I agree that the cheap casino tournaments are bad.
My local casino will give u something like 4000 chips and the 1st two levels are 45minutes. Then after that they go up every 20/30minutes. The levels jump up alot too from:
25/50
50/100
100/200
200/400
300/600
400/800
500/1000
There's no antes which does make up for it, but it can b hard to play decent poker when a 3xBB preflop raise and a cbet in the 200/400 can cripple u allmost if u dont have a stack of 10,000+.
I like to play them anyways as I don't play much live poker due to my job and the buy in's are cheap-ish.
If I were u tho i'd find a cash game which u have deep pockets for.
In my local casino they play £1/£2 (I havn't played cash yet as i'm not comfy playin with £200 behind me unless I was rolled) and i've been told ur gonna have to have deep pockets for it bcos ppl there will call raises and play any 2cards. (sounds like a goldmine to me but im not rolled for it and would b p!ssed if my AA lost to summit like 53o, jus bcos sum guy can't fold pre + post flop lol.)
One old-ish man was so loose than he was limpin in blind, callin flop bets blind etc. Bcos he was playin blind sum kid with QQ thought he was well ahead untill the old man shoved on the river to call to find out the old man had 59o to hit his runner runner on the river lol.