180 seat-$5 vs $11 comparison

Maybe its just the particular $11 180 sng I just finished, and as i don't play a whole lot of theses, I play them after a good showing in a smaller buy-in tourney.

In this particular game ($11) to be a whole lot more 'testy'. Most of the players here seemed to want to get this game over. Half the field was gone in about 25 minutes. At about 40 minutes, 80 % were gone. Granted this was a turbo, and that speeds things up a bunch, but even this was high speed. IMO.

Compared to a more normal $5 buy-in 180 seat, even a turbo, I found the $11 pace a bit frantic. And where there is frenzy, there is bad play. I made my share of bad plays here, got properly rewarded (LMAO) as did others.

I am not sure at all what I can make of this. I doubt this one was statistically anywhere near normal.

Keeping an eye on it, I see that at the 50 minute mark, they are just 7 spots from the money (18 spots pay). This is very very fast. I've seen ultra turbos move slower....

Edit add..These folks look determined to get ITM by the 1st break. 5 minutes till the 1st break, 19 players left.

More add. They did it. 4 minutes till the break and they are ITM.

Conclusion here should probably be that if one can avoid the frenzy, perhaps even as a multi-table distraction, these could be actually considered soft. Especially if this particular game is not so un-ordinary.

Follow up on this game. Lasted 101 minutes. I played this early west coast time, which would be prime time Europe, late afternoon, or early evening. The final table was a clash of the agro titans! In about 20 hands there were only 3 flops seen, each ended in a showdown, and in each someone went out.

I never liked those turbo 180 man tournaments on stars. I wish they had $12 ones that weren't turbos because $4 is a little too low for me but I refuse to play in turbo tournaments because they don't suit my style at all.

I don't like turbo tourny b/c at the end the blinds are so big that u have to play whatever hands u got.

I played one of these on the weekend as a bit of a change from my normal ring games.

Wow they are pretty nutty! Blinds go up fast and the further into the tourny its gets it becomes an all in fest preflop with very little post flop play.

Remarkably and to my total suprise I got 2nd! Pay day $396!

I played really tight, stole the blinds heaps when the blinds got bigger and bigger and if i remember rightly got in with the best of it all but once.

Only time i got really lucky was once in the money I got A5 in mid position and raised up a fair chunk and got called by one of the blinds with QQ.

Hit A 5 on the flop to send me to chip leader.

So basic strategy would be to look for an early double up and then play tight but make sure you stay ahead of the blinds as they can eat you up fast.

Don't be afraid to get it in with less than premium hands if first in as I think alot of people play the same way and its harder to call than it is to push with average hands.

A friend of mine has also played a few of these and has placed in the money 4 out of 6 occasions.

I mite try another one later this week.

The bad part of it is though because there is very little post flop play as you get deeper in it does depend on you getting the right hands at the right moment etc.

i only have expierence in ps $4 180 mans where the levels are 15 mins but they on average take 4 hours for a winner to be decided. Which is 16 blind levels so correspondingly that would be 16 * 5min for a turbo which is 85mins. So arnt the turbos taking effectively longer in relation to blinds and the amount of play you get from them.

Don't know how anybody wins those things wish they brought back the regular $11 180s