s application to be listed on NASDAQ Global Select Market. He also alluded to Amaya’s sale of the gaming machine supplier Cadillac Jack, announced earlier in the week.

The Q&A that followed touched on further specifics, mostly reiterating points made during the statements. There elaboration was made regarding Amaya and daily fantasy sports, with Baazov responding to a question by saying “the goal is to be up before the NFL season starts.” He also mentioned specifically the U.S. folks who were “formerly PokerStars players” and how Amaya is banking on “a clear, strong crossover with poker.”

It is always curious to eavesdrop on these sorts of discussions. And to look back on them at some future date as indicators of what a company was thinking at a current moment in time. You know, when backward-looking rather than forward-looking.