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

[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.