Optimal Strategy for Turbos? (5 minute levels)

Whats a good approach for this types of MTTS?

what should be the range of hand we should be playing early?

and whats a good % of hands to be playing to not get blinded out?

I mainly wanna do good on really low buy in turbos, like $1-5

I am a master of these little bitches now.




basically, the core of ur turbo sng game should be like this:


until blinds start getting substantial at all(probably about 75/150 blinds) you should be the tightest mofo ever. fold AQ ep, fold AQ on the button to any raise, .. in lower buyin turbos I will fold KK to preflop allins quite regularly(i'll only call if the pot is ridiculously big or im positive they are weak), during the earliest blind levels. the thing is, you simply don't want to lose. the chips aren't nearly as important as they will be in 15-20 min. I will however try to limp pairs with good odds or maybe even multiway play a suited connector from position - but i am very very careful with them.
also I play my AA/KK hard and fast, like really really hard and fast

thats what she said


from that point i basically just sit there unless i get so small i need to steal, like 5 or 6 bb(where i get to the point that if the blinds go up or i lose another BB, i might not have enough chips for FE)
then i pick spots, and do it.

I play like this until I have the chip lead or I am in the top 3.



gg turbo sngs


obv there is more but that is the basics in a nutshell

--- Nuked ---

im not banning you because your post was disagreeing with me

im banning you because your post annoyed me enough to read your last 50 posts, and all of them are as bad as this one

it's only for a week - but please learn how to make more intelligent posts or something

uhh i think lower stakes sngs u definitely have a edge playin looser preflop b/c all of the players suck at postflop play

if u play 24 table style then feel free to play extra tight

no way

there are way too many random idiots (the majority of the players)

and there is no way you can regularly read these people's hands.



an edge 9 handed at small blinds is worth dick when none of the players have a clue how to play when the blinds get big

/agreewithtravis100%

Listen to da nigga !

(note this is for mtts not sngs)
in turbo MTT's i like to try and get as many decent hands in as i can, early on, this will help me double up and hopefully limit variance later on. I can make thinner AI calls when people start to run out of blinds, and not risk my tourny life. Also in many of the lower limit tournys, the fish are going to be playing 50% of their hands, watch closely for the first 10 hands or more, then start picking them off, their entire stack will be either 5X or gone within 2 blind increases. you need to get at it while you can. if they are the only player in the hand, isolate them, and take them down. Having a good cash background really helps in that case..
if your not fortunate enough to get any hands, sometimes you can mix it up like travis said, all though i dont do it very often.
limping from the botton or sb is getting more and more profitable, but its also a gamble, because more often people are starting to repop light form the blinds, they are also starting to 3bet very light if the button,CU,or sb raises. so thats a gamble, i like to base that on the player to my left. its a great spot to have a hand and his very very profitable, just judge your player, if he seems like the type that will not get off a hand if he raises your limp, then limp, pray he raises, rejam. if he seems smarter, and might check or 3bet light, then raise the spot.
i know i didnt write this out very well, but i hope it helps..
turbos mtt's are very high varience, i have only won 1 turbo tourny, and i ran sick sick sick hot, and even then it wasnt easy.

travis i do agree that u should play tight but foldin KK pf bad, so is foldin AK

TT+, AQ+ has decent value in pretty much every position, maybe fold AQ in EP if u feel nitty

and limp pp's arent that bad either

they are horrible at poker u can flop good u take their stack

im not saying i fold kk preflop more often than i end up allin with it preflop or somethin

On December 14 2007 17:02 asdf2000 wrote: im not banning you because your post was disagreeing with me im banning you because your post annoyed me enough to read your last 50 posts, and all of them are as bad as this one it's only for a week - but please learn how to make more intelligent posts or something

lmfao. . . yeah I completely agree with you asdf . . .you need to fucking strap barbed wire around your chips until you drop the aa/kk bomb. . .in which case you don't fuck around. . .if blinds are 25/50 and you raise 200 you're prolly still getting 3-4 callers avg. at least that's how I've experienced with the smaller buy in turboze. So if there's already a good amount of callers I just jam it and get ready to register for another, and yeah i don't even raise >tt anymore not worth pushing and raising gets into too much trouble, just see the flop with shit like that and play it carefully

asdf r u srs? folding KK pre in lowstakes? Tho vs very solid regular who knows you are a regular too maybe you could cause KK isnt huge favourite vs KK+ range.

KK isnt even a favourite vs a KK+ range.....

