Differences in Party and Pokerstars

[Wynton]

Recently, I reviewed a thread here discussing strategy for beating Partypoker's 1-table sitngo tournament. Because I play exclusively at pokerstars, and the advise seemed contingent on party's structure, I was wondering whether there was a significant difference in the structure of the 1-table tournaments at each site.

Can anyone tell me whether the structures are the same, and whether that would cause one to have different strategies at each site?

[TomCollins]

Party is more similar to the Turbo tournaments at Stars. The blinds go up slower, and the crazies aren't as common. You have more time to be patient, and will probably get away with stealing at a lower level. You also start out with more chips at Stars compared to the blinds. Many times at party, with 2000 stacks, it becomes a crap shoot with 200/400 blinds. You won't find this at Stars as often.

[Prickly Pete]

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Many times at party, with 2000 stacks, it becomes a crap shoot with 200/400 blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

Party has 1000 chip stacks, not 2000. And still, I think calling them crap shoots late (as many here do) is overstating the point. I see many players that have no clue how to play these things late in the game. Against them, it is hardly a crap shoot.

[Wynton]

So if I understand correctly, Party starts with 1000 chips, but has a similar or even faster blind structure? If that is the case, then it seems that I should stick with pokerstars.

Oh, one more thing, is it also true that Party charges more of a fee than Pokerstars for the 1-table tournaments?

[adam61]

Same fee except at the $5 level where party is $5/1 and Stars is $5/.50

[Grivan]

Party has 800 chip starting stacks in the SNGs.

[AA suited]

[ QUOTE ]
Party has 800 chip starting stacks in the SNGs.

[/ QUOTE ]

at the lower levels. i think 50/5 and above is 1000 chips. (or is it 100/9 sng's)?

[adam61]

5/1 through 30/3 use 800 chips per stack 8000 per table. 50/5 through 200/15 use 1000 chip stacks 10,000 per table. The blind structures are exactly the same for all levels though

[Beavis68]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Many times at party, with 2000 stacks, it becomes a crap shoot with 200/400 blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

Party has 1000 chip stacks, not 2000. And still, I think calling them crap shoots late (as many here do) is overstating the point. I see many players that have no clue how to play these things late in the game. Against them, it is hardly a crap shoot.

[/ QUOTE ]

WHat he was saying is, you have a stack built to about 2000 and the blinds are 200/400.

It does turn into a bit of a crap shoot late in the game, especially on the lower limit games. It is just finding two cards to go all-in on. With 200/400 blinds, and 4 people left in the game, you can't even make a standard raise - even at the 100/200 level it is hard.

That said, I have gone back to party, I got tired of sitting for an hour and half or more to play one game. Especially if you sit that long and go out fourth.

[AA suited]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Many times at party, with 2000 stacks, it becomes a crap shoot with 200/400 blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

Party has 1000 chip stacks, not 2000. And still, I think calling them crap shoots late (as many here do) is overstating the point. I see many players that have no clue how to play these things late in the game. Against them, it is hardly a crap shoot.

[/ QUOTE ]

WHat he was saying is, you have a stack built to about 2000 and the blinds are 200/400.

It does turn into a bit of a crap shoot late in the game, especially on the lower limit games. It is just finding two cards to go all-in on. With 200/400 blinds, and 4 people left in the game, you can't even make a standard raise - even at the 100/200 level it is hard.

That said, I have gone back to party, I got tired of sitting for an hour and half or more to play one game. Especially if you sit that long and go out fourth.

[/ QUOTE ]

1 1/2hrs at a party sng????

i've played 50+ of these (20/2) and none lasted longer than 50 min. at that mark, the blinds are maxed

[memphis_aces]

I think what he was saying is that he was tired of waiting an hour and a half for a game to form elsewhere....whereas at party there are SNGs starting every 30 seconds to a minute at the lower limits and only slightly less frequent at the higher limits....

FYI to all, Party DOES start with 800 chip stacks at the lower limits and the blinds escalate every 10 hands (starting at 15/30 I believe). Basically you've usually got about 30-35 hands to wait through before making a big move (unless you get a monster early). By then you're only looking at 6 or 7 folks at the table instead of 10....the maniacs are gone and you're likely still slightly above average stacked.

You are also correct in that SNGs typically run 45mins to 1hr at most.

[Copenhaver]

Having played at PokerStars for a while, I can say their Sit-n-Go tournaments are fairly fast. They've recently added a "turbo" style Sit-n-Go, which you can play in about 30-40 minutes, with blinds going up every 10 minutes. That is more of a crap shoot than the normal style Sit-n-Go tournaments.

I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but P.Stars starts you out with $1500 in chips with blinds starting at 10/20. It seems that if you're a low stack coming into the money or close to it, it may very well feel like a crap shoot. But at least at P.Stars, if you're in first or second, you're sitting pretty comfortably.

[Prickly Pete]

Ah gotcha about the 2000 chips.

But I still believe that a skillful player will win more than his share even at this stage. But I agree it is more of a crapshoot than say a Stars tourney.

[TomCollins]

When its 4 handed, 2000 stack chips are the average. And it regularly gets to the point where you push preflop with a lot of hands. Definately less skillfull than smaller blinds. There is a way to play these, but the bad player will beat you more often than he will in a smaller blind setting.