Seriously. I've been about 50/50 on turbos as far as my win rate goes.

What are some good strategies? You obviously need to be catching cards. I've mostly stopped playing turbos because they almost seem like a crap shoot to me. What do you guys do for turbos?

I stay the hell away from turbos, unless I'm just trying to kill an hour or something before work. Turbos take away from the skill factor big time. That's why deep stack tourneys are so sweet. They give the skilled players a bid edge because there isn't so much pressure from the blinds.

the best strat I can recommend is to not let the blinds choke you...make moves earlier.

Turbos are good because you can play a lot more in the same amount in the same amount of time, increasing your hourly rate. If you have a decent understanding of ICM you should easily be making money in any format.

Understanding ICM is pretty important.

50/50 is a pretty decent winrate over a large sample size.

Like many, I avoid turbos because of the whole push/fold scenario. It's very dull. The good thing about turbos, is I find they attract weaker players.

If I was playing turbos, I would:

A) See as many flops as I can early, as long as I can see em cheap (3bb max preflop). I find a lot of people are so desperate for chips early, you can stack them, easily, with two pair, trips, str8, nut flush, sometimes with just TPTK. So, don't be afraid to make large value bets.

B ) Once you have 7 or less BBs, push allin with any hand you want to play preflop. Try to be the first into the pot and try not to push weak aces (A9 or lower), if possible into more than 2 opponents. Also keep track of when the blinds are going up. You may wish to push with a hand if you're going to be down to less than 7 BB in the next 2 mins.

C) Try to spot people who are bluffing too much or being overly aggressive. Some players will raise allin in the SB for example with any two cards, but usually when those two cards are pretty vulnerable. Making correct calls is important in turbo sngs. But also remember to be patient.

D)Despite the increasing blinds, try to be patient and let others donk off their chips to you or somebody else. When you get decent cards, you should be able to mop up. When you don't, it's critical to remain patient and carefully pick your spots and hope others drop out so you can at least squeak into the money, where you can freeroll your way into a first place finish.

GL.

Potato, I think your SNG play is very spewy preflop with early blinds. We want to play super tight in the beginning because as other players get knocked out we gain equity in the tournament. We really need to conserve our chipstack.



Making correct pushes is a much more important skill. Knowing when you can shove with ATC from the SB or when you can 3bet all in with ATC is incredibly important.

And we def aren't going into a SNG looking to just squeak into the money. We want to win every single SNG (or MTT, for that matter) we enter.

What do you mean by a 50/50 winrate? You actually win 50% of the tournies you play? Or 50% ITM? If the first, that is incredible; if the 2nd, that is still solid.

Turbos are not crap shoots, they just emphasize a different skill set. In regular SnGs you can afford to play classic TAG poker because you have more time to catch cards. In turbos, however, you have half the time. That means you can't just sit back and wait because you'll find yourself desperate before you get to the bubble.

Still play tight early (I strongly disagree with potatoman's strategy of seeing as many flops as possible) and drive your strong hands hard. Make big raises with dominant hands, followed by big CBs. Many players are in a rush to collect chips and will call raises with weaker holdings, so you need to punish them with strong hands. Look for spots to play speculative hands in position when the pot odds are favorable.

If you're not able to build your stack early, then you're basically going to be in a holding pattern in the middle stages until you can get pushable hands. You simply cannot afford to make standard raises and play small ball at blinds of 50/100 with a stack of 1200. Knowledge of pushing opportunities in the mid-late stages is what really distinguishes turbo play from regular play. You have to start making moves because you'll ge blinded down quickly if you don't, but you have to make the right moves. If you're playing at the lower limits, most players aren't knowledgeable about when to push and when to call pushes, so you can often double-through and put yourself in a good spot to cash.

The speed of turbos can actually be great practice if you're interested in playing low-cost B&M tourneys, which are, once you account for the speed difference between live and online play, similar in pace. You can work on your tactical pushbotting skills.

Well, not exactly 50/50 I'm sure. But it sure feels like it. I used to play $1.20 or whatever turbos, and a lot of $3.40s. It always seemed like I would do good in one, then tank the next, then do good in the next, etc. Usually win every 1 or 2 out of 10, rest just ITM. So maybe, like 10% first place, 25-35% ITM, and the rest are bricks. These aren't true blue numbers by any means, but I played a series of turbos back in the summer last year and that's about how they went.

I just happened to be in a $6.50 turbo last night and got to 8th place I think. Only top 4 paid out.

I was in LP1 with K9 suited, folds to me. I raise 3 or 4x the BB and I get a caller OTB, everyone else folds. Flop is K 9 8, 2 spades.

I bet just under the pot size, villain min raises, I shove all in. Villain calls with a flush draw and hits it on the turn. So, I lucked out. Guess I shouldn't have played K9 suited in LP.

Have any good reading on ICM?

