Turbo S+G's Safe bet or fun way to gamble?

[storm]

Latly I find my self playing these turbo s+g's at poker stars when I have less then an hour to kill before a mtt . At 1'st I was playing the Stud/8 thinking if I have an advantage over my opponits the accelerated blind structure should not be a disadvantage but an advantage. Naturaly after playing several I look back over my results to see a horrable ITM% when compaired to the normal structured game. Granted a dozen or so games is nothing to base any life changing decisions on but there were other factors I saw reproducing themselvs that lead me to beleave the turbo structure was actualy a disadvantage.

Let's face it you can go a lot of hands befor you find good starters and we all know even if you do 4'th and 5'th streets can kill your hand in stud. Say you have to wait 20 hands befor you get a hand you can get to showdown with and play has taken at least 2 minutes per hand. Now your at leavel 4 or 5 and and can possably end up with all your chips in and get back 1/2 the pot with a nominal profit. Now you are waiting for the next oppertunity that might cost you 1/2 your chips to rag off a couple cards. Long explanation short there is no room to absorb losses on hands you don't catch.

Now hold em is a bit different in that you don't have to hold the hand to win pots. I only play hold em about 10% of the time I spend playing but I have noticed I have been considerably more succesfull in the turbo NL games VS. Stud. However I still question my real advantage in playing turbo VS. normal. After all I need to find spots where my opponit puts a lot of chips in the pot when I have him beat. When blinds raise to a certian stage post flop play where you can most confidently find these spots is replaced by short stacks making all in pre flop stands. Sure one can argue that the short stacks are going to be making stands with less then grade A hands but you are still looking at standing a lot of situations where you are only a 60/40 favorite pre flop with no post flop play. Seems to me that there is no real advantage to turbo blinds exept the amount of time you have to invest.

The real question here is. Do accelerated blind structures hold any real long term advantage for skilled players?

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
The real question here is. Do accelerated blind structures hold any real long term advantage for skilled players?


[/ QUOTE ]

There is a *big* long term advantage, as long as you can adjust well to this structure. The questions you are asking about the turbo's were asked already many times. Try the search option, and I'm sure you'll find the material you are looking for.

Good luck.

[TaxGoddess]

Personally, I think SnG Turbos are the crack of poker, get a fast hit to fulfill the need for a poker fix.

Really, they are a fun way to gamble. While I agree with PrayingMantis, that a skilled player can adjust to the accelerated blind structure and use it to his advantage, I would note that in the short run the faster the blinds go up, the more luck is involved, giving erratic players a slight advantage (IMO).

TaxGoddess

[skaboomizzy]

If you can make the necessary adjustments, they're a fine deal just for the reduced rake... $15+1 and $25+2.

[woodguy]

Accelerated blinds are an advantage if you play well with a short stack.

I believe that is why so much of this forum is devoted to all-in questions with short stacks.

If you can play well with a short stack, and don't make a large mistake when you are a large stack, you can do well long term in SnG's.

But, that's just my opinion, others may disagree.

regards,
woodguy

[RPatterson]

I know I personally have been doing alot worse in turbo than in normal speed. Basically it's at 50/100 before you can win a meaningful post most the time. Whereas with 30 minutes before 50/100 you can usually, hopefully, win something.

[RPatterson]

I think in general the longer the blinds remain small in relation to the starting stack size, the bigger the advantage is to the better players. It's almost common sense.

If the BB is 10, and we each start with 20 chips, I'm not that far behind (if at all) Phil Ivey headsup, if we start with 100 chips, I still stand a good chance, if we start with 1,000,000 chips I'm totaly screwed.

[woodguy]

[ QUOTE ]
I think in general the longer the blinds remain small in relation to the starting stack size, the bigger the advantage is to the better players. It's almost common sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

True.

The more chips you have, the greater the advantage to the good player.

I just don't think that small starting stacks negate the ability of the good player.

The ability to play well with a short stack, will, in the long run, help increase your profitability in playing SnG's.

The quick blinds can give an advantage over someone who's "luck is running good", but if you are good with a short stack, you can overcome some deficits to make it ITM enough to make your $/hr better than starting with deeper stacks.

Or make it close enough that it doesn't matter.

It also helps your abiliity to make it ITM in MTT's because you have so much experience playing the short stack.

regards,
woodguy

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
I think in general the longer the blinds remain small in relation to the starting stack size, the bigger the advantage is to the better players. It's almost common sense.


[/ QUOTE ]

No, it is not common sense. This has been discussed before, numerous times. Your advantage does not come directly from stacks being X or Y, and from blinds climbing in this or that rate. Your advantage is how well you profit from others' mistakes in any specific structure. And as long as the structure, whatever it is, allows your opposition to make enough mistakes, your advantage is there. And the turbos, in any buy-in, allow your opponents to make A LOT of mistakes, in every stage, so your advantage, if you adapt well, might be big, quite like the nature of your advantage at the Party SNGs.

