Best Tournaments (multi and Single)

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

Well, what are the best tourneys to play in terms of the softest competition? I intend to start playing 20, 30 or 50$ MTTs on Party or Stars and I'd like to know which and when are the best ones.

I'm thinking the "guaranteed" ones in the evening, certainly they'd attract lots of bad players, right?

[kasey2004]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker Stars having a 'really good' structure is the single biggest fallacy surrounding online MTTs
~Justin

[/ QUOTE ]

I dont know that i completly agree with this, but i did say in my opinion. I have played on Full Tilt, Party/Empire, CD Poker, Ultimate Bet, and of course Stars. I still stand by MY favorite structure is Stars i think its a good solid stucture with a lot of starting chips 15 min. levels and lots of players. He did say single and multi tables. SnGs i also like Stars since they have fast blinds with turbos and deep stacked slower blind SnGs.

well theres my 2 cents.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] Kasey [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[eMarkM]

If "best" structure means the slowest, then the Party skins are best of Party/Paradise/UB/Stars (the only sites I've ever played, I can't speak for others). UB has great starting chip ratio but they increase every 12 minutes. This makes a big difference. Stars has a very good structure at the start, but it gets into push/fold mode just when you get to the bubble. Paradise structure is a joke not worth mentioning, becomes a push-fest way too early.

You only start with 1000 on Party, but the blinds move very slowly at first (BB=15-20-30-50-100 vs Stars 20-30-50-100-150 for 1st five levels). Also, Party has no antes and while that is a negative for me overall, it does mean you have longer to wait to make a move. This can't be underestimated, antes are an immense drain on your stack. I did a spreadsheet analysis of this where I tried to figure out which site you could last the longest on without playing a hand. Again, slower doesn't always mean better in my book, but I think that's what most mean when they say "who's best". Party wins easily over the others in that regard. Of course, most would also agree that Party has the softest competition as well.

And Party Supers have 20 min levels and that is HUGE and makes it by far the best structure for the patient player. It's not even close. The only structure better than that is the Stars "Event" tourneys that have 2500 chips and 30 min levels--and take like 10 hours to complete.

Now, I don't think slower is really better. I would never play a Stars "Event" structure regularly, they just take too long. The best structure would be one where it would be faster at the start and slower at the end. It would be over in a reasonable time, but still have play at the end. All these sites suffer from the fact that all but the biggest stacks are in push/fold mode when it really counts.

[Chief911]

Best tournament on the planet - Stars 25k guarenteed 11r that goes at 10:15 PM EST every night. [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

[Isura]

I think Party has the best structure for high buyins. For the low buyin MTTs that I play, I love playing Full Tilt's structure, and UB's is good too. Full tilt's structure is deceptively slow in the middle/late stages, even more so than UB.

[kslghost]

I like many people believed that Party Poker had the worst structure, but it only seemed like that because of the 1k starting stack size. However, there are some things that are + and - about Stars vs Party.

I'd like to see Stars raise blinds slower (as some people have mentioned). I've noticed that so many tournaments become push fests.

I'd like to see Stars start hand for hand earlier. While live tournaments only do it for the last place before a bubble, online tournaments are PLAGUED by slow players. Whenever I played on Stars, I would notice people playing to the end of every clock on a short stack. Party starts hand for hand undeniably EARLY. Sometimes a full table before the bubble. This keeps slow players from taking advantage of the system (though they seem to play slow even when it is hand for hand! They never find out because their hand never ends first!)

And of course, both sites need to control the end game better. Too many games are push fests until it goes headsup. Short stacks rarely stand a chance! (repeat levels at the higher levels would be ***great***...)

[eMarkM]

The rebuys are a little different, I agree. For this tourney you can have 5K at the end of rebuy without having won a hand. There is a ton of play in these since there's so many chips on the table. Still, at the end everyone but the biggest stacks have low Ms and they also devolve into push/fold for all but those top stacks.

[eMarkM]

I made a comment about MTTs in another reply on this thread as far as which is slowest. However, slowest does not really mean best. This is most clearly illustrated in STTs. There has long been a big debate over who's best on the 1-tbl board. The classic case is Stars vs Party structure. Most would agree that with the 15-min levels, 1500 chip start on Stars that these offer more play than the every 10 hand increase "crapshoot" on Party. Therefore, they are "better". However, there's more to a tourney than simply it's structure and it's speed. It's how do the other players adjust to that structure that counts.

I would argue, as would many on 1-tbl board, that Party is better because overall the players do not adjust their playing to what the structure dictates. The Fundamental Theorm of Poker says if they play a hand differently than they you would have if they could see your cards, you gain. For a Party STT on the bubble and you open-push aggressively with 87o because the blinds are huge and you understand the mathamatical implications of ICM and that your push is +EV and your opponent folds an Ace in the BB hoping to limp into the money than he's made a mistake to your gain. Had he seen your cards, he would call you. But then there are exceptions when there are extreme chip positions where folding the Ace is correct to any push and it's not always clear cut. There are many more ways for the skilled opponent to force mistakes in the fast and loose structure of the Party skins STTs where you need to make these very thin pushes and calls with marginal cards than in the regular Stars structure.

This is why I've actually enjoyed the Stars Turbo tourneys more than the regular ones. Late in the game you steal twice in row and you go from bottom of the pile to top stack. You have to make pushes with any two in many cases and calls with hands like K7. Most players play too loose in the beginning and too tightly in the end. I find the fast STT structures really magnify mistakes since the pots get so big. This is to the skilled player's advantage.

[TheTimeIsUp]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker Stars having a 'really good' structure is the single biggest fallacy surrounding online MTTs
~Justin

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually completely disagree with this. I am certain that PokerStars has the worst structure on the net. Sure, the antes are a big plus, however, the levels are very short and they skip 4 or so.
For example, if you have played in a lot of MTTs there you would know how harsh the jump is from 600/1200 to 1000/2000. They completely skip a 800/1600 level, and it turns in a crap shoot.
I finished 54th in the 500k guaranteed last week, and when the level went up to 10k/20k, the average was 120k. 6 big blinds. Basically, their MTTs turn into crap shoots.

The best MTTs are UB and FullTilt. Both have slow levels, good starting chips, and many levels. Even though they aren't as nearly as popular as Party or Stars, they are the runaway best.

[kslghost]

That's a very interesting take on it eMarkM. I've never thought of it quite like that. But I do agree with it, though I think you can take advantage of these mistakes on either site. Unfortunately, I haven't experienced it as much on Party STT because I've found that a good number of players don't play that poorly on the bubble, and in fact I've ran into players who are too loose on the bubble.

That of course is really better... (until I get sucked out on AQ vs A9...) :-D