News: "Twitch is only just getting started"

We chat to the PokerStars Twitch pioneer about his new studio, the growth of Twitch and whether a streamer should be a winning player.

Your Twitch superstar promotion to win a Platinum Pass seems perfectly pitched for the poker fan with a bit of moxy, rather than expecting somebody to win a tournament or earn the pass by sheer lottery.

Jason Somerville: That’s exactly the kind of player we want to encourage to be streamers. It’s not an easy thing to do, it’s not for everyone, but for those who want to try it’s a rewarding path and now it’s made even more rewarding with a potential Platinum Pass.

Yours and the Jaime Staples challenge are both the sort of thing where somebody who comes close but doesn’t win, their time was arguably still very well spent.

Jason Somerville: That’s a great problem to have, you put a lot of effort in but don’t quite get there, but it still results in something awesome. It’s good for the audience, it’s good Twitch and it’s good for poker in general.

"Vegas is still the home of poker"

This promotion coincided with the announcement of your new Twitch studio in Las Vegas, what will that look like?

Jason Somerville: I’ve been in this building for five months now and I have tried to build one singular place where you can access any resource a Twitch streamer would need. I’ve brought video editors, graphic designers, merchandise, branding, advertising, live events, tech support. I’ve brought every resource a streamer would need to be successful under one roof here in Vegas. That was my vision to make an all-purpose studio that took all the lessons I learned over my time as a streamer and make it accessible to those streamers we are working with.

Being in Vegas creates one issue that you are currently unable to play on PokerStars over there.

Jason Somerville: I wanted to be in Vegas for a few different reasons. It’s still the home of poker, at least in North America, it’s been my home for years and I think the future of poker is likely to be in Vegas. Personally I had been on the road as a poker player and streamer for years, this studio was a way to get off the road, build these resources here and I think as we see regulation spread throughout America, being in Vegas will be a wise choice.

From the little I know esports seems to have as big a presence in Vegas as poker does.

Jason Somerville: Vegas has always been a progressive town and they have embraced esports faster than any city. Vegas has built a fantastic esports palace at Luxor. I’ve been to a lot of meetings with casino bosses who are now asking me about esports. They know Fortnite, they know Ninja, they know Twitch. They want a piece of that esports pie, they know it’s coming.

"There is so much left to be done"

Last time we spoke Twitch was relatively new in poker and we speculated what it could bring to the game. Now it seems a significant part of the industry, what insight do you have about how many new players have found poker through Twitch?

Jason Somerville: On the RunItUp channel alone we have served up a billion or so minutes of poker content. Of that billion I don’t know how many were new players, but with the lack of poker content in North America, Twitch has stepped up to fill that void. Every major casino or live tournament is doing something on Twitch. The metrics I would point you to are there are hundreds of thousands of uniques watching Twitch poker every month. Last time we talked I was a solider on the field, casting every day for seven hours a day, now I’m taking a step back to ask what does Twitch poker need and what does the audience need next? There is still so much left to be done. That’s my mission to keep growing the game of poker and innovating ways that haven’t been thought of yet.

It’s fashionable in serious poker community to give PokerStars a bad rap, but this is one area they are really getting right, they are incredibly involved with Twitch.

Jason Somerville: It’s been amazing to see them come around to it so much. It wasn’t that long that I was in a room of PokerStars executives and they had never heard of it and I had to give them examples of what it was like. I had to prove it by putting in 2,500 hours of broadcast so they could see it. I ran a $1 badugi homegame which got 900 entrants with 20 minutes notice. In the last few years PokerStars have been a great ally. They’ve seen the potential and to be honest we are only just getting started.

I’ve recently felt there is disconnect with the Twitch audience and the serious poker audience you see on places like 2+2, have you noticed that?

Jason Somerville: I’m sure there is some overlap, but it’s definitely a different audience, I would bet the hundreds of thousands who have watched Twitch poker this year, that barely 20% of them had even heard of 2+2. 2+2 is not really the audience we are serving, Twitch is a much more casual recreational audience. I have a ton of respect for the people on 2+2, however I don’t think that is the audience Twitch poker is serving, based on the tone and style of my audience. My goal is to make content that is entertaining and fun to watch, I want to appeal to the guy who just watched a League of Legends tournament.

"High stakes does not beat high production quality"

The moment that made me realise it was the Triton series where Phil Ivey was heads-up vs Daniel Cates and the stream for that was beaten by a regular Lex Veldhuis stream. It made me realise these guys probably didn’t even know who Phil Ivey was.

Jason Somerville: Those fans who watch Lex watch him because they love him. The quality of his broadcast is made for Twitch, the story of somebody battling through a tournament is very appealing. It was crazy because for me it was exciting to see Phil Ivey back. There is a lot of room on Twitch for different types of broadcasts and formats. We haven’t seen saturation yet.

I saw Bill Perkins play $100/$200 cash there recently which didn’t get a ton of views either, do you think tournaments will always be the primary format for Twitch because it has a ready-made hero’s journey narrative?

Jason Somerville: I always like to stream cash, I streamed a ton of 8-game. Your audience is always going to be more appealing with a tournament run. High stakes does not outdraw high production quality and an engaging Twitch stream. Party had an insanely high stakes cash game from Montreal and the numbers were not incredible, it’s not that the content wasn’t incredible, it just wasn’t custom made for a Twitch audience. There are a lot more pieces to take shows from good to great on Twitch.

I wrote about this question last week - does a Twitch streamer have to be a winning player?

Jason Somerville: No. If you took somebody like Kevin Hart and put him on Twitch, he’s not going to be a winning player at most of the stakes but it would get so many views, it would be so entertaining to watch. I think there are a bunch of different recipes – you can be successful off being a great player and explaining what you are doing, you can be very entertaining, playing high stakes alone is often enough, you could have a storyline with a bankroll challenge, or play Mixed Games – there are a ton of different themes and angles to be a Twitch streamer but universally being a winning player is not one of them.

Did you discover poker via Twitch? Let us know in the comments: