Why it makes sense to move from MTTs to Spins

We have a special guest post from SmartSpin CEO 'CuAt69UsdSng' about making the move from MTTs to Spin & Go.

Many of us have experience in MTTs and may wonder or even neglect the difference between those and Spin & Go’s. The difference is quite significant both when it comes to strategy and work ethic.

As an MTT professional with many years of experience, who transitioned to Spin & Go’s, I admit I was pretty overconfident when I played my first Spins. I thought, "what could be the difference between late position strategy in MTTs when we play from the button compared to 3handed games?". The funny thing is that many Spin & Go players approach MTTs the same way, while the difference in these two formats is almost everywhere.

I could say that MTTs are more of an "artistic and feeling" game, where you need to keep lots of attention to frequently get out of the range and make extreme adjustments depending on table situations (ICM pressure, stack sizes, or the dynamics between players). On the contrary, Spin & Go’s are a game of details with a precisely prepared strategy. You try to avoid making decisions based on feelings, and you do your best to benefit from everyday situations that repeat frequently. This article will explain subtle traps you may encounter while transitioning from MTTs to Spin & Go’s.

Let’s start with strategy

We all know that poker is a math game, but many forget that every equation has a few factors to consider. The value of our decisions is the same in every game:

1. EV of our bluffs depends on our opponents' tendencies to fold vs. our river bets
2. EV of our value bets depends on our opponents' tendencies to call our river bets
3. EV of our river calls depends on our opponents' tendencies to bluff bet rivers

We base our assumptions of what someone else would do in certain situations on our know-how. In the case of pro-MTT players, this know-how comes from the experience from the MTT tables. What if I told you that the fast Spin format, where single mistakes don't matter that much, is different from long MTT tournaments where people are way more ICM aware and often don't want to ruin their stack that they have been building for a few hours?

Do we expect players to play the same way on the MTT final table as in the 2x multiplier?

Not really.

Different population tendencies

You may already have some idea about the differences. The dynamic in Spins is way more aggressive, sticky, and thin. The difference is based on the fact that in Spin & Go’s, you pick an approach to maximize your Chip EV, while in MTTs, players often make decisions considering ICM factors to maximize their $EV. In many spots, passive and aggressive decisions (e.g. to bluff or not to bluff all-in on the river) might have the same Chip EV. In MTTs, it's often better to protect the stack and pick the low variance decisions. In Spins, it’s quite the opposite for various reasons - if you are interested in that topic and would like me to write more about it, let me know in the comments.

If you play Spins, prepare for much wider moves with bluffs, bluff catches, thin value bets, ISO/calls, or 3-bet/calls (maybe not as wide as Q4o 😄). In HU games, you will play close to 100% of ranges, which creates lots of opportunities for players to have good equity and showdown value with bottom pairs or even high cards. Winning at the showdowns demand more bluffs from players to prevent equity realization, which makes the other player call wider, and this makes the first player also value bet thinner, and so on. In theory, this type of adjustment could take until our players become GTO wizards. They would pick perfect frequencies with different sizes to align their bluffing/value betting relation, and both players' decisions would become indifferently unexploitable. This sounds great in theory - but far from reality. Usually, it ends up with one of the players being extremely unbalanced (calling or folding way too much). If you are curious about this topic - I can go with more details about the GTO vs. reality in another article.

Poker is a math game

Everything comes down to eventual risk and possible reward. The main difference between MTTs appears preflop at first sight: there's no ante. If the reward is smaller, but the minimum risk (min-raise) stays the same as in MTTs, we want a higher chance of winning the hand (which we describe in equity). The 3-way Spins start with tighter ranges than the full-ring MTTs, leaving late position players to act. In Spins, BTN plays 30-40% VPIP, while in MTTs, it's between 40-50%, depending on stack sizes.

Let’s look at our stack sizes from the M (blinds+ante) point of view. 15bb in Spins equals M10, while in MTTs, 15bb equals M6. The ratio between our stack size and chips to be won is almost twice lower in Spins. Lack of ante creates smaller post-flop SPR (Stack to Pot Ratio), making a game deeper.

A pretty unintuitive fact is that you will be playing most of the hands in Spins Heads-Up below 15bb in limped pots. We have a 2bb pot on the flop, with 14bb in stacks, which means we have 7:1 SPR. If you think of an MTT min-raise pot vs. BB - there's already around 5,5bb in the pot (2bb OR + 2bb from BB + 0,5bb SB), so to have a similar flop SPR, the effective stacks would need to be around slightly below 40BB. Don't underestimate the 15bb HU game, as it creates a lot of post-flop games.

Strategy vs. particular opponents

In Spins, you will frequently meet the same players. An average game takes only around 20 hands and just up to 15 minutes. Daily you can play hundreds of them (depending on the number of tables). In smaller fields, like Winamax or higher stakes PokerStars, you will count sample size vs. particular opponents in tens of thousands of hands. Many of your rivals will reach the river in many different scenarios. Such frequent post-flop game vs. certain opponents demands a precise strategy adjustment. Besides adjusting based on particular showdowns that we have seen, we need to use well constructed HUD to spot leaks of a player that we could exploit. While MTT HUDs focus on preflop, Spins HUDs focus on post-flop - a crucial part of your winrate.

What does a grind session look like?

In MTT, the length of a session depends on how well you run in slow structured tournaments, and the breaks are fixed and set by the poker room. In Spins, you need to manage your session. This freedom creates lots of possibilities, but it comes with great responsibility. Setting a grind plan with scheduled breaks is essential to keep yourself focused on reaching your volume goals without burning out or slacking too much.

Another difference is the number of tables. If you have ever played a HU game, you know it's way more dynamic and faster than a full ring game. The spots are more complex as we play with a broader range, deeper in a hand. Because of that, it's way harder to focus and play a high-quality game on 2 Spins than on 6 MTTs. Remember that quality is more important than quantity, especially at the beginning of your journey with Spins. It helps develop your game and reach higher stakes, so playing fewer tables is critical to improving.

If you would like to know more about the differences, particularly the possible winrates - let me know in the comments!

This article is written by CuAt69UsdSng, who has been a full-time MTT pro who transitioned to Spin & Go’s, where he won more than $1M+ in EV+RB. He is a High Stakes Player, a coach, and CEO of Smart Pool - an EV Pool for Spin & Go’s players providing protection from the variance. You can find more about it here.