Length of Blind Levels

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nmolliso

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I seriously want everyone's opinion on this. Please.

WHY HAVE ALL MAJOR USA poker sites SWITCHED THEIR BLIND STRUCTURE IN THE LAST COUPLE YEARS FROM 15 MINUTE LEVELS TO 12 MINUTE LEVELS FOR LARGE-FIELD TOURNAMENTS??? (Merge, Bovada, BlackChipPoker, etc...)

What happened to 15 minute blinds??? What's the rush??? There are seriously NO regular tournaments that have 15 minute blinds on these sites anymore unless the tournament is $200 or more.

I could not be more serious about this. Let's just use our brains here...
Think for just a second about what I'm about to say next:

IF 15 MINUTES IS TOO LONG FOR YOU, ISN'T THAT WHY THEY INVENTED TURBOS???

Yeah. That's right. They invented turbo tournaments, a special tournament style just for people who didn't want to wait for 15 minute blind levels.
SO WHERE ARE THE TOURNAMENTS FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT BLINDS OF 15 MINUTES OR MORE???

Am I missing something? People who like large tournaments are already expecting it to take several hours. They're fine with it. If they thought it took too long at 15 min levels, they'd just go play a turbo tournament instead. But aren't the majority of players like me, in that they actually prefer some time to make decisions?

I honestly want to know what happened to online tournament poker. SHORTENED BLIND LEVELS AS A MANDATORY FEATURE IS SIMPLY UNFAIR.

Agree? Or disagree
 
tARsh

tARsh

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Limited options for the market means they can do just about whatever they want. I also prefer the longer structures but what can you do...
Saves them server usage and increases propensity for players to spend more... same thing with the unlimited re-entry concept.
Makes sense from their perspective, stinks for us.
 
Arjonius

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It's pretty simple. If there were sufficient market demand for slower structures, there would be more tournaments that have them. Note that in this context, demand refers not to what people want, but to what they insist upon in order to remain customers. If you still play tournaments with 12-minute blinds because you prefer them to not playing at all, then the sites aren't losing anything by not giving you what you want.
 
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nmolliso

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I DON'T play large tournaments with 12 minute blinds, so poker sites ARE losing my business. But I'm sure that matters very little to them.
They can just send everyone like me an email that says "Our tournament structure/design is based on feedback from all our customers. We regret that even though we value all of our customer's opinions, sometimes it is not possible for us to please everyone in the way that our regular tournaments are structured."

So I get it, it just sucks because there's a crap-ton of regular turbo tournaments, but none with 15-min blinds or more unless the buy in is $200 or more. Literally none.
 
A2345Razz

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I also miss the true deep stacked/"superstacked" tournaments. The old FTP used to have great 11 dollar offerings in these with huge guarantees/fields. Look, if it is 6 PM on a tuesday and people are sitting down for a donkament, they probably aren't planning on getting much else done that night and won't be terribly bothered to stay up past 11:30 IF they are making a run in a tournament.


Merge has 15 'minute levels for awhile in their evening deep guarantees; I guess they found out they could offer 12 minute levels and get the same turnout. I can't lie; I still play them.....but lets not kid ourselves and act as if this is a perfectly reactive free market in the US right now.....the whole deal is grey market with huge barriers/risks to entry, so that isn't possible.
 
Aces2w1n

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It's almost like with the upping of rake and blind levels... They just want people to keep losing their money so you can put more money in their site quicker.

Meaning Casino's will start getting more people again I guess.... But then you have stories with Phil which make you upset and think they're just as bad... I mean a casino retaking peoples winnings isn't a good thing no matter who's in the right or wrong the bad thing is they have money(power) to do what they want...

Meaning your better off just running home games and fck those money hungry people
 
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losties

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WHat blind increase time are you comfortable with?

Yeps the question is straight forward folks. It is more directed towards tournament players :) I myself am comfortable with 10 minute blind increase and 15, anything longer then that I will need to give my brain extra brain food for stamina, also with around 560 player mark suits me just fine. Not that I always mind but when i play that blind and have roughly that amount of players, I know how long the tournament would roughly last and how long I have to focus for :)

What are you comfortable with?
 
