Turbos

I was just wondering if anyone could help me with these. It appears that my tight play just doesnt seem to work for these hmmmm I wonder why lol.... So if I pretty much follow the playing hands and positions that you will fin on pg 264 of Phil Gordon's Little Green Book... What should I expand my [playing hands too and from what position ??... Or is this question kind of a loaded question and too hard to answer without more info ??

I've played lots of 9 person SnG's. The only hands you should be playing are premium hands and you should be entering those pots with a big raise or re-raise. If you have A-rag suited in late position where everyone limps in, also limp in aiming for a nut flush. Everything else is junk.

When the bubble hits you need to change gears and start stealing. When you are ITM you need to keep stealing and when you get a premium you need to get all the money in there.

Obviously there is quite a bit more, check out Collin Moshman's book on how to play SnG's. It's a great read.

Check out Full Tilt's poker academy, it's pretty good.

But most of all playing turbo's is about being brave. When you don't have premiums you need to put in a raise in order to steal, in the beginning that's not easy. But if you are going to be successfull being able to steal is one of the skills that you MUST develop.

Listen to the quoted advice. Play tight until there are 6 left and then you have to be agressive and open up your range, but don't be crazy. As the bubble approaches, be very agressive and try to take the blinds, as people get much tighter near the bubble.

The thing with playing tight in turbos tournaments (which I assume the OP is talking about?) is, that if you dont get any premium hands early, the blinds will eat you alive..constantly I find my self with 2k max chips playing tight while the loser donkeys are anywhere from 10-20k+ and eventually the blinds force me all in with non premium hands.

Sometimes luck just isnt on your side during the early rounds to allow you to double up :<

If you go card dead, which is common, all is not lost. If you have developed your STEALING abilities you can stay afloat until you get a rush of cards. I can't say this enough, IN TURBO SNG'S YOU MUST BE ABLE TO STEAL.

This afternoon I was playing with someone who was actually pretty good. He/she knew how to steal....unfortunately for him, I have learned how to RE-STEAL and took a mountain of chips away from him several times. I also had two very soft players to my left, so once the blinds increased, I terrorized both of them with continuous 3xbb raises while I was on the button. So I re-stole from the person on my right and stole from the players on my left. That's how you stay afloat when you get no cards. Doesn't always work that way, but if you do nothing you will get blinded out.

I'd recommend the 3.40 two table turbos on Stars. My strategy involves playing rock tight in the early goings because players eliminate themselves fast enough, sometimes its even possible to fold into the final 9. Then you turn up the heat as blinds increase and make plays. I find these more profitable then the 9 player variant because the play is much softer.

This is something I really need to work on (as well as not playing 7500-10k player turbo freerolls)

read up on ICM and also early on you can play normal poker, as the blinds go up, it becomes more of a preflop game, so work out what hands play well against others. that sort of thing


pokerstove

If you are going to steal there are a few issues you need to address:
1) You must observe the 2 players to the immediate left of you. Here is what you need to find out.
a) How often to they limp in
b) how often to they raise
c) how often to they re-raise
d) What type of hands do they play.
e) If you fold a hand, constantly look back at the hand history to see what type of hands the two players on your left show down with. That will give a good idea of what type of hands they play.
f) How often do they get into a pot.

This is extremely important, because this will give you and indication how aggressive they are or if they are passive. Or if they are tight or if they are loose. This is important information, because if you have a tight player and they raise...get out of the way, they have a real hand. If you have a loose player and they raise...they might be bluffing or playing a weak hand.

2) In a 9 person SnG, with 5-9 players do NOT steal. Play premium hands only and come in raising at least 3xbb or pot sized bet. Do NOT call, it's either raise or fold. The only marginal hand you should play is A-rag (suited), if the entire field limps in, you should too. Flush or flush draw ONLY, else throw it away.

