read to shoot myself, hand me a gun!

[Scooterdoo]

Well not quite that frustrated, but...

As some of you know from my posts, I've been a regular Party SnG for a while now. I've always done well getting in the money 50-60% of the time, but never realized how the blind structure brings so much luck into actually winning the thing. I've recently been trying for the cruise semis and keep on finishing 2nd and 3rd over and over.

Yesterday I played really good, strong poker and led from the 1st hand on. Built my chips to T3500, about 3 times my next closest competitor with 4 players left. However in two hands one guy managed to knock out the other two and had an instant chip lead on me. With the blinds at the 500/1000 level and no good hands for about 6 times through I quickly went way behind, had to gamble a bit and see ya later, another 2nd.

Tonight I just finished playing. Was up, then down and almost out, scraped my way up. Won 3 all-ins by getting people to call my nut hands. Got to one on one and played heads-up for quite a while with the blinds getting to the 600/1200 level. Finally got him down to about 5500/2500 and he went all-in pre-flop. I had JJ and followed him in. He turned out to have TT and pulled a T! Of course I then go to have 4-5 good hands (Ax-ish), but never pulled a thing on the board. Once again I'm 2nd!

The blinds get so big, that if you play someone that is even close to your ability it is very hard to last if you get 3-4 bad hands against your opponent.

On a side note I got dealt big slick twice in a row -- never happened before. Lost the first time fairly large, won the second for a net loss. Oh, well.

Just thought I would vent a bit. Do any of the other sites have better SnG blind structures -- e.g., they stay much lower as a % of stack size even at the end. It seems a little ridiculous for the opening bet to grow to 20-50% of your stack. Where's the skill in that? The one thing I love about Party is the fact that you don't have to wait long for a table. I've tried Paradise for a while but you can wait 30 minutes over there.