"Let's make poker fun again" - interview with Lee Jones
We chat with PokerStars' Head of Poker Communications Lee Jones to discuss limit poker, Candy Crush, professional players and making the game more fun for recreational players.
Lee Jones is the Head of Communications for PokerStars and has previously worked on the European Poker Tour, as the PokerStars card room manager, on training sites, as a columnist and is the author of Winning Low-Limit Hold'em.
"We need to show people poker is more fun than Candy Crush"
PokerStrategy.com: You've spent most of the last ten years talking to customers of online poker, are we a very demanding breed?
leejonespokerstars: I think poker players by and large don't expect a great deal of customer service, so when we give them good customer service they are pleasantly surprised.
I've told people I think that PokerStars' customer service is not only the best in the industry, but the best in many other industries I've dealt with. Any time I have an experience with a company as a customer, if I get the level of service I'd expect from PokerStars, I'm usually ecstatic.
I will say that after a dozen years of PokerStars being in business, they've come to expect that from us. That’s fine: we set the bar, and now we have to live up to it. It's good for us, it's good for the customer, it's good for the industry.
PokerStrategy.com: You recently commented that we should make poker fun again, what was it that prompted this epiphany?
leejonespokerstars: There began to be so much of a concentration on serious and professional players. There was always this edgy testosterone fuelled vibe to the game. That was always our demographic, 18-34 year old males, and obviously that is going to have a testosterone component to it. It’s important to remember what a great game poker is; there is so much more to it than guys trying to grind out a living and the fans who only care about six-figure pots.
In fact the game is ridiculously fun and has all these wonderful lessons in it; as an educational tool poker is absolutely brilliant. We need to throw open the doors and tell everybody this is an interesting game. It's way more interesting than Candy Crush and if we can get the number of people playing Candy Crush playing poker (they don't even have to play it for real money) they'll see it's a ton of fun. I think it's good for the industry and the game of poker if we head in that direction.
"Poker teaches you to make the best decision you can"
PokerStrategy.com: Give us some examples of these wonderful lessons you mention that poker teaches us.
leejonespokerstars: The fact that you have incomplete information, that is the nature of life, you will never have all the information you might like to make a decision. Sometimes it's because you don't have time to gather that information and sometimes it's because it only exists in the future. Some people are unable to make decisions in life because of what the business world calls analysis paralysis; they get frozen up.
If you are a poker player you understand that. You can say "Here is what I know, here is what I don't know, I work out the probabilities of what could happen in the future based on my reads of what's happening around me, and then I make a decision." The important thing is afterwards you can say that was the best decision you could make. It may turn out to be the wrong decision, but that doesn't mean it was a bad decision; it was the best decision at the time.
And poker teaches you about position in life. I was giving a poker tutorial to a group of Isle of Man VIPs during the UKIPT a couple of weeks ago. I gave them the following quiz: “Suppose one of you is purchasing a house from another of you. An appraiser has said the house is worth about £200K, but obviously you have to negotiate a specific sales price. Who has the advantage in the negotiation?” They threw out a few ideas, but then a woman got it exactly right: “Whoever doesn’t put out the first number.” I said, “Correct – in poker, we call that ‘the button’. You get to act with the incredible advantage of knowing what your opponent(s) do first.” Why do you think that during job interviews, employers ask how much salary you would like? Because they want the button.
"We don't owe pro players a living"
PokerStrategy.com: Is what is best for recreational players ultimately what is best for professional players? Or do you have to cater for both markets equally?
leejonespokerstars: We have to take a broad approach. Toyota has customers who want to buy a Lexus and customers who want to buy Corollas; they sell way more Corollas than Lexi, but they serve both markets (The difference is of course the Lexus customers don't win money from the Corolla customers). We have to serve both markets.
I do believe there is a sense of entitlement among some pro players who think they are owed a living, with which I disagree strongly. We don't owe a living to anyone; we have a business to run and our job is to provide entertainment.
The overwhelming majority of our players just want to be entertained. If some of them can make a living, that's fine. I don't begrudge them that; it's wonderful that they can make a living from poker for many reasons. But it’s certainly not our primary mission to ensure their profitability.
PokerStrategy.com: Do you think that pro tools like software are off-putting to recreational players?
leejonespokerstars: The majority of recreational players are not even aware of the software, so it's not a perception problem. However the very real problem is that software allows serious players to target recreational players more effectively. If they are getting destroyed that much more efficiently and quickly then we have a problem.
When a recreational player deposits $25 he wants entertainment. When he goes to the movies and spends $25 he has a pretty good idea of what that will get him. If he takes that same $25 to a poker site and it lasts a month, but the next time it lasts two weeks, and then the next time one day… well, at some point he will say he gets more value from a movie. That's my real concern. We have an obligation to give our players good entertainment value; we forget that at our peril.
"I'd like to see Limit come back for newbies"
PokerStrategy.com: So what do you think could make poker fun, again?
leejonespokerstars: In all honesty I'd love to see limit poker come back. I'll sound like an old coot here, but the cost of mistakes is much higher in No Limit. If the cost is higher, then the gap between the good and the bad players is that much greater.
If a player draws to a flush in a limit game, he rarely makes a big mistake. He is maybe a 2-1 dog but getting 4-1 odds, sometimes he is drawing to a bad flush, but rarely making a humongous mistake. But if he is calling a 2/3rds pot sized bet with a flush draw he’s giving away his money. I don't want recreational players giving away their money; it's bad for all of us. I think limit poker is much more forgiving for newbies and would love to see it come back. Not that I think it will (limit poker just doesn’t make for good TV), but we need to be thinking about what’s good for the long-term health of the game.
I want 'soccer moms' to play poker; they have enough testosterone in their lives - they don't need to find more. That's why they play Candy Crush; it's fun and relaxing. I want to make our marketing of the game be about fun. For example, we’ve got pokerstars.net on Facebook. It’s still in beta, but we’re adding new features to it every month and I think it’s going to be very popular in that marketplace.
PokerStrategy.com: Thanks very much Lee, we are sure our community would love to see Limit come back in a big way too.
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By Barry Carter l Barry Carter on Twitter
