Personally I've never liked playing turbo tournaments as there is less time involved before it turns into a 'shove anything good and hope' kinda game. I generally like to play pretty tight and conservative, waiting for good situations and not putting myself in much risk, or losing too many chips early playing speculative hands. This is just the way I prefer to play. Turbo tournaments seem not to lend themselves to this strategy.

However, in terms of money made, how much better are turbo's? I very rarely play them myself, but I see people on here who play them all the time, and at the poker site I play on, the turbo tournies seem to be more popular. For a player who is looking to make money from tournaments, what is the argument for playing turbo's. I would have thought that the better players have less of an edge due to the urgency to aquire chips quickly, but is this countered by being able to play more tournaments? Is it just because turbo's are more mechanical thus easier to multi table?

Oh and seeing as ive made a thread could someone give me a 2 second rundown of ROI? (i.e what it is, how to calc)

I think, in general, the slower the structure, the higher ROI.
However, the highest ROI doesn't neccessarily mean the highest hourly rate. This is where turbos come in. I think it just depends on what you want to achieve. They're different types of poker, and like all different types of poker, they both require different skill sets.

That's exactly the right strategy for suceeding in turbo SNGs

Table selection is critical in turbo sng's. Theres a huge difference between the regular players (usually identifiable because the are multi-tabling if they arent in your DB) and the donks who wander in and sit down because it will end fast, and dont have a clue about all-in math.

Your approach is sound for both turbo and regular SnGs, the primary difference being you must be more aggressive when you do play hands, because you wont have as many to play and catch good cards. Also, forget slowplaying all but the biggest monsters (flopped straights or better). You'll get action on your good hands from bad players. Tthose plus the higher variance may be why a tight strategy doesnt appear as applicable to turbos as regulars.

ROI = (Total prizes-total buyins)/total buyins

If you play the same buyins ROI and hourly rate are proportional since hourly rate = (total prizes-total buyins)/hours played, and total buyins = hours played * tourneys/hour * buyin/tourney. Either one is a good measure of success.

I play standard sngs with a great structure. The upside is I recently played 100 $5.50 sngs (single table) with a ROI of 36 percent, my best result in 3 years. My average is probably around 18-22.

The downside is it took me 3 weeks to play 100. I could play 1,000 ultra turbo sngs in the same amount of time and even if my ROI dipped down to 10 per cent, I'd stand to make more money over time. It would also be brainless poker, meaning I could play more tables. Less time to play and attention needed means more sngs per hour.


1,000 $5.50 sngs = $5,500 investment

10 per cent return = $550

vs

100 $5.50 sngs = $550

36 per cent return = $198

So, you can see turbos usually mean more money per hour. Important to note a 10 ROI would be considered very good I believe. Some people would be happy with a ROI of 5+.

Downside? There's a couple.

One, I find playing turbos to be even more of a grind than regular sngs, and regular sngs can be like watching paint dry some days.

Two - variance. Your swings will be much worse playing turbos. You need a solid bankroll and a good long-term outlook, cuze you're going to be taking more flips than you need to take in a standard sng. You're going to have to be okay with losing more often to less skilled players.

Three - You need to be very good at the math of poker. You're going to be put in a lot of marginal situations and if you don't play perfect in those situations, you're going to be giving a lot up over thousands of sngs.

Four - You might stand to make some money, but you're not really going to improve a great deal as a poker player.

As Jam-Fly said, it depends on what you want to achieve in poker. For me, the money is just a way to keep score. I'm more interested in becoming a great poker player than maximizing my hourly rate. I also want to enjoy playing poker and for me, a lot of that enjoyment is lost playing turbos.

ROI - Take your profit and divide it by your investment.

If time were on my side I would only play regular speed tournies. I've stopped playing turbo STTs altogether because I started finding them mind-numbing after a while. I much prefer structures in which I can actually play some poker as opposed to relying on my push-bot skills. I still play turbo MTTs because that's the only way I can play MTTs (time isn't really on my side), but if I do play STTs I will play regular speed ones.

hey guys, thanks a ton for your comments, just the sort of stuff I was looking to find out.

Does anyone else find this? - After watching an Adam Junglen video on PokerVT I've been grinding some turbo 6$ 9man SnG's on FT for the past week or so and am finding the swings pretty big.

Starting with 100$ I dropped to 75, then went upto 150, again upto 175 and now i'm back down to about 140ish, this is over maybe 30 SnG's - I find it's very table dependant too, I'm finding tables alot tighter than I was expecting

Without question. Because the faster structure forces you to take more flips, and forces others to make more calls against your steals, the variance will inevitably be higher. In regular speed tournies you have more time to get your money in better than 52/48 or 55/45. Thus, turbos = lower ROI but higher hourly winrate; regulars = higher ROI but lower hourly winrate.

I've played 517 6 max turbos games this month and have an ROI over 30, of course I'm experience the horrible downswing right now, I'm hoping to get out of it soon, but nevertheless it is possible...

Sounds good Donk, care to share your ranges in the early stages? - actually thinking about it, 6max prolly is looser than I should be at 9max...?

Good to know that the swings aren't out of the norm, I just came 2nd and have 141$ at the mo, hoping the swing goes back up now - im starting to mark tight/loose players as a different colour so can see if a table's worthwhile before joining eventually

10/20 my stats are 14.76/4
15/30: 17.29/6
25/50: 20.3/8
50/100: 22.3/15
75/150: 27/17
100/200 (antes included): 36/24
200/400: 45/38

Basically, I'm fairly tight in the beginning, but I try to find spots in which it's fine to play suited cards and small PP.. sometimes I think that's what is causing part of this downswing though... I know my play has changed since I've gone into it, I'm more timid and I think my range has widened up too much... The thing that I find great about turbos tho is that even though I'm not making money, I'm not losing it either.. I'm fairly confident that I can have a horrible day but still break even... The most I have lost playing in a day with 6 max turbos is 25 dollars...

I've not started reading up on poker tracker stats yet as i've not got it, am hoping to be able to get it once my roll grows.

Im down to 130 now after a 175 maximum, pretty grim seeing it slide backwards that much over the past couple of days

Im limping with low PP's early and not playing much else at the mo'

--bah, just out in 7th.....at 200/400 level, wtf, 7players still in, I was expecting these to be much looser

I hadn't logged my results, but just found out about Sharkscope: Only a small sample so far, but how does this seem for 6$ 9max SnG's?:

GiggidyFT on FT if you wanna see the graph

Played 42
Average Profit $1
Stake $6
ROI 15%
Profit $42