I've played in many home games and live tourneys where the structure is very poor. The blinds get way too high, way too fast and often there is a rebuy period that lasts too long. I say the rebuy period lasts too long because by the time it is over there are still many players in and the average stack has a very low M.

I've never been anywhere close to successful in this type of structure. I know it lends itself more to luck than skill, but somebody has to win and obviously it's not all blind luck, so there must be a way to take advantage of this structure. These tournaments are also characterized by many loose/weak players who limp into many pots and very few pots are raised preflop. I've tried playing tight/aggressive in these things, but found that if I have one or two hands where I don't hit the flop and have to fold or take a bad beat, I'm in the red zone and end up pushing with a less than premium hand and usually get beat. I've also found that even if things go ok early, my M gets really low really fast when I'm playing tight in these things.

Anyway, the way I see it there are two ways to play here...either you try to see a lot of cheap flops and hope to hit big, or you play super-aggressive, raising a lot, even with holdings and position that you wouldn't be raising with in a better structured tourney.

I'm not sure which of these might be right, or if anybody on here may have thoughts on a different way to go. I'd appreciate any thoughts you guys have.

I used to play these turbo tournaments on pokerstars where the blinds went up every five minutes. I don't anymore unless I'm in a nutbar or funky mood.

Like you said, your M gets into the orange and red zones quickly and it becomes a push/fold fest. In the early going, you may be able to see a few flops but that's about it - it's then becomes pushfest time.

I just avoid these poorly structured tourneys now - even the standard Pokerstars and Bodog tourneys don't give you as much "play" as the structures on full tilt or ultimate bet. The "dead money" from players who don't know what they are doing is a plus though for staying with PS or Bodog.

I keep meaning to check out full tilt and will probably do so after the WCOOP and RGP tourneys (Gamesgrid) finish up.

My simple advice, don't play in a poorly structured tourney if you have alternatives.

you don't

My (fairly) regular home game has like a 2 1/2 to 3 hour rebuy period, and the blinds go up after every elimination (if someone elects to not rebuy - blinds still go up). I do not find a problem with this structure, as long as you have a sufficient number of starting chips in relation to the early level blinds. This is sometimes hard for us to do when we have 10 (or more) players (due to the lack of chips in the hosts set), but simple when you have 9 or less IMO.
Give each person more chips to strat with and see if that helps. 8)

i often play NL freeze outs at work with horrible structures. we generally just play to kill time. there's simply no getting around the fact that luck is much more of a factor when the structure is poor. whoever picks up good hands early and builds a stack generally wins. however, after playing many of these, i find that playing correct tournament strategy is still the best way to go.

play extremely tight early, hope to pick up a big hand and double through. play hands in position aggressively pre-flop as blind stealing becomes imperative. once your m gets into the red zone, push with reasonably holdings. don't try to make drastic strategy adjustments, e.g. seeing EVERY flop or something.