Unfold

There's a new game on stars - Unfold

Basically, there's an unfold ante every hand... 1 small blind... it goes into the unfold pot. After the flop, all folded hands are given the option to "unfold" in order to contest the unfold pot. There is no more side betting.

If there's no flop, antes are returned. If everyone passes, antes are returned. If one person contests the unfold pot... yoink.

There's some interesting aspects to this... the live players can see who has chosen to unfold. This gives information that a lot of the fish who are attracted to this kind of game will miss. If everyone passes, chances are good that someone live hit the flop. If the unfold pot is being contested, well this could be a good bluffing spot.

Furthermore, you can bluff for the unfold pot. For a start, flush draws are a no brainer, and so are open enders. You're seeing to the river for a pot size bet... more or less direct drawing odds when you're heads up, but as soon as a third player contests you're printing money. So this discourages playing shitty suited hands in the live pot, instead their value is chasing flushes in the unfold pot.

I think any pair is worth fighting for, but there's money to be made while not sat in the hand. That has to be appealing if you have a solid strategy.

Anyone else had a look?

I just saw someone open fold the small blind with kings, and he crushes the unfold pot with top set. Top pair won the main pot.

Earlier I saw in a tourney someone call off their bluff to a shove with three high needing running threes.

I think it's international idiot day.

Not had a look, but it will be interesting to see how it pans out. As you say, maybe stuff like gapped SC's become more valuable in the unfold pot, than to use as balance in PF range. This not only makes things interesting as far as flop action goes, but starts to affect PF ranges.

The KK hand is amusing. I can just imagine the last 3 times he's raised KK pf he's gotten folds, and he figures the unfold pot is better than the blinds.

That's an interesting point. If it folds to the BB, do they play out the hand for the unfold pot?

If the natural pre flop action doesn't see a flop, then antes are returned and the folds don't get any action. There's still no incentive to fold big hands. At higher stakes, I'd imagine we still need to be thinking about post flop balance, certainly more so than contesting a side pot which rarely gets above 10bb, and especially given there will be less fish playing subotpimal strategies. But at the micros, this is a great way to give an extra edge to good players while keeping it fun for bad players. On the surface, I really like this for micros poker.

haha i just split an unfold side pot and it was a cent more than the main pot.

dude was all in for 6 cents.

Sounds like a weird game but potentially interesting. Assuming it's a rake trap?

Just saw a vid saying it was 7% rake. Ouch...

Yeah rake is high but the unfold pot is not raked and if we're employing a solid unfold strat and others are not, then we're more than making up for lost rake. It's very nice to sit there and fold your garbage and still slowly build your stack.

That the unfold pot is unraked makes this interesting. If I were to play it I'd probably spend some time just running typical fold ranges through random flops in flopzilla and see if I guessed hit percentages right.

I don't know about this in particular. I'll have to check it out. But I love that they're doing it. I hope they'll do more stuff like that. There's too much information out there about nlhe. I'd love some game modes that make players more exploitable. Not hyped about the 7% rake tho.

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Originally Posted by oskar

That the unfold pot is unraked makes this interesting. If I were to play it I'd probably spend some time just running typical fold ranges through random flops in flopzilla and see if I guessed hit percentages right.

I don't know about this in particular. I'll have to check it out. But I love that they're doing it. I hope they'll do more stuff like that. There's too much information out there about nlhe. I'd love some game modes that make players more exploitable. Not hyped about the 7% rake tho.

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It isn't unraked.

The Unfold concept seems pretty cringe-worthy. My guess is that it is trying to get newer players excited about playing? There was another thing they did where you had these powers you collected, like seeing the next card or replacing one of your cards. I forget what that was called. I tried it and won most of the time, but it really didn't hold my interest, so based on that experience I probably won't try this one.

Good luck to you all,
Brian

The unfold pot is unraked. Unless they're being deliberately misleading with their terminology. And by misleading, I mean outright lying.

They specifically say that unfold pots are unraked.

Brian - I thought the same when I first saw it. My eyes rolled and I played some standard poker. But then I started thinking about it, and figured there could be a profitable unfold strategy that allows us to build our stack by folding a lot pre flop. The fact this appeals to fish is a good thing... it means I'm playing people who are less likely to correctly adjust my ranges, and who are less likely to be employing a better strategy than myself. That's not to say I'm guaranteed to crush it, maybe I turn out to be the fish. But, if there's more ways to play optimally, there's more ways to play suboptimally. That means more opportunities to win money.

I was under the impression the pot was unraked too but I read on 2+2 that it is. There is a guy posting about his strategy.

It's a game that doesn't get people playing or new people interested so it's fairly pointless.

I just took a look on pokerstars' website and there is no mention of rake on the page where I previously saw it. I then went to their rake page, and sure enough they're raking the unfold pots. I haven't played for a few days, been playing power-ups instead.

I think they initially didn't rake the unfold pots while they were trialling it, and now they are raking them. Greedy cunts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

The unfold pot is unraked. Unless they're being deliberately misleading with their terminology. And by misleading, I mean outright lying.

They specifically say that unfold pots are unraked.

Brian - I thought the same when I first saw it. My eyes rolled and I played some standard poker. But then I started thinking about it, and figured there could be a profitable unfold strategy that allows us to build our stack by folding a lot pre flop. The fact this appeals to fish is a good thing... it means I'm playing people who are less likely to correctly adjust my ranges, and who are less likely to be employing a better strategy than myself. That's not to say I'm guaranteed to crush it, maybe I turn out to be the fish. But, if there's more ways to play optimally, there's more ways to play suboptimally. That means more opportunities to win money.

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That's a good point and I always like it when someone acknowledges they may be the fish (which to me is an indication that likely you are not the fish). I do like to play novel games once in a while, I usually play HORSE or a mix game. I recently had a good experience in a Badugi tournament. It was a lot of fun and I wish I could play in some more of them.

Good luck to you,
Brian