On December 15 2007 03:14 auffenpuffer wrote: asdf r u srs? folding KK pre in lowstakes? Tho vs very solid regular who knows you are a regular too maybe you could cause KK isnt huge favourite vs KK+ range.

microstakes turbos its wrong to probably fold any overpair imo

KK isnt even a favourite vs a KK+ range.....

What? No shit sherlock? OMG i must do pokerstove analysis asap to check if its true :O ty a lot your so smart!

microstakes turbos its wrong to probably fold any overpair imo

yeah... not many times folding overpair even in 27s is good.

lol i was meerly pointing out

On December 15 2007 03:14 auffenpuffer wrote: KK isnt huge favourite vs KK+ range.

"sherlock"

lol i know you were talking about that ffs. What I mean was that fucking obviously i know that KK isnt favourite vs KK+.

Asdf, folding KK preflop is pretty much the worst thing you could do...

Ya, I wouldn't ban Chobo for saying what he said. Folding KK Preflop in low stakes is pretty terrible. Thats how you screw yourself over.

On December 15 2007 06:57 Subaru wrote: Ya, I wouldn't ban Chobo for saying what he said. Folding KK Preflop in low stakes is pretty terrible. Thats how you screw yourself over.

I just fold every hand. I'm in it for the LOL's and the FPP's ^_^

Please who the fuck takes chobopokers side over travis?

Chobopoker never contributes to any discussion, hes basicly just wasting space with his dumb comments everywhere.

On December 15 2007 06:51 Oxy wrote: Asdf, folding KK preflop is pretty much the worst thing you could do...

if you have villains range down to QQ+, AK or maybe AQ,

then no, it really isn't.


that being said, it really doesn't come up that much - I was more trying to make a point saying to be incredibly cautious early than trying to advocate folding KK pre



however, if early on I raised QQ pre in early stages and an unknown goes allin, I almost always am folding.

Optimal strategy for microstakes SNGs is to Sit Out and wait till you get in the money

I don't think he should be banned either.right or wrong. i thought forums were used for players to discuss there opinions and get feedback from other players. Every reader should be able to determine which side of the disagreement that they agree with. anyway just my two cents....

On December 15 2007 10:39 Joe wrote: Optimal strategy for microstakes SNGs is to Sit Out and wait till you get in the money

On December 15 2007 10:40 MJCACE wrote: I don't think he should be banned either.right or wrong. i thought forums were used for players to discuss there opinions and get feedback from other players. Every reader should be able to determine which side of the disagreement that they agree with. anyway just my two cents....

I banned him because he never posts anything helpful, but often posts advice that will in fact be detrimental.


besides, im just a temp ban.
really, when it comes down to it, im too nice

however, if early on I raised QQ pre in early stages and an unknown goes allin, I almost always am folding.

ewwww dont do that.

Fwiw i think i've folded KK in a sng maaaybe 3 times, and its gone i raise to 80 EP at 10/20, solid reg reraises, solid reg rereraises/shoves.

Or solid reg raises EP, i reraises, someone calls/reraises, solid reg who raised first in shoves.

In general though folding JJ+ or AK to randoms is burning money, esp at the really low limits since there are people who will get allin preflop with AT and 55.

so if u have a 60-40 on the first hand of a low stakes turbo sng, you're taking it??

On December 15 2007 12:11 asdf2000 wrote: so if u have a 60-40 on the first hand of a low stakes turbo sng, you're taking it??

why wouldn't he

because there is more value in a 50-50 @ 5 handed than a 60-40 9 handed

not to mention, in the time you wait, there is a very substantial chance you'll get an 80-20


eh I guess after this post im done with this topic

Yes i'd take a 60/40, no im not trying to flip. However when some total random is playing every hand and going crazy, i'd rather make the mistake of ending up in a flip than passing on a 60/40. Again this is where using pokertracker and taking notes becomes useful, even at the 60s there were several casual players who'd mulittable a few times a week who i had the note on 'gets allin pre any pair, A6s etc', there are were several people who i had 'only 3bets KK+ first two levels' on.

Also the more time you wait, the less chips you have and the more likely the really bad donks will have given away all their chips.

Also if you do end up flipping the first hand and double up you are in a good position to cash, if you bust you can just fire up another one. Who cares about roi, all about $/hr!

