SnG Blinds Structures

This is sort of a combination of a rant and a question. I play on Absolute Poker and primarily play 1-table SnGs. The blinds escalate every ten turns and, as far as I know, keep going up into infinite until the thing ends. I don't know if this is customary for online poker sites, but I'm guessing it is.

The problem is that games routinely run kind of long. I just played a game in which we were 3-handed and the big blind was 1200 chips. To put that in perspective, there's only 13,500 chips on the entire table. This means the big blind was more than 1/4th of the average stack. This isn't an uncommon occurence. What inevitably happens is a total crapfest in which everyone pretty much has the odds to go all-in constantly, and the luckiest player will win. I came to play poker, not the lotto. It's extremely annoying and, in my opinion, unnecessary. In a single table tournament in which each player starts with 1500 chips, the blinds do not have to get that high, and could easily stop at 400/800, but they do get there way too quickly. I was easily the dominant player at the table in my last SnG, overcame some bad beats, built up my chip stack, and yet it ended up coming down to how many good hands I could get over the course of 6 turns. I got $36 for third while a far worse player got $90.

Does anyone know if there are poker sites with slower, more realistic blinds than Absolute? Or ones where the blinds stop escalating somewhere reasonable? I'm so sick of outplaying people for an hour and getting no hands for 5 or 6 turns and being de-stacked because 1/3 of my stack is being swallowed up every 3 turns and I don't have the choice to wait or, you know, PLAY POKER.

Thanks.

Just about any other site has normal-paced games (blinds going up every 10-15 mins) which is much better than going up per 10 hands, which i think is strange.
I play Titan, and their SnGs are fine. I stay away from Turbos though.

Yeah, going by number of hands instead of time seems to be kind of a bad idea. I actually had forgotten that most poker sites go by time. Once you get five and four-handed, you've got people pushing all-in and a lot of folding, so you can easily go through 10 hands in a few minutes. It seems really out of wack how fast it escalates near the second half of the game.

I may try SnGs on a site with the traditional escalating of blinds by time and see if it suits me better. Thanks for your reply.

Prima's sit n go structure is every 10 hands which goes by really quick so you're forced to play aggressive early.

Absolute's blind structure is great until you get to the later rounds - then the quick escalation forces you into a "push or fold everything" mode

Maybe try good ol' pokerstars. The blinds go up every 15 minutes and you have a little time to think before making your play. Also a turbo SnG on PS is about the same as a normal game on Titan so keep that in mind. I have tried a number of sites but PS is the best as far as I am concerned.

I agree with LoDog. I found Titan and Poker.com to be at the same speed as the PokerStars turbo tables. The regular tables at PokerStars let you be as patient as you want and rarely are the blinds ever a concern.

UB and Full Tilt.

FTs blinds go up every 6 mins, but they have lots of levels and so only go up very gradually. UBs structure, if it hasn't changed in the last few months, is the slowest on the net that I know of.

The regular tables at PokerStars let you be as patient as you want and rarely are the blinds ever a concern.

Click to expand...

In many respects, you can still be patient at the Stars Turbo tourneys and do very well there....you just can't be as patient as you would in the normal tournaments.

You might find this interesting, guys. It`s my notes on the SnG structures at the poker rooms where I play regularly:-


Absolute
Start at 1500 chips, blinds increase every 10 hands
Big Blind – 20, 30, 50, 100, 150, 200, 300

Bet 365 (Prima Network)
Start at 1000 chips, blinds increase every 10 hands
Big Blind – 20, 40, 80, 160, 320

Bodog
Start at 1000 chips, blinds increase every 10 hands
Big Blind – 10, 20, 30, 60, 100, 200, 300, 500

Pacific
Start at 800 chips, blinds increase every 15 hands
Big Blind – 20, 30, 50, 100, 150

Party
Start at 2000 chips, blinds increase every 10 minutes
Big Blind – 40, 60, 100, 200, 400, 600, 800, 1200

Titan
Start at 1000 chips, blinds increase every 7 minutes
Big Blind – 10, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100

Ultimate
Start at 1500 chips, blinds increase every 10 minutes
Big Blind – 20, 30, 40, 60, 100, 150, 200, 300

Victor Chandler (Tribeca Network)
Start at 2000 chips, blinds increase every 8 minutes
Big Blind – 40, 60, 100, 200

Virgin
Start at 1500 chips, blinds increase every 10 minutes
Big Blind – 30, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400

WPT Online
Start at 1500 chips, blinds increase every 10 hands
Big Blind – 20, 30, 50, 100, 150, 200


Which tends to confirm Dorkus` view that Ultimate is the "slowest".

Egon Towst said:

Bet 365 (Prima Network)
Start at 1000 chips, blinds increase every 10 hands
Big Blind – 20, 40, 80, 160, 320

Click to expand...

Holy cow, really? That's really fast... and starting at only 1000 chips, no less. Did somebody say all the Prima sites use the same blind structures? I'd sure as heck never play there. Can you say "all-in lotto"?

Prima's Extreme turbo SnG blinds go up every TWO hands - THAT's lotto.

Actually, of the ones I`ve listed here, I reckon Victor Chandler is the worst.

It`s not easy to draw a direct comparison between those sites where the blinds rise after x hands and those where they rise every x minutes. Hands per minute increase as the number of players fall, and some tables may play faster (or slower).

However, as a rough rule of thumb, I take 60 hands per hour as an average.

Using that as a basis of calculation, the BB will reach 10 per cent of the starting stack in 31 hands at Bet 365, and in 25 hands at Victor Chandler.