One table tourneys on Pokerstars and Party

[AnyAce]

Hey all,
Just wondering if you've had the same experience as I have had.

Been playing at Pokerstars for a couple years, mostly 1 and 2 tbl sit n go's. Been doing pretty well, though nothing remarkable.

I had read on this board that Party was softer because of all the fish from WPT and WSOP on TV so I made a deposit and started playing. And as usual, the 2+2 crew was right

I play mostly $30+3 SNG's. On pokerstars most people at this level seem to know what their doing (at least vaguely), I don't see people playing any face or any suited very often there.

By contrast, the Party SNG's seem to be a circus, 5 or 6 people seeing the flop. Two to four people going to the river often. Calling two bets cold with 45o, raising UTG with Q7o, etc. It's like "I saw Phil Ivey raise with Q7o on WPT, so that must be how you play it..."

I know that I want people to do this, but it's still frustrating when the blinds virtually double every 10 hands and the guy who called two bets cold pre-flop goes all the way to the river only to make his gutshot straight draw there.

I realize this increases the variance of my results.

What strategy adjustments have you made to counter this trend?

Are the $50 SNG on party any different?

Thanks in advance.

[Bozeman]

I played sng's on Paradise mostly until Party changed their big game structure. While I still beat Party's SNG's, I thought I did better at Paradise. Now that the $50 and up ones give you 1000 chips, Party is hands down the place to be (at bigger buyins).

Craig

[tpir90036]

i wish party would just get with the freaking program and give T1000 for everything. and get rid of the # of hands escalation garbage. i know that they make more money when they go faster...but jeez. these sites are raking in so much money, the least they could do was make it a little more player friendly.

preaching to the choir...
-tpir

[Martin Aigner]

AnyAce,

try the NL games. You will see that you won´t have that many chasers in NL, although there are still lots of fishes at the tables.

In limit the blinds are so high that the players in the blind will defend them and go to the river with any pair very often. So in limit you have to show the best hand frequently. In NL it´s more a game of pretending. You get rid of the A2 hands when you raise with KT, which oviously is, what you want.

I think there is a reason why Party doesn´t offer 200$ buy in Limit SnG while they have 200$ NL SnG. There seems to be no market.

BTW, if you bankroll is big enough, try the 50$ buy i at Party, since they start with 1000 instead of 800.

Best regards

Martin Aigner

[crockpot]

in the $50 tourneys you get 200 more chips, so it lasts a little longer. remember, these things are designed for fast action, so the quickly increasing blinds are there by popular demand.

even though you can win plenty of pots by bluffing, yeah, it will take some luck to win SNGs. the most important thing you can do is learn to play shorthanded well, since the first four or five players get knocked out so quickly. as bob ciaffone says, you should go from the rock of gibraltar to a kamikaze pilot as players get eliminated.

as for getting outdrawn, well, that will haunt you forever unless you play badly to get on the good end of one of them.

[AnyAce]

Thanks everyone for your comments. I did not know that you get T1000 for $50 & up tourneys, good to know. I will also check out NL tourneys as well.

Good luck to all.

[Edge34]

Crock's advice from ciaffone is deadly accurate, especially when you talk about the Party SNG's. I've played a TON of those in my online "career" so to speak, and the key is definitely to tighten up significantly, especially at the lower buy-ins, like the 10+1's. I've never played higher than the 30+3's, but the advice seems to come down to one simple plan...

"Wait for the idiots to eliminate themselves." If you pick up a monster early, you can play it strong and probably get paid big. If you have the patience to wait for a good hand early, then get progressively more aggressive, you should be able to beat most of the Party SNG's at the very least.

[James282]

Party 50$ shows no remarkable skill difference from the 30$ games, and I have played a couple hundred tournaments in each. You will occasionally run into 1 or 2 tough players at a table, but that seems to be the maximum number that you can count on. You may have different definitions of tough, but I am trying to describe players with sound game theory who understand no limit tournament play. Combine the added 200 chips for the 50$ level and the amount it descreases your variance will surprise you. Build up about 15 buy ins and give it a shot, if you lose 5 in a row and feel uncomfortable, drop back down. Don't bother with Paradise or Stars(unless you liek 2 table), the action is at party now that the 50$ tourneys have 1000 chips.
-James

[curtains]

Strangely I think ones EV goes down a bit when the chips went from 800 to 1000. When everyone had 800 those steals you made near the end were worth a lot more than they are now. Usuaully the players tightened up too much near the end of these events. Also it used to be that if you doubled up right away, it would take some kind of disaster to not finish in the money, but now its not as easy after an instant double up.
In almost all cases I feel like more chips = higher EV....but somehow I feel like this case had the opposite affect...its just a bit more difficult to get into situations where the correct move is to steal no matter what your cards are.......this happened a lot in the 800 events and since there was less chips to start with, it cost people a lot more to call you and thus they were tighter. Now often 2 people have so many more chips than you, that its really no problem for them to call your allin raise. I dont really know the exact reasons, but I feel like I had it down to a science with T800 and now its a slightly different ballgame.

[AnyAce]

Stealing was part of my frustration. Three times in the last week we were 4 handed, blinds were high, it was folded around to me in SB. I had A-rag. I raised. Each time I was called by either K rag, Q rag, or J rag and in each case I lost. I realize this is just bad luck, but it's still frustrating. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]