Turbos what fun

No, not that kind of turbo.

I think I may have stumbled into a gold mine or sorts today when I decided to play a $6.50 Turbo SNG. I normally have shied away from these types of tournaments because I thought that I would do better if I had time to let my skill play out over, what I hope to be lesser skilled opponents.

While I was playing this SNG a guy at my table commented that one of the players was in 14 other SNGs. As it turned out I did a search to find him, and he was in about 8, maybe 10 other SNGs at the same time, all turbos, which was amazing to me. They looked like they were all $6.50 turbo SNGs.

Well, after I was doing the tournaments I was in I tried out this method of playing SNGs and entered 4 at one time, and to my joy, they have more of these started per minute than the normal ones. They fill up so fast that there is up to three to enter, if not more I suppose, but I entered three before the first one even started. The experiment worked rather well at that level of buy-in. I moneyed 2 out of 4, one second and one first. So out of five turbo SNGs at the 6.50 buy in I was ITM %60 percent.

As is the case at the lower levels, they just don't pay enough for your efforts. I decided that I would move up to the next level, which I believe are the $16 Turbo SNGs. I played two to start with to see how I liked them. I finished in second in one and missed the money in the other. The nice thing with the turbos is how quickly they start up more and how quickly you can play them. They generally take about 50 minutes to complete if not sooner, but no much longer.

My next experiment was to do three at once. This went really well and if not for losing a coin flip on the last hand, I could have won 2 out of 3, but I will take the seconds. I am definitely going to concentrate on playing the turbo SNGs.

I have a theory on why they are a good thing, and that is instead of having to wade through a lot of hands and possible bad beats, you can concentrate more on the important hands. There is also certain SNG principles the come into play much more quickly as the blinds rise in relation to the stacks that, frankly, many if not most at the low limits just don't understand. There was a guy at one of my tables today that was getting upset because another player(the guy playing 10 SNGs at once) and me were pushing all-in often. This put incredible pressure on him and I am sure he made mistakes because of it. Needless to say, our confused friend did not make the money.
As with any low level buy-in game there will be times when higher level moves are not successful, because the players don't realize calling an all-in with QJ just is not a good move, or 24 suited. With the turbos though there are less opportunities for the bad beat, not that you still don't get them, but with few hands you don't have to avoid as much trouble.