Again, as in other threads, people confuse variance with profitability, or SD with ROI. The turbos will increase your variance (as the party SNGs will in comparison to Stars' normal structure), but your $/H might be better, and the advantage for a skilled player is there, in a big way.

Actually, I don't quite understand how people here keep repeating these claims. Isn't it obvious that even though you get 200 more chips at the 55$ and above Party SNGs, the best players' ROI at the higher levels is significantly smaller than the best players' ROI at the lower levels? And is getting smaller the higher you climb? This has to do ONLY with the skill of your opposition. It is even difficult to assume that the ROI of the best players at the lower buy-ins would have been significantly higher if the stacks were bigger: that's because even the weakest players "adapt" in some way to the specific structure.

Again, all this was discussed many times before.

[smartalecc5]

I HATE TURBO GAMES! THe blinds just skyrocket - especiallly on primapoker sites.

[Phill S]

if you cant manage fast blind structures, how can you consider yourself a good player.

the ultimate attribute of a winning player is flexibility above all.

i have adapted my play to the turbos on stars, and im loving every single dollar earning minute of it.

low percentage rake, high turnovers and opponants with no higher skill than the buy in below it. how can you not appreciate the value in them.

plus i beleive a winning player has a huge advantage over a 'standard' player, in that you can make the tough choices and play the inevitable short stack to near perfection.

again, all been discussed before, but that is basicly the jist of it in my opinion.

Phill

[Yawkey]

After our big game last night, a couple of my poker buddies tried a turbo game of Hold'em where blinds doubled every 2 hands. It was really fun for a $1 buy-in game (two of the four had already lost a good amount in the previous game), and it was exciting to play. I would recomend it to anyone looking for something new to try. Plus you finish the game in a half an hour tops, and because of the speed it makes for a very energetic envrionment with those who are out cheering on the ones playing the cards.

As for the game itself, it reminds me Blitz in chess where each player has 2 min to make all of their moves. Many pro chess players consider it a tainted version of chess, yet it still requires the basic chess skills to be successful, just applied differently. I ended up winning this one and I think one of the keys was knowing how my existing poker skills had to be applied in this situation. The first thing that came to me was the realization that most of the players would be blinded out of the game. How do I avoid that? Get the chip lead quick. During the first couple rounds the other guys were waiting for strong hands, and I took advantage of that by playing moderate hands extremely agressive. By the time anyone realized what I had done, they were pushing the rest of their stacks in for their blinds.

Having only played this once, I'm certainly not an expert on this, but it seemed to work. It was a short handed game, so as expected shorthanded techniques worked well, but I think they would also be successful had there been a full table to start. Table presence may have had an impact also, because I finished 2nd in the big game and won Wednesdays game.

[excession]

It's suits a very aggressive all-in style and you do have to change your usual gameplan - unfortunately plays into the hands of the all-in maniacs rather too much.
In normal SnG's it's pretty easy to wait to trap a maniac and also to survive at least one bad beat.
Personally I find the Party SnG's to be plenty fast enough and the PS Turbos just a crapshoot. I'm slightly up in them up in them, I just prefer the Party ones to be honest.

Of course if you can adapt your play to them 9or it suits your style) more power to you.

[Phill S]

err. surely youve missed an obvious point.

party, blinds up every ten hands, stars, blinds up every 5 mins. now on a orugh calculation those are pretty even figures (as it happened my mate and i played a sit and go at two sites at the same time, giving comentry. stars turbo, and he was on a ladbrokes game (blinds up every 10 hands). the play out was almost identical blind wise.

the difference is at party you get 800 or 1000 chips, in stars you get 1500.

surely you see my point. 50 percent more chips is a reduction of the variance by 10% minimum.

and to address one specific point of yours, you dont get many all in maniacs on stars, not even the 6.5 players.

Phill

[UncleDuke]

There is one very significant advantage that comes to mind: the fact that you can play more turbos in a given amount of time than normal speed sngs means that you can make more money per unit of time (subject to other factors). The increased luck factor may take something away from the better players, but the ability to get more tourneys in gives them something back. Which factor carries more weight might be up for debate, but it seems to me most players who make a profit at the normal speed ones will do at least close to as well in the turbos if you look at aggregate amount won.

[ilya]

Ahhh, Blitz. Only for the very best.
Btw it's 5 min/player, not 2.

[Yawkey]

You're right Blitz is 5 min per player, 2 min per player is called something else like super-Blitz. Both are still fun non-the-less.