Turbo SNGs

[Meatmaw]

This is inspired by posts I recently read on Snowbank's 100 sng post. To the people who have played turbo SNGs, what do you think? Are they more profitable than the regular ones? I only know of the Stars ones. For the theorists and psychoanalysts, how does the faster game affect the flow and variance? Do people just get crazy early and fail to observe basic late-game strategy and just do really dumb things, enabling you to simply wait and cash in on impatient players? Are there more newbies/fish on these games? I'd love to see some data/stats.

Thanks.

[Dominic]

what the heck is a "turbo" SNG?

[Meatmaw]

Sorry, I was referring to the types in Pokerstars where the blind levels increase every 5 minutes instead of 10 minutes. The fee tagged onto it is smaller to (like $6 + .5 instead of $5+.5 )

[holeplug]

The turbo SNGs are located on Pokerstars and are called that b/c the blinds increase every 5 minutes instead of 10. They certainly will increase your hourly rate if you play these instead of the regular ones. Most of them don't last longer than 45 min so it plays the same as Party's in terms of time. As for the players, I can only speak on the 6+.50 level so far but they are truly horrible.

[Meatmaw]

holeplug, have you played a large number of these and the normal ones to notice distinguishing factors? I'd love to hear more details. It's tempting to shift over to turbo if that would be a good move, but I'm not certain if I should.

[edge]

I played the Turbos for a bit. Maybe it was just natural variance, but I didn't find that I was outplaying the others when it got down to six left. At that point, the blinds are usually at least 100/200, which represents a tenth of your stack, so it's a real struggle unless you find a very passive table that you can run over.

I much prefer the regular speed SNGs.

[hyde]

I play both turbo's and regular. I prefer the regular as you get more hands to work with unlike a turbo where the rapidly increasing blinds turn the game into an all in short stack fest. It too often comes down to who gets a few big cards, not how you get to play them.
and sometimes I just don't have much time .....so I turbo it.

hyde

[LSUfan1]

I fully agree with what seems to be unanimous! You will have to open up a bit and hope to get something going early.

The problem with playing these tight is that even if you catch your early fish, the blinds go up so quickly that your 2500-3000T is not really that much.

I have been fairing well, but since I just recently started keeping track of my stats and it was a small number of them I can't say that I did better versus the regular SNG's.

[PoorLawyer]

I play the 15+1 turbo stud hi/low ones all the time and seem to do better at those than the 5+.50 regular ones. It seems that if I just play them real tight to start I can get up a bit in the chip lead and people just knock each other out because they get impatient as the blinds go up. The quality of player is definitely no better and you can play more of them since they take less than an hour.

[Galaxy 500]

I only play at PS (too lazy to try anywhere else). I play both turbos and regulars.

My experience. To increase your $/hour profit, turbos are the way to go. On average I would say they cut 20-30 minutes off a game. They do indeed become allin fests when down to 2-4. By the time you are heads up, 90% of the time your only move is allin or fold.

For "pure" poker I prefer the regulars. A lot more thinking and skill is required. However, for a good player (and that includes many/most on this site) turbos are good source of income. You have to be willing to live with the fact that you are going to lose a lot to lesser skilled players and live with the fact you are going to have go for coin flips when you are down to 5 or less. That is hard to accept for some talented players, but once you figure out the system, it's a hell of a deal.

In addition the rake/entry fee is much better. The rake is only $1 for the $15 turbos (same rake as the $10 regulars) which is about as good as I've seen.

My ROI at the $15 turbo level is over 50% and I've just moved up to the $25s. Understand that I am a casual player that likes to play a lot Friday/Sat night after a bunch of drinks. I actually track my ROI sober, drinking (2-4 drinks) and loaded (+5). The results are hillarious.

I don't have the same # of tournaments under my belt as a lot of you, but my results are from over 100 S&Gs

jmo

[PoorLawyer]

How much does your ROI go up when you are hammered? /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Galaxy 500]

Since you ask (and these are approximate, I've got the data at home):

Sober: ROI 40%
Drinking: ROI 100%
Loaded: ROI -60%