Spins: three players, a short stack and a wheel. How to play them
A 6 minute read · Updated 31 October 2026
A Spin is three players, a short stack, blinds that rise every few minutes, and a prize pool drawn at random before the first hand. WePlay calls them Spins and Basepoker calls them Spin & Cash. The wheel is luck. The game after it is where the money is made or lost, and it is a game most players play badly.
What the wheel does and does not decide
Before the first hand the room draws the prize pool, from a small multiple of the buy-in up to a jackpot. Most games land on the small multiple, where the winner takes about twice the buy-in. Now and then the wheel lands on a large multiplier, and once in a very long while on the top prize. On Basepoker the Spin & Cash buy-ins run from $0.25 to $200 and the top prizes from $5,000 to $400,000; WePlay's lobby shows its own ladder.
The draw does not care how you play, and you cannot change it. What you can change is how often you win the game once the pool is set. Over a thousand Spins the jackpots you hit are luck, and your win rate in the ordinary games is skill. The room's fee lives in the gap between three buy-ins and the average prize pool, so to beat Spins you have to win more than your share of the ordinary ones, which means more than one game in three by a clear margin.
The shape of the game
You start with a short stack, often around 25 big blinds, and the blinds go up quickly. Within a few levels the stacks are 10 to 15 big blinds and the game is mostly played before the flop. Three things follow. Position matters more than cards, because the button acts last and the blinds come around every third hand. Folding is expensive, because a third of the hands you are paying a blind and the blinds are a large share of your stack. And the edges are small and frequent, so the way to win is to make the right decision many times rather than to wait for a hand.
The plan by stack size
| Your stack | Three-handed | Heads-up |
|---|---|---|
| Over 20 big blinds | Raise small, about two big blinds, with a wide range from the button and a tighter one from the small blind. Fold the weak hands to a raise, re-raise all-in with the strong ones. | Raise most hands from the button. Defend the big blind with any pair, any ace, any king, suited and connected cards. |
| 12 to 20 big blinds | Raise small or shove depending on the hand. Shove the hands that are good when called and the hands that are too weak to play after the flop. Raise small with the hands in between. | Shove a wide range from the button. Call a shove with about the top third of hands: pairs, aces, kings with a decent kicker, queen-jack and the like. |
| Under 12 big blinds | Push or fold. From the button shove any pair, any ace, most kings, suited connectors and one-gappers. From the small blind a little tighter. Call a shove only with the top fifth of hands. | Push or fold with almost everything from the button. Call with any pair, any ace, any king, queen-eight and better. |
These are starting points and not a chart to follow blindly. For the heads-up part, our push or fold chart has the exact shove and call ranges for every stack from 2 to 25 big blinds. The hand strength calculator shows how a hand does against a range, and the position chart has the three seats and what each one is for. The habit that wins is to raise or shove rather than call, and to fold rather than call when the hand is weak. Calling is the leak in short-stack poker.
Three-handed
With three players the button is the best seat and the small blind the worst, because the small blind acts first after the flop against two players. Raise from the button with a wide range and fold the small blind more than feels natural. In the big blind, defend against the button's small raise with anything playable, because you are getting a good price and the button is raising wide.
Watch the other two. If one of them folds too much, raise them every time and take the blinds. If one of them shoves every hand, tighten your calling range to the hands that are ahead of a random shove and let the third player pay for the lesson. The first player out loses everything in a winner-takes-all game, so when the two others are at war with each other, the right play is often to wait.
Heads-up
Heads-up with short stacks is almost all push or fold, and the mistake almost everyone makes is folding too much. If you fold the button, you give up the small blind and the chance to win the big blind; if you fold the big blind to a shove with a hand that has 40% equity and the pot is offering you better than that, you have thrown away value. Count the price. With 10 big blinds each, a shove from the button and a call from the big blind puts 20 big blinds in the middle for a call of 9: you need to win about 45% of the time, which many hands do against a wide shove.
Use the pot odds calculator once with your usual stack sizes so that you know the figures by heart, and learn the push or fold chart for the stacks you reach most often. In a Spin you have seconds to decide.
The bankroll and the stopping rule
Spins are a high-variance game because most of your winnings in the long run come from the few large multipliers, and you may play a long time between them. Keep at least 100 buy-ins for the level you play, and 200 if you want to be comfortable. Move down when you fall to about half of that. The variance calculator shows the spread; the bankroll calculator turns a sum into a buy-in.
Decide before you start how many Spins you will play, and stop at that number whatever the results. A Spin takes a few minutes, which is the attraction and the danger: twenty is a good evening, fifty is a long one, and the hundredth game of a losing night is played by a different, worse player than the first. Tilt loses more Spins than bad cards.
Where to play them
WePlay has Spins, and Basepoker has Spin & Cash with buy-ins from $0.25 to $200. Each runs in the browser, and each pays rakeback on poker: 30% back every Monday on WePlay and 32% on Basepoker, credited as you play. Rakeback matters in a format where a fee is paid on every short game, so check each room's terms for what counts. The rakeback page has both, and the formats guide has the other games in the lobby.
Questions
Is a Spin & Go skill or luck?
The multiplier is luck and nothing you do changes it. The game once the pool is set is skill: three-handed and heads-up short-stack poker, mostly before the flop. Your edge is in winning more than your share of the ordinary small-multiplier games.
How many buy-ins do I need for Spins?
At least 100 for the level you play, and 200 to be comfortable, because the big multipliers are rare and most of the long-run profit sits in them. Move down when you fall to about half.
What is the biggest mistake in Spins?
Folding too much when the stacks are short, especially heads-up. The blinds are a large share of your stack, and the pot usually offers a price that makes a wide call or shove right. Calling with weak hands instead of shoving or folding is the other one.
Which rooms have Spins?
WePlay has Spins. Basepoker has Spin & Cash with buy-ins from $0.25 to $200 and top prizes from $5,000 to $400,000. Both pay rakeback on poker, 30% and 32%; check each room's terms for what counts.