3) With 4 players, it's time to change gears. It's time to terrorize the SB and BB relentlessly. You should have a good idea on how the SB and BB play. If the entire table folds to you and you are on the button put in a 3xbb raise. If someone had opened the pot DO NOT attempt to steal. If you have passive players they will fold. At this point of the game, if you played any hands you went in with a big raise and if you had a show down they saw big cards. you have a big game table image. So everyone is going to afraid of you. Stealing from the button is the most common and most frequent steal move. Here are the cards that I steal with: A-anything, any pocket pairs, any suited connectors, any one gapper cards, KQ to K8, any two face cards. That quite a wide range to steal with, but if you get called, you need something that will play after the flop.

Let me say this:
Myth: If you keep stealing from the button you become to obvious/predictable and you will be exploited
Answer: Bull crap. At the lower levels people know how to play one style of poker and ONLY one style of poker. Running into a player who knows how to adjust is going to be rare. I have played dozens and dozens if not a few hundred of the $1 and $2 SnG's and the number of players who have adjusted to my constant stealing you can count on one hand with fingers left over.

There are several other steal moves. But for right now, learning to steal from the button is the most common. Learning how to observe is extremely important for this to work. You need to know the person you are stealing from.

Other types of steals: The BB steal, the SB steal, the CO steal and the RE-STEAL (dangerous but worth the risk). If you want me to go into these other types, let me know.

Most of all stealing is about heart. In the beginning I was sweating putting in a 3xbb with Q8, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. These days, stealing is the way I save and accumulate chips. The blinds go up so fast in turbos that you need to take some chances in order to survive and win !!!!

Good luck. Be a thief.

Thanks LizzyJ and Wizzim!

Time to put this into action and see how it goes

nice post lizzy.

Thanks everyone... And LizzyJ thats a lot of help.... Ummmm if you could expand on the others tho that would be great either on this or a pm works for me... Again thanks everyone that should help my game !!

The BB steal takes on two different forms.

BB steal #1: The entire table folds and the SB calls. First off you have to know the tendencies of the SB, do they always complete the SB? Have they ever limped in with a big hand? are they weak? have they re-raised before? If you have a SB that ALWAYS completes the blind and has a tendency to check after the flop you have a weak player. At this point, if I have a semi-reasonable hand (see notes from previous post) put in a large raise 5xbb, normally I just shove, especially if I have a larger stack than the SB. If you have seen someone who has limped in with big hands or has a tendency to re-raise (rare), limit the steal attempt to A-anything, pocket pairs or any two face cards. The SB has showed weakness by just completing the blind, take advantage. My default play is to raise 3xbb with ATC. That might win the pot right there, but if I get played back at, when the SB checks I will put in a c-bet to try to take the pot down right there.

BB steal #2:
The entire table limps in. Put in a pot sized raise. This play is 100% heart and you are going to be sweating bullets when you do this. You are taking a big risk here, make no mistake about it, but with all the dead money out there and all those hands out there, you need to try to take this down or at least get this heads-up. This play really requires that you know the table and their tendencies.

So there are two plays from the BB to steal with. This play as well as any other steal play is really situational and largely depends on how well you know your opponents.

Good luck, learning to steal was one of the most difficult skills I developed.

What really developed my skills was watching some on-line pros in the 45's play. I was at the $69+$5 45 SnG's for about two weeks watching from the rail. Towards the end of the game with about 18 players left, it becomes a steal/re-steal game. All other tactics are thrown out the window. If you have time, observe the high stakes 45's for awhile. Like I mentioned that really opened up my eyes.

There's some really good stuff posted above - kudos people

There are some adjustments depending on whether we're talking about single table or multi-table tournaments, I've only really got experience with the former and basically those are about optimising your preflop push-fold game when the blinds get big and the table gets short handed.

Reads on your opponents are very important too - know who's just trying to fold into the money and who's going to call your shoves light. Conventional wisdom is you look to start push-folding when you've got 10BB or less in your stack in a single table game. In a turbo, I expand that out to maybe 12-15BB because while you're picking your spots to push the blinds will still be going up quickly.

