The Effect of Turbos on Tournaments

[KingBorgo]

In today’s poker atmosphere, one of the most prevalent concepts of poker is speed. Players want more hands, more tournaments, and more chances, and they want it faster. It became apparent a while ago with the advent of “Turbo” structures, in which players were given less time to act and shorter blind levels. Many players loved this, for who honestly likes playing a Sit-N-Go for 1.5 hours to finish 3rd and barely double your buy-in. So, everyone jumped on the Turbo bandwagon, with these tournaments taking significantly less time, thus allowing players to get better profits in shorter times.

If we can shorten the tournament time and structure a little bit, why not a lot? That’s what the major sites apparently thought, for not long after came the advent of the Super/Ultra turbo, with tournaments frequently featuring one or two minute blind levels. You could finish an entire SNG in 10 minutes. You could play 6 in an hour! A 1,000 person multi-table tournament could be over in 4 hours, meaning you could make thousands in an evening, without worrying about bedtime!

And we don’t even stop there! If we can make them quicker, and shorten blind times, what else can we do? Shorten starting stacks! There are now tournaments with 2 minute blinds that you start with twenty times the big blind. These large multi-table tournaments could be over within an hour, due to this new escalated pace. How much fun is this!

But, what exactly does this do to you, as a player? As you know, the biggest tournaments (the Sunday Million on Pokerstars, the 750k Guaranteed on FullTilt, the 200k Guaranteed on UB, etc) are not these turbo type tournaments. They are deepstacked affairs, giving players plenty of time and chips to make plays in order to profitably play these tournaments. They are not designed for players to double up early and play short stack poker. Quite the opposite, actually. They allow players to find multiple spots over multiple hours and put themselves in low variance positions (unlike the turbos, which are super high variance).

So, how do these two intersect? Well, many satellites to these big tournaments, especially in the last few hours before they are set to run, are designed as these Turbos and Super/Ultra Turbos. This way, a player can try to get into a $215 buyin for $20 less than an hour before the tournament starts. This has wonderful value, should you wake up late, decide you want to play shortly before the tournament, or for any such reason. But, is this a good manner to win a seat?

Absolutely not. These more rapidly paced tournaments force you to adjust your style, to be ready to push your entire tournament life with AJ, 88, or any other medium range hands, very early. After all, in 10 minutes your current stack may be the size of the big blind. In the REAL tournaments, in 10 minutes, the blinds will be exactly where they were, oftentimes 1% of your stack. If you are playing these quick paced tournaments, you must be careful that your mindset is not altered before you go for one of the slower paced, deeper stacked tournaments. You have to be able to see the value difference of AJos in a tournament where you will have 100 BBs in 30 minutes, versus where there will be no tournament in 30 minutes.

So, if you are going to be playing these super quick tournaments, be advised: that sort of play will only hurt you in the longer, deeperstacked tournaments. Before you go play that Sunday Million, I suggest trying some cheaper tournaments that have a similar structure so you can readjust to the play.

This is even more VITAL now that it is World Series of Poker time! Many people have won seats in online satellites, some of which were of the turbo variety. Is the WSOP Main Event a turbo? NO! It takes days upon days upon days to finish! In order to adjust your style of play, should you be a frequent player of these faster tournaments, it is virtually imperative to get some practice of the slower tournaments before trying your hand at some of the bigger ones.

[LapLizard]

Thanks for the info. Very well put.