[Percula]

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Are the friday night 11+R tournaments about like the 3+R weeknight tournaments?

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In a word, no.

To start with they are turbo's with the blinds going up every five minutes. You start with T1000 and not T1500, add-on is at 30mins and is T1500. The play is a little better in the rebuy period, not so many Ax all-ins and the like, but you still see your fair share of them. You are more likely to see A(T or greater) and just about any PP.

Where the real difference comes in is the post rebuy. You need to stay ahead of the blinds, which later in the tourament with slow play/stalling can be a blind increase on every hand. So you have to stay ahead and/or double up repeatedly to place ITM. It can be a real craps shoot unless you do some chip gathering during the first hour.

Just imagine you are sitting with T20,000 in chips on a full table and the BB is T2000 which you just folded your 72o to a raise (you see one on every hand at this point), now you have T18,000 and get junk in the SB and have to fold, now you are at <T17,000 (antes remember). If the game is slowing down at this point, chances are pretty good that by the time you are in the BB again, you are looking at either T12,000 or T20,000 blinds. Guess what unless you have doubled up or stolen to stay ahead of the blinds you are all-in here with any two.

There is a point near the bubble where if you have enough chips you can just sit out. There will be 4-10 people that will be forced all-in on blinds or antes before you are blinded out. Knowing when that point is is the trick.