On December 15 2007 13:02 TwistedEcho wrote: Who cares about roi, all about $/hr!

exactly! which is why i play tight as hell for the first 2/3 of the sng, allowing me to 9table them


but in all seriousness, i probably sound more extreme than I am. I do loosen up and I will have some allins in early stages, or play some hands. they are just all so situation specific i didnt want to get into that at all since makito was just asking for basic turbo strategy

and i can't believe you would take a 60-40 the first hand of a lowstakes turbo

i mean like, $100 turbo sure. $60 turbo maybe.

but comeon the lower stakes turbos are so so horribly bad there is no way taking the 60-40 is more profitable than folding

IMO you cant have that massive edge in icm play even in lowstakes. Maybe I am wrong, cant see a way to calculate this but really sounds quite extreme.

asdf: u can multitable like 16 sngs while playin AQ+, 22+ easily in early stage.. 9 table and playin tight is just like meh are u srs those are slower than FR tables

auffenpuffer: depends on opponent, if they fold too much ur edge is fuckin huge

i never said not to play 22+
in fact I think I said that I generally do try to play them.

are we talking about a 27people MTT or a 180 ppl or like real big MTTs like 500+ ?

asdf, is this more or less effective in larger fields and/or slower blinds structures? 180MTTs / 45 Mtts? Turbo/non turbo?

I would guess the lower the stakes the better, as the field would narrow itself easily and you'd double-up once or twice, but would the passive play hurt you in the later stages (when the tables will be full of people with larger stacks?) M'iuno, sweating out my 18-man sngs right now.

i agree with the moderated asdf
in low buyin turbo ($11 and below) I would snap allin qq+ in every situation tho and the few times ive folded JJ it's been bad half the time (like I raise from utg, utg+1 reraises, then another reraise and I fold and they go allin with 99 and ak.)
but being incredibly tight early stage and taking the right spots later is definitely how you succeed in them. I also think that the 10x bb rule becomes more of a 5-6x bb rule cause you definitely have FE with 5xbb.. you even have some with 3x in low buyin, although I guess cause people really suck.
ak I think you really shouldnt be folding vs unknowns in low buyin even though you have a massive edge later, cause it's just so likely that it isnt a flip but that it's a 70/30 for you.. I do fold it but I dont like doing so vs unknowns.

On January 04 2008 01:02 SemPeR wrote: asdf, is this more or less effective in larger fields and/or slower blinds structures? 180MTTs / 45 Mtts? Turbo/non turbo? I would guess the lower the stakes the better, as the field would narrow itself easily and you'd double-up once or twice, but would the passive play hurt you in the later stages (when the tables will be full of people with larger stacks?) M'iuno, sweating out my 18-man sngs right now.

smaller fields, i misunderstood the OP before lol i thought he was talking about single table turbos

but the same idea applies to multitable turbos, just to less of an extreme

I'd really like to see a vids of they are played because I don't really get the concept....
Since I am rather playing cash game I'd like to see some tourney vids anyway... since somehow I kinda suck at mtts.
I am simply playing too nitty....

On December 14 2007 17:53 JYang wrote: uhh i think lower stakes sngs u definitely have a edge playin looser preflop b/c all of the players suck at postflop play if u play 24 table style then feel free to play extra tight

I'm afraid you're wrong here JYang.
Yes they suck at post flop but you don't want to start committing chunks of ur stack (or even any) with fuck all for a spin up situation early (I know ur not saying spin up situation but you don't want to be playing around in pots trying to stack someone and your stack whittling away - for two reasons :

1) When you do finally double up you'll double up for much less when you do (ie 1700 doubling up = 3400 2000 doubling up = 4000)
2) As they knock each other out your 2000 chips are now worth more than what they were when the tournament started.

Ok maybe this post doesn't make much sense but asdf is right.
If you want to know how to play turbo sng's just sharkscope everyone in the high stakes ones - see the ones with the best stats over a decent sample size and watch how they play. - What you'll find is that they play very very similar to what asdf said. (ie fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold raise fold fold fold raise fold fold fold fold fold fold fold raise fold fold push fold push push fold fold push push fold push fold fold push push gg).
Although I wouldn't be folding KK (not often QQ)

ALSO the op asked about turbo mtt's.

Basically turbo mtt's are all about ICM. Don't worry about the early stages try and play tight you might get a chance to double up or might not. Then it's just about finding good spots to push hope you get folded to / hold up / outdraw and hope you win.

Donkaments are the ghey.

On December 15 2007 10:39 Joe wrote: Optimal strategy for microstakes SNGs is to Sit Out and wait till you get in the money

OMFG LOL I won second in a 5.50 SNG on PStars late one night because I fell asleep during the second round of blinds. I woke up in the morning and was really confused as to how the nine dollars got there HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

i really appreciate asdf's approach to turbos....

if i think about all the sngs that i've won, albeit a small percentage, it was when i played v v tight early on and allowing the worst donk to come out on top of the variance filter and then winning the game three or two handed against him.

if i only had the discipline to follow this route every time........