I actually just came accross this while reading 2+2.

http://cvsng.blogspot.com/2007/11/partial-sng-book.html

It looks like it would be a great read for anybody who is newer to SNGs. It does a good job of explaining ICM and why we play tight early.

The strat for turbo's is really no different than any other tournament. Playing uber-tight early is more important than in deeperstacked MTT's. After that its all the same. Play big hands (big pairs) fast, hopefully get an early double up. If we don't then we are going to get shortstacked more quickly than regular levels. So, it is imperative to play a short stack well. This is where the masses struggle. They don't understand how to play a shortstack.

As for the k9 hand you mentioned, you neglected to mention the most important information -- stack sizes. The correct play is determined by stack sizes. You said "I guess I shouldn't be playing K9suited in LP." The correct play probably was to fold, but depending on stack sizes and how tight the table was playing shoving may have been the play. I can say for certain though that raising K9 3x was the worst choice. When you drop below 20bbs your raising range should be super tight. You should not be raising a hand that you will fold to a shove(never say never, but almost never). When you drop to 10bbs its push or fold...no calling EVER unless its your whole stack. When you drop to 8bbs and under the shoving range gets super wide especially in LP when you have to make less people fold.

I was going to say the same thing, which suggests to me that Andy hasn't read HoH. If that's true, it's a must read. It doesn't talk about turbo strategy specifically, but it is integral to developing a good understanding of tourney strategy in general.

No, I haven't read Harrington on Hold'Em. I'm assuming that's what HoH is. As for the K9 hand, I would have to get the HH sent to me because I don't remember a thing about it.

Ok, took some digging up, but I found the K9 hand. Wasn't a turbo SNG, it was a $10+1 ST.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (6 handed) Poker Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FCP)

SB (t1540)
BB (t3520)
UTG (t3255)
AndyZ28 (t1640)
CO (t1370)
Villain (t2175)

Preflop: AndyZ28 is MP with K , 9 .
1 fold, AndyZ28 raises to t300, CO calls t300, Villain calls t300, 1 fold, BB calls t200.

Flop: (t1250) 9 , 7 , K (4 players)
BB checks, AndyZ28 bets t900, CO folds, Villain raises to t1800, BB folds, AndyZ28 calls t440 (All-In).

Turn: (t4390) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t4390) 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: t4390


Everyone had been pretty tight to this point, and I felt I could steal the blinds pretty cheaply. Then I hit a good flop, and decided to bet 900 into 1250 because of the two spades. Maybe I should have just shoved instead. Really had no reason to play this hand in MP in a ST SNG other than the fact that the whole table had been pretty tight, including myself.

there is no point in not shoving it all instead of leaving 400 behind.

Turbo MTTs and crapshoots, turbo SNGs are the best.

I completely disagree with whoever said that turbos take zero skill; I play them almost exclusively at the moment.

Turbos are about exploiting small edges, pushbotting effectively, and knowing how to play a bubble. If you have chips on the bubble, you're probably going to win.

You play tight early and then pushbot around the 100/200 level or the 120/240 level.

I think potato's strat for Turbo's is exactly the opposite of what I've found to be successful.

Right now, I would say 70 percent of my action right now is on $11 and $24 6-man turbo SNG's, and 90-man turbo KO sng's. (all on full tilt).

I was a losing player for a while on these things but it's definitely turned around and they are sooooo profitable.

Play TAG at the outset. If you are playing short-handed, you can increase your open-raise range to suited aces, the occasional suited connector and KJ.

IF single-table, play this way until about 5-6 players left, then become more aggro, especially in position. You want either a short stack or a big stack. IF short, you're pushing. If big, raise enough to make it hurt just to call you, so your opponent has to push if they want to play and you can then make a decision to call or fold based on your read on them and your hand strength. If you have a big stack you can do this once or twice without killing your stack, and it will force a lot of marginal Aces and KJ crap to fold.

POUND MADE HANDS. BET, OVERBET. You will be called light and overcalled, constantly. Yeah, you may get caught by the occasional flopped set or two pair, but if you played the hand correctly preflop then they made a mistake by calling you with the junk they did, or you were flipping a coin in the first place.

Also, if you're playing turbo MTT's (whether sng or not), and are deepstacked (either because of the structure or that you're later in the tourney), I find reraising to an amount that pot-commits an early raiser, when you're in position, is a very effective way to stack people with marginal-strong hands.

For example, say you played a 90-man mtt turbo and there are 25 left, av stack 5k. Early raiser with 7k makes it 1500 to go. You wake up with QQ on the button. Need to raise to 4.5k. Villain can fold and you've made blinds + his raise, but it seems like a steal often enough for him to push with AJ, etc. Very profitable as marginal-strong hands are much more often pushed in a turbo structure.

And hey kids: if your raise is big enough to pot-commit you to most any flop, just push. Fold equity is money, and suckouts against you will fall in #.