888 Launches Blast Sit and Gos

Lottery-style sit and gos are nothing new. Just about every network has a version of the game where a random prize pool in a short-handed hyper-turbo game is determined before the first cards have been dealt.
 
Over the weekend, 888poker joined the club and add its own version of these games called Blast that have what on the face of things are small differences compared to the competition. However, after testing these games out a little, these differences are rather big and make it almost a completely different game altogether.
 
One major difference compared to most of the competition is that Blast sit and gos are played four-handed. This was almost unheard of, but a few months ago, PartyPoker introduced Sit & Go Hero, which is also a four-max lottery-style game.
 
Another big difference is that players start off slightly deeper-stacked with 1,500 chips. However, since blinds also start higher than other games at 25/50, effective stacks are similar to what you'll find on other sites.  For example, on PokerStars, players start off in Spin & Gos with 500 chips and blinds at 10/20 for a 25 big blind stack versus the 30 big blind stack in these games.
 
However, very quickly the structure is deeper in Spin & Gos since these games, like most lottery-style tournaments, feature three-minute blinds, while Blast features two-minute blinds.
 
Similar to other games, it is winner-take-all whenever players are playing for the minimum double the buy-in prize pool.  However, starting when the prize pool is five times the buy-in, more than one place gets paid.  At some of the really big prize pool multipliers, all four spots receive a prize.
 
These differences in themselves would make the strategy on how to approach these games compared to others different, but the biggest difference is that Blast takes advantage of a Countdown Timer that is six to 12 minutes long depending on how big the prize pool is.
 
Players play poker normally as they would until the time hits zero and then the following hand all remaining players are all-in until a winner of the game is declared.  So, while you don't want to head to the all-in phase of the game with few chips, it is still better than no chips.  Also, this could add to strategy on folding hands you would normally play or vice-versa when there is a minute or less left on the timer.
 
Buy-ins range from $0.10 to $30, so these games are fun if you just want a quick poker-related gamble without spending a lot of money.  I wouldn't consider these games the best to grind in the long-term due to the higher rake and higher variance they have, but they are more than fun when you're looking to be entertained for a short amount of time with hopes of winning big.

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