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Weissr

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Honestly, I am leaning more towards the turbo-format (5min blinds). Seems to keep the games to around 2-2.5 hrs vs 4-5 hrs for the standard 10min blinds (obviously time will vary some with field size). Grinding a tourney for 4 hrs and busting before the big money is pretty rough imo. This is for smaller buy-in tourneys though.

However for big buyin tournies (majors) I do prefer a larger blind format so there is a little more room to play with so much on the line.
 
A2345Razz

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Anything less than 3 hours doesn't feel like a full fledged tournament to me (more like a SNG ) , and usually I don't really want to be sitting for more than 6 really unless there is a huge prize/field/special event.

So I guess 12-15 mins are good for me. 20 mins for a special event. I really think for me the sweet spot are tournaments with 200-500 players and 15 min levels. That is perfect for me. I want to have some postflop play beyond a

5 mins is a turbo...nothing wrong with that, but you don't even get an orbit at each level...so.....no...I don't like a shove fest after the first hour.
 
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The longer the better. I almost never play turbos, NEVER hyper turbos. The more the betting is forced, the more unlucky I get. Turbo players seem to think they should call off their stacks with any two cards. Unfortunately, I have run very far below ev in all in pots for a coupal hundred thousand hands. So yeah, slow blind structures are better for me.
 
pcgnome

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For online games I'm okay with at least 5 min turbos in MTTs & STTs. I would prefer to have at least 15 minute levels for blind increases when I'm playing in a live poker tournament.
 
DaPirate

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I like the 8-12 minute blinds myself. 5 min blinds are more of a donk-fest to accumulate chips early vs the 8-10 min blinds more of a sane game play.
 
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Sub 10 usually, I don't like long grinds unless it's for bigger buy in tourneys.
 
belerophon

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Slower the better for me. Real trick though is mentally preparing for the blinds.

I was playing and continue to play the pokerstars open league which has a fast structure and FR level of risk.

But I also like to play the $1.50, 90 person bounty at 15 mins per level.

I need a completely different mental state for each.
 
Farseer

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Hypers and turbos. If it is for larger buy-in (like 200$ or 525$) 15 min is ok.

It's just about a) not getting bored and b) getting good $/hour-ratio. If a tournament lasts in average for 1 hour and I get 30% ROI and another with equal buy-in 3 hours and you get 50% ROI for it, it's really easy choice.

Another note: In PokerStars tournaments last for ridiculous time because there usually is a) far too many blind levels and b) levels are too long and c) fields are so absurdly large. Add very bad prize structure and you get hell for poker player who cares about variance.
 
IntenseHeat

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As with all things poker, I'm going to say that it depends. I personally don't care for anything that diminishes the level of skill involved in the game. In my opinion, that's what Turbo MTTs do. They reduce the game to an all-in shove fest in which every second or third hand finds someone flipping for their tournament life. And of course, this is fine if you don't have the skill or the patience play with discipline for long periods. On the other hand, if the levels last too long or the blinds escalate in smaller increments, you might begin to see more nitty type play, as players will find themselves with plenty of time to sit and wait and only play monster hands.

I don't mind playing Turbo STTs. But when it comes to MTTs, I prefer blind levels between 10 and 15 minutes, depending on the increments at which the blinds increase. Obviously, if the blinds increase by larger increments, they are going overwhelm player's stacks sooner, the same as if the duration of each level were reduced. So I wouldn't mind slightly longer levels if the blinds increase by larger increments and shorter levels when blinds increase by smaller increments.
 
ScooperNova

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I see tournaments on ACR all the time with 15 minute levels. The thing that sucks is late registration is available for like 12 levels.
 
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Weissr

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I see tournaments on ACR all the time with 15 minute levels. The thing that sucks is late registration is available for like 12 levels.
Yea, that is brutal. I pretty much stopped playing there because of this.
 
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