Thanks LizzyJ for all the information. You gave me a lot of studying material. Just saved it to my hard drive lol. Plus that sounds like a good idea ill probably watch some of the tournaments to get a better grasp on everything and see it put into action. Again many thanks Lizzy !!!!!! .. Im so glad I found this site what it has been so informative !!!

It siunds to me like you know more about how to play in turbos than me. I try to stay as far away from them as possible because I to am a tight player. If you have already, i'd check out the academy at full tilt they should have a video that you would find helpful.

I'll type out the SB steal during my lunch break, but let me interject something REALLY important about turbos. Three things:

1) If you are going to enter the pot you MUST knockout the blinds, there is one exception (I'll get to that in a moment). If the table limps in and you are holding an above average hand, you need to put in a stiff raise to kill the blinds for several reasons: if the board flops rag-rag-rag either blind could have easily hit the board with 2 pair or a straight, next reason is if you put in a nice raise, most of the board is going to fold and you are probably going to be HU. Much easier to win the pot HU than multi-way. Now things like continuation bets and bluffs become very real options for you.

Exception: if you have A-rag suited or a suited connector, then having a multi-way pot makes sense. In these situations you are going for the nuts and only the nuts. More suckers, the better off.

2) Keep track of the everyone's stack. The full tilt academy does a good job explaining this. Check out their SnG video's, Aaron Bartley and Michael Craig goes into detail about this. Watch those sections several times so that it really sinks in. Basically when you are stealing, be cautious of the super small stack and monster stacks, the best stacks to steal from are the medium sized stacks. Also, calculate in advance how much damage your stack will take if you lose before you steal.

3) 60/40 coinflips: In turbos you are going to taking a lot of coinflips. Hopefully you are going to be on the 60 side of the coin. Evaluating stack sizes are EXTREMELY important. Always figure out how damage your stack is going to take BEFORE you flip a coin. I do this all the time. No exceptions. Here is the thought process of taking a coin flip:
a) Size of my stack (monster, medium, small)
b) Size of my opponents stack (Do they have a smaller, bigger stack then me)
c) How many chips am I going to have if I lose.
d) How many chips is my opponent going to have if they win
e) From my observations, what type of hands are they probably holding.
f) What type of cards do I have.
Evaluation of information: If I call and I am going to be crippled or out of the tournament, I need to be calling with a PREMIUM hand (mimum hand should be 10-10). If I call and I am going to sustain 10% or less damage to my stack, then I am going to call with any two cards.

If I have a coin flip situation and I am going to lose 30% or more of my stack, I'm probably going to throw it away, especially if it is early in the tournament. Part of the skill set you need in turbo Hold 'em is to be able to throw away a hand and wait for a better spot. Be confident in your abilities and know that the longer the game goes on, your chances increase. No need to gamble it up in the beginning. There will be lots of gambling down the road, but early on avoid conflict. Also, the deeper the game gets your stack size becomes more and more important. The best question to ask youself in a coinflip is: If I lose what happens to my stack?

There is some food for thought. It took me a long time to learn this stuff, so you take your time with it. Also, this is nothing new, it has been covered in many books, especially Collin Moshman's book. Reading it from a book is one thing, actually using it on a consistent basis is where the real work is at.

Good luck.

Are you referring to Turbo 9plyr SNG's? If so >> in turbos the blinds go up so fast that you don't have time to open raise, c-bet the flop & then fold (maybe one time only). In early levels play really tight and in early-mid.levels only consider opening with hands that if you get played back at, you are willing to call & get it allin with. There's no room to open steal in mid-levels and then fold.
Object of the game is to get yourself to bubble play with a stack that is still big enough to have some fold equity. The game comes down to the shove/fold game with high blinds on or nearing the bubble. Work on that portion of your game & if you get good at it, you should do ok in the turbos.
Common mistake in the turbos is players playing way too many hands in early levels. You'll regularly see a few players building up stacks & then spewing them off again with stuff like AT (<< can be a pretty terrible hand, if you're ahead with it you're not going to get any action but if there is an A on the board, chances are you're behind if you are getting action). Also take notice of the players who aren't playing any hands. These guys will typically blind down to say 1200-1300 chips (more or less... give or take...) and then will reraise allin to a preflop raise and double thru the looser donkey, putting themselves in great shape for the shove/fold game in later levels for bubble play.
Work on your bubble play!!!

