Shootout Poker @ G2E

Anyone heard/seen "Shootout Poker" also being exhibited at G2E (booth 1941)?

Website is www.shootoutpoker.us

Interesting concept, not sure about the Shootout Bet (as I understand it) at the end of the hand is going to work for you average carnival game player.

If you can really bet the total of all the "Best Hand Bets" and the Best Hand bets for six players at a $5 minimum table are $10/each, does that mean a player making a Shootout Bet after the river card can bet $60?

Tough for me to see typical carnival game players wanting to go heads up and calling up to a $60 river bet. I don't see regular $1-$2 NL Hold'em poker players wanting to play the carnival side of this game either. So......what is the target market for this game.

Don't get me wrong.....I kind of like the concept.

I just don't know if there is a market for a game that combines playing against the house in a -EV game and playing against players in the same game where your skill vs. the other players will have a significant impact on your results. Maybe if the Shootout bet is capped as equal to the Best Hand bet, players won't feel like they can get blown off their hands by a skilled poker player.

Would have to play it to see how it feels. What do you all think?

After just a quick look, it seems that optimal player strategy for the house-banked bets wouldn't necessarily be the same as optimal strategy for the player-banked bets. E.g. you can't win the player pot if you've folded, but folding is going to be correct for the house-banked bets sometimes.

I gave Shootout Poker and another similar game (it had the same player-against-player concept, but was a lowball game) a try at G2E this year. I thought it was a novel concept, but it didn't take long to see why it hadn't been tried before. You're sometimes torn between doing what's correct for the game against the house and what's correct for the game against the other players. Often, there's no way to make a good play, and most of us were frustrated by that. In the end, we realized it was just best not to waste time with the player-against-player bets, and played it as a straight against-the-house game. My friend and I got the hang of the basic game after not too long, but it was more confusing than most games--I think there were about eight betting spots, some were mandatory, some weren't. Mostly, though, I could overlook most of that if the game had been fun to play, which it wasn't. There were some other cool games at the show...I'll be interested to see which ones make it to a casino floor.

I didn't like it for the reasons mentioned, plus:

A - The stakes for the shootout were too high. A novice is easily pushed off the pot.

B - The initial bet for the shootout is too high.

C - Worst of all, the rake for the shootout was WAY too high. It was 10% with no indicated max.

The shootout bet should have been optional, with initial wagering after all cards are dealt, and with a maximum of a $1 rake, or $2 if the pot grows to over $x. My feeling is $x should be $50.