These tournaments are really fun, quick and can be very lucrative when binked.
Aim of the game, stack as much as you can before the clock runs out. You earn a share of the price pool relative to the share of chips in play that is in your control when the time runs out.
They are fast! Not hyper turbo fast, it's your normal everyday 5 min per level turbo structure but unlike the usual you are dumped in at level 7 with a 1500 starting stack and blinds at 50/100 ante 10 lets go go go.
There are 15 min and 30 min variants, I prefer having more room granted by 30 mins and find the extra urgency imposed on by 15 mins on top of the rapidly rising blinds to be distracting. You also stand to win more of course with the additional time allocation and I have actually reached FT where the whole field got reduced to less than 9 contestants.
Bink well and you can easily ship 5 times, 15 times or even more times your buy-in for a single game. This is an important factor to keep in mind when considering a profitable strategy, the ROI from one good win can cushion several losses.
There are basically 2 things that can happen to you in these tournaments regardless of your strategy.
1. You bust out prematurely
Not ideal you earn $0 and your ROI is minus one buy-in. Try and avoid this at all costs.
2. You survive the period with stack
If you have less than starting stack you earn less than buy-in which still beats scenario 1. Ideally you want to end up with more than you started with but something is still better than nothing, right?
The strategy employed IMO is relative to how well we start, which again happens in one of two ways.
1. Big stack
As RISHLIN points out doubling up early is a good start, this at the very least grants you some degree of fold
equity while you cover others at your table. Lapping up the large blinds is very lucrative. Risk is reduced, because should we be called and loose the hand we stil have some tournament live that remains. Pay attention as table seating changes and avoid getting involved with stacks that cover you otherwise if it folds down to you raise with A2C and keep the pressure on the shorter stacks. If you do get stacked you end up in the next scenario.
Bubble play the final 4 minutes can be very profitable but careful now and spot the scared money and nits vs the maniacs that might call. Loosing a large chunk of your well earned stack or busting completely at the end is the worst.
2. Short stack
Whether card dead from the onset or as a result of a beat when you're short you don't have much time. Your first orbit will cost you 240 in blinds and antes after 5 minutes the cost of hanging around increases to 480 per orbit, needless to say you don't have much time to remain passive before your stack completely dissolves.
It is easy to make rash decisions as panic sets in. The longer you wait the more equal stacks disappear replaced by those that dominate you. You quickly reach value to price in larger stacks to call your shoves with A2C so you can forget about getting anyone to fold. Miss a flip and you can kiss your buy-in good bye but the same destiny awaits you if u don't act at all. Panicking yet?
At some point you will have to take the dive, by choice or all in on the blinds or the antes. Once is not going to change much and ideally you would like to double up several times to reach big stack status or die trying. you hardly have a choice in the matter.
BRM considerations
I am the last person to consult on BRM requirements as I have not been able to harness this occult art in any respect but keeping track of your break even between wins and losses is a good start. Drop down stakes as fate dictates but don't hesitate to take a stab at a higher stake if you feel you're running hot. 1 buy-in for every 1500 chips gained so don't worry too much to nit up if your BR dictates that winning 4 buy-ins is better than none. Keep an eye on the upcoming BB and no shame in stalling as much as you're allowed. Binking one of these tournaments at a substantial buy-in though can easily put an end to any BRM concerns you had. So gl and break a... uhm... nail! =)
