4 Reasons You Shouldn't Play 180 SNG Turbos on Stars
Monday, December 21, 2009 at 10:32PM I decided to play four turbos on Idiot Stars tonight.
Format: $12 180 turbo.
Start Time: 9:37 p.m
End Time: 10:31 p.m
Tournament 1:
KK< AK all in pre. Turn ace. Typical turn. That obviously crippled me. Eventually pushed with 44 all in against a calling A10. Justice by awarding me one coin flip in 50? HELL NO! FLOP ACE. Bust 44< A10 all in pre.
Tournament 2:
AJ < QK all in pre. Huge raise was not an instant call but the guy in the blind snap calls anyway. Ok Maybe I have a chance. FLOP QQ9 TURN KING.
Nice no wonder he snapped called. He must know something that I don't.
Tournament 3:
blinds 25/50
4 people limp early.. I push all in pre with AK suited. A brilliant individual snap calls 1800 with Q 10 off-suit
FLOP: (4, K, 9) (sweet I'm holding a king maybe I can win a pot)
TURN: (ACE) (wait doesn't he have an out if..........)
RIVER: (JACK)
Q-10 runner runners to make a straight on the river > AK
WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT?????? If this guy was sitting at my table in real life I have no idea how I would have stopped myself from lunging across the table and beating him with the largest object in my proximity. I actually flipped out and lost it on him. He said nothing. Classless I know, but screw this site.
Tournament 4:
AKs < QQ all in pre about 1600 with blinds still low.
BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK
Must be really fucking nice to have a hand hold.
And then the smartest thing I've done in a while: LOGGED OUT. Those were the only four tonight thank you Stars.
This is pretty funny. The larger sample size hasn't been much different especially over the past weekend. I think I could easily turn this into a series. I've always taken a sort of pride in my ability to take misery and produce something slightly meaningful (I've already done this writing about corporate).
Look forward to an upcoming post "4 Reasons You Shouldn't Play 180 Turbos on Stars (Part II)." I can nearly guarantee this publication will be out within the next 36 hours. Next time I'm playing tournaments instead of flipping out on someone I will just ramble on about reasons. For example the tournament starts and I type: "Reasons you shouldn't play 180 SNG turbos on Stars?" Some people will probably respond bewildered, I'll probably ignore. Perhaps I will even exchange a line or two: "Will this be another reason?". Then when I get sucked out simple a "PART II REASON #2 A MASTERPIECE!"
When I get to about Part 15 maybe I can put it all in one publication and hopefully stop one individual from torturing him or herself by putting money into these horseshit tournaments. Then again I guess someone has to be winning. Maybe you will be the Stars lottery raffle chosen one, but if things come tough for you like me then I would NOT enter. Note to self, next time just buy a large glass jar for $3. Then take the remaining $45 and break into pennies. Next fill the jar with the pennies and seal tight:
Finally, LAUNCH the jar of pennies at the nearest brick wall and brace yourself for an INCREDIBLE PENNY EXPLOSION.
Net Loss: -48.00
-bag
Reader Comments (3)
I don't understand why competent players would willingly play the 180 Man Turbos.
I'm sure you can grind out a steady ROI over a long period of time if you follow the perfect push/fold equilibrium strategy but you have to be able to put in a massive volume of these in order to yield proper results due to variance.
I've played these before and by the time you reach the 500/1000 level no one has more than 25 BB's and it's all-in or fold every hand so it comes down to whoever catches more cards. Oh, the skill required ...
Fk,
Thanks for the comments, I linked you up.
I'm on the breaking point with regards to how more variance I can handle here from a BR standpoint, and psychologically for that matter. Here are a few reasons I think "competent players" might prefer these:
1) Flexible schedule in an "MTT" format.
For people who only have an hour or two to play each day it can be great. You can easily get over 10 in two hours in.
2) A massive amount of VOLUME can be put in to increase overall ROI%.
The volume you can put in here is absolutely ridiculous. I have seen some players who grind around 12 tournaments at once. I'd have to check my log when I get home, but the average tourney probably lasts around 40 minutes. This adds up to 120 tournaments played in 2 hours. You figure the volume would make up for the variance, unless you run like I do of course. The buy-in for the 120 would cost $1,440. Two posts ago I noted that I only placed in the top 18 (payout) 17.1% of the time in 117 tournaments played. I still ended up with a small $71 profit. Imagine the profit if you make the pay out 30% of the time.
3) Training to handle variance.
If you can survive the variance here I'm pretty sure no variance in any other format will ever affect you again. You will be equipped to handle.
4) Weak competition
You wouldn't believe the incredibly stupid plays that you still see people making each and every tournament, even early on. It's just so tempting. At least I'm getting sucked out most of time all in with really dominating hands. This could happen in any format. But I don't know any other online format where you can get yourself in this position so frequently.
As for the play at blinds 500/1000. It seems it's all about leveraging your stack to steal whatever you can, no matter what your holding is, as long as you're opening first. That's what the top players seem to do. I'm a little reluctant to put myself all in 8k first to open stealing 500/1000 with J7s, but maybe that's something I have to work on. Meanwhile, a top player may auto-steal without hardly thinking in that same situation because probably in the long-run it's a profitable play. If he steals it 30% of the time it's worth it. You need to build chips to make a run at the final table. That being said you need to loosen your calling requirements at this stage. Your A-10 on the blind is good vs an opponent stealing from the button or cut-off 8 out of 10 times. So 8 out of 10 calling gets you in a damn good position.
-bag
Regarding poker books, I cannot recommend Tommy Angelo's Elements of Poker highly enough. You seem to have a solid understanding of game fundamentals, so focus more on game selection. Find one that you can beat consistently. Then, work up to larger fields. Going by your recent posts, the format you have chosen is only causing you to lose and tilt.