2) Keep track of the everyone's stack. The full tilt academy does a good job explaining this. Check out their SnG video's, Aaron Bartley and Michael Craig goes into detail about this. Watch those sections several times so that it really sinks in. Basically when you are stealing, be cautious of the super small stack and monster stacks, the best stacks to steal from are the medium sized stacks. Also, calculate in advance how much damage your stack will take if you lose before you steal.

^^ this is a very good point and is one that I see ALOT of micro buyin players making errors with. They simply do not look ahead in hands, & consider stack sizes at the different blind levels. I also see ALOT of players trying to steal from small stacks, open-shoving with K4s, etc. believing the shortstacks will fold. This is treading on dangerous ground as many of them will know they're in desperation mode, and by just putting out their blind they are practically pot committed (and with all the dead money in the pot, if they are low in chips they can profitably call even if they know they're behind).

The SB steal comes in two different flavors:

1) The obvious one: the entire table folds to you in the SB. By now you should know how the BB plays, whether they are tight or loose or passive or aggressive. If you have a limp fish raise 3xbb. This should take it down.
2) This one requires bravery: you have several people limping in. you are at the SB with a marginal hand (minimum A-8, plus suited connectors or any pocket pairs something that will play after the flop if you get called). Put in a pot sized raise or shove. This should take it down without a fight or get you will HU. You have to really know your players to pull this one off.

Note: SB steals should be used deep into an SnG. I normally start using SB steals when the blinds are sky high and have identified a legitimate high blind limper and already ITM (if you see the button or cut off limp into the pot several times with high blinds...you just found a high blind limper, the perfect victim the SB steals). Sometimes I'll start the SB steals on the bubble if the blinds have reached the 50/100 mark.

Watching the 45 person SnG's really helped me develop my stealing abilities. Here is how the game breaks down and what the benefits are:

From 27-45 people: Great examples on how to play tight. I railed one person for about two weeks, and it wasn't uncommon for her to play 2-5 hands when there were 27 to 45 people still in the SnG. However, when she did play a hand it was usually a huge pot where she had AA, KK, AKs, AQs, JJ, QQ. Tight but hyperaggressive.

Less than 18 people: This is when the stealing begins. The blinds are now high enough that there is going to be several people with 10-15 BB's and those are the healthy stacks!!! The name of the game is survival through stealing and re-stealing. Great action.

Final table: becomes a hyperaggro 9 person SnG. What I learned here was identifying tight, weak, strong, loose playing styles. It becomes painfully obvious who is who. If you have limited experience with observations, this might be a good place to start. Playing styles become very exaggerated and very apparent.

You might wanna check out the SNG or MTT leaderboard and find a player that is consistently in the top groups (that's what I did) and rail them whenever you can. You can see the theory in practice.

I rail two people for different reasons: gboro780 for MTT's (watching this guy work his way through a large field is amazing) and nickerthal32 for single table SnG's. My 45 person SnG expert has moved on to MTT's

Good luck.

Here are some typical results:

Statistics for 65 Hands
Street Saw Saw/Total
Flop 14 22%
Turn 7 11%
River 6 9%
Showdown 4 6%
Street Won Won/Saw Won/Total
Pre-flop 10 15% 15%
Flop 2 14% 3%
Turn 1 14% 2%
River 1 17% 2%
Showdown 3 75% 5%

As you can see, most of my wins are at the pre-flop stage (10 wins) where I stole all those hands. Keep in mind those steals came on the bubble or ITM. Accumulating chips on the bubble or ITM will set you up for getting your big hands paid off.

