I have given this decision a lot of thought, but I have decided to change my plan a little bit. I am no longer going to play the $5.50 SnG's on pokerstars to reach my target of 1000 dollars by Christmas. Instead I will be playing the $6.50 turbos. Let me explain my decision.
The $5.50 SnG's make for a great game of poker. Plenty of play, good structure, plenty of fish etc. However, most of the games I was playing were taking an hour to finish, I even had a few approach an hour and a half. That is a long time to play when the top prize is only $22.50, with $17 being profit. Plus, I find that my ability to multi-table is made more difficult by the fact that the blinds are still relatively low (ie not all in every hand) when the play is four and five handed (75-150 and 100-200). This is where the game is won and lost and most times I can come out of this period as chip leader and go on to finish well, but only on one table. I find myself time and time again, gambling with a short stack during an SnG at inopportune times to either double up or get eliminated so I can fully concentrate on the SnG where I have lots of chips.
The $6.50 turbos have the same structure, the only difference being they have 5 minule levels. I won two last night and had a few bad beats in others, but something I found incredible was the terrible, I repeat TERRIBLE, stack management of some players. (Folding in the BB when the BB represented 40-50% of their stack.) I also realised that heads up was played at the 200-400 level and maybe a hand or two at the 300-600 level. This is not as bad as I expected. Yes there is an element of luck involved, it's poker, of course there is. But I can fold a BB of 600 when I have a stack around 6000-8000, and still win the thing. I expected blinds of 1000-2000 when I first started and it being a crap shoot four handed. But this was not the case. I was usually by far the most aggressive and this was key as people were hanging on for third and second place money. This is another benefit to these tourneys. Instead of a $22.50 first prize as in the $5.50 SnG's, it is $27.00. Not a big difference I know, but an extra $4.50 profit represents more than 25% of the profit in the $5.50 SnG's. Another benefit is that when it gets to 4 handed, all in is the most popular move as the blinds are usually 100-200 w 25 ante or 150-300 w 25 ante. This means that I can fire up more then one table and be confident in my abilities to win as aggressiveness usually means all in around at this time in a SnG. Every time I take the blinds uncontested I grow substantially and they lose substantially. They should be calling with a wider range of hands but they don't. In the $5.50 SnG's they could fold and wait for a monster and punish me, but because the blinds are one step ahead in the turbos, one or two folds and they are extremely short stacked, leaving them with little fold equity (to push others off a hand as the raise is too much to call therefore not getting the proper odds to call with any two).
Mike (getupkid), you were right, the turbos are good value as they increase my hourly rate without taking too much skill out of the game. Here's to hoping.
Pokerstars balance - 162.54 (For all this talk about 6.50 SnG's I had bad beats galore last night)
The Rivercard - 108.62 (I lost 60 dollars in 2 days. I tried playing the $10 SnG's stupidly, and lost a few, then registered for what I thought was a $5.50 SnG and turned out to be a $22 SnG. I am only going to play $5 there from now on as well. I am getting action points there and I hope to play some freeroll tournies tonight)
Live poker - £132 - (Going to play a big tourney on Saturday I think at the Stanley casino on Sauchiehall Street. Officepoker.net tourney. A 10,000 chip with slow levels. I love these 10,000 chip tournies. I will update when I am sure if I am going.)
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3 comments:
The $5.50's on Stars used to kill me, the play there is horrific! There is next to no point push-botting towards the end of a SnG as the donks will call you with almost any two cards. When I play at any other buy-in level I seem to come out on top but just can't beat the $5.50's!
I know what you mean about the play. A lot of players have no idea about being pot committed or how the value of their hands goes down as more people raise before them. (ie pushing with 88 after a raise a rereraise and a rerereraise preflop when the blinds are 15/30)
That being said, they are beatable as I just sit there and play like an open book. I raise massive with AA and KK and I am paid off 95% of the time. As for them calling, I found that was the case 4 and 5 handed but 4 handed, wow, they want 3rd place. I go all in with anything and they fold fold fold. Kind of funny really. I am looking forward to the higher levels as my roll builds. I am always tempted to open a 10 dollar table but I keep saying 'wait till Christmas'. Hopefully by that time my roll is over 1000 and I can move up.
oops, I mean raise, reraise, rereraise and 5 and 6 handed they call but 4 handed they are tight
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