The rise of Twitch poker with Fintan Hand

We catch up with the PokerStars streamer to talk about his Twitch style, when we will see a 50,000 viewer stream and the PSPC.

You are one of the new wave of sponsored players who made their name after establishing a Twitch channel, what made you want to stream?

Fintan Hand: I’d love to say I saw something in it before everyone else, but I’ve been friends with Jaime Staples for nine years. We were a group of friends who were in a Skype chat. Jaime followed in the footsteps of Jason Somerville, when it started I didn’t see how it could get so big but I’ve always had an outgoing personality, so I gave it a shot around three years ago.

I spoke to Chris Moneymaker this month who said he thought the streamers were bigger celebrities than the High Rollers, does this match your own experience?

Fintan Hand: I don’t think I’m in the top tiers like Lex, Jason Somerville, Jaime Staples and Kevin Martin. They are a little bit more likely to be recognised than the German High Rollers. The people who play poker full time are more likely to know who the High Rollers are but the people who play for fun, the Twitch streamers will be much more well known to them.

"Poker is unique on Twitch"

Last year you said you thought a poker streamer could get 50,000 consecutive viewers. Doug Polk managed 23,000 and this month Lex and Parker Talbot managed just over 19,000 after deep SCOOP runs. Do you still think that 50,000 figure is likely?

Fintan Hand: I still think it can, poker is pretty unique on Twitch. It’s hard in terms of numbers compared to a game like Fortnite where everybody is playing it, the difference in poker is you are playing for real money with all these high-pressure moments. It’s one thing if you die in a game, you restart and go again. In poker you can lose infinity, if Lex has a bad run in SCOOP it could be a $50,000 swing. 50,000 viewers will definitely be broken, if Lex or Parker had got to the final table last week they will crack it. It would need to be one of the bigger streamers because there would need to be hype around it.

It seems the best way to grow a poker channel, other than being entertaining, is to get deep runs in big events. Whenever somebody like Lex is playing for a big amount he breaks his stream record and his average numbers get higher afterwards.

Fintan Hand: It’s definitely the best way to get exposure, obviously you can’t control when you get deep in a tournament. It’s a King of the Hill system where the biggest streamers get all the casual fans who wandered in and get bigger as a result. It’s the best way to get exposure then once you have the deep run it’s up to you to be entertaining to get people to come back when you are not playing for a lot of money.

"On Twitch you need to be yourself"

You and Spraggy stream in the mornings (in Europe), is that because you don’t have to compete with players like Lex so you can usually get the biggest audience at the time?

Fintan Hand: It is partially that King of the Hill thing. Also, me and Spraggy are on in the morning, Lex in the afternoon then Kevin Martin in the evening. It’s not 24-hour coverage but it’s nicely spread out where we will host each other. That’s really good for the growth of PokerStars on Twitch.

There is a lot more banter with you and Spraggy compared to other streams, is that a conscious choice to differentiate yourself from the other guys?

Fintan Hand: On Twitch you need to be yourself, or you get found out. I just think it’s that UK and Irish banter, not taking yourself too seriously, ripping into each other a little bit. When it’s a lot of money on the line we support each other. We just want to have a community where people can express themselves as long as they’re not being too rude. It’s not a conscious effort to be different in that respect.

Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci.
The Starry Night by Van Gogh.
Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo.@jaimestaples slowroll by Fintan Hand.

A piece of art. The perfect slowroll. Never to be forgotten. pic.twitter.com/CDKo1DeYV5

— Fintan Hand (@EasyWithAces) February 8, 2018

This week is the start of your Platinum Pass Adventure giveaway where viewers of your stream can do missions to get a ticket to play for a PSPC seat. Did you pick the missions yourself?

Fintan Hand: Yeah, we wanted to keep it as in line with the channel itself. They are things we have done on the stream in the past, we have just done silly things where PokerStars gave us tickets to giveaway and we did funny things like making people go on a 200m jog or photoshops to win them. It’s just a fun way to get people involved and you’d be surprised how funny some of the people watching the stream are.

A lot of the ways to win a PSPC seat are quite random, however silly your missions are are they are legitimate ways where you can put some effort in and see it rewarded.

Fintan Hand: 100%. We are giving away one ticket a day for each challenge and one wildcard per week, there will be a total of 72 players at the end playing to win the PSPC seat. The reason we had the wildcards was for the people who were doing things every day but not quite getting there. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and it’s going to be mayhem.

You can follow Fintan Hand on Twitch.