Not gonna lie. I love Lizzy's posts on here. Great Shit!!! I follow most of the same perameters. I am perhaps a little more LAG in the early stages against timid oppnonents, but for the most part I agree almost completely.

A few more posts tomorrow. Re-steals/defending against the steal, cut off steals, bullying the table and random thoughts. Too tired to type and my daughter and the dog are hogging up my bed. lol.

Well LizzyJ I just wanted to say thanks and thanks to everyone else as well... I decided to try a turbo free roll last night. Now I know the skill level is a lot different then if your buying into the tournament however I have never won or even cashed in a turbo tournament now I'm glad to say last night I was playing and I finished 35th for a whooping $1.35 however as sad as this is going to sound it is prob one of my most favorite poker moments of my own to this point lol

Your advice sounds good, but don't know if I can ever win at super TURBO as I have not as yet...300 chips just means all-in to me cause if I don't somebody else will on my 3BB raises....thanks, Wally

Adding to lizzys posts..

if you in the SB and its folded around to you, and the person in the BB has less than 10 bb's you can shove with any two cards...

remember when staeling your making decisions based on your chip stack, and the chip stack of players to act behind you, remember that...

i might post my full stat on sng soon, when i get the time..

Wally...3 points about Super Turbo's
1) Stay away from them
2) Stay away from them
3) Stay away from them

Also, just in case I didn't mention it...STAY AWAY FROM THEM.

Re-steal (defending against the steal):
The move goes like this: someone in the cutoff or button raises 3xbb in an effort to steal the blinds. To re-steal/defend against that you have two moves:
1) Re-raise 3x
2) Shove

Before you do this move you need to distinguish between a value raise or a steal move. Here is how you do it: if you have been observing the table, when the stealing begins you should know who is a tight player and who is a loose player. Also, the tight player in the beginning might have opened up his game and is now playing LAG (which is the correct move). Real important point: If you see the same person consistently raising 3xbb you have a thief, re-steal with any half decent hand (A-8 and above, any pocket pairs, any suited connectors, any two painted cards any one gapper suited, any suited K's, Q's, J's). Some of you braver, more experienced players can shove with ATC. If you are new at this, have something that will play fairly well after the flop.

On the other hand, if you have a tight player and they make a raise, do NOT try to re-steal unless you have a premium hand. The tight player is making a value raise and NOT a move.

Also, stack sizes should factor into your decision making. If you have a super small stack they are going to push with any Ace or any painted cards or anything suited. Be sure you calculate the damage to your stack before you call.

Also, if you have anyone raising before the cutoff, this is probably not a steal move, this is a value raise. Do NOT confront unless you have premiums or a pocket pair.

If you have access to the Full Tilt Academy Aaron Bartley does an excellent job explaining re-steals.

So in a nutshell, if you get raised from the cutoff or button from someone who consistently raises, you need to re-steal/defend with a big re-raise or shove. Re-stealing is definately a high risk/high reward move. If you do not resteal, you are going to be abused and punished.

Congrats on that !!!!

You are right. Tight play and turbos do not go together. I do not play turbos because players tend to bet with any 2 cards and hope they hit on the flop. Not my style of poker. Turbos in my view require more luck than skill.

Great info LizzyJ!! I have read and re-read this thread a few times over the past month, and it has defenitly helped step up my game. Thanks!

Great stuff Lizzy - gonna send you a pm about creating a Sng Turbo Strategy thread that can be archived. I will copy and paste relevant posts from here to there once you start it. Or will figure out some way to archive this and give you credit.

First time I've read through this thread and I just wanted to add my thanks for Lizzy's comments. Very well written and explained and makes absolute sense.

In my limited experience to date I've been following much of the advice (tight early, opening up later) although the gap in my game has been around stealing in 9 man SNG's. Lizzy's comments make great sense and I'll be putting them into practise.

wow im glad this thread got bumped great information in here.