Nowadays, even though I make a living in the poker industry, I don’t have much time to play poker. It’s a bit unfortunate, but sometimes life just gets in the way. On the bright side, winning nothing is better than losing something. Recently, however, I decided to find the time at least a few nights a week, even it was only for a few minutes. One problem presented itself, though. How do I have any fun playing poker for less than a thousand seconds?
Solution: the super turbo Sit-and-Go
Not long ago, I would have cringed at the thought of playing a super turbo. I would not be classified as a loosey goosey poker player. Blind levels the length of average work days are more my style. But I’ll tell you something, super turbos can be fun, even for this nit.
Before I tried out these ultra fast nine-handed tournaments, I figured it would just be a shove fest with any Ace, pair, or two Broadway cards. With starting stacks of 300 chips (I’ve been playing on Full Tilt) and three minute blind levels starting at 15/30, there isn’t much room for starting hand selection. My initial thoughts were half right. Most players do push all-in with anything that looks halfway decent. But even though it’s a super turbo, this isn’t really the right tactic in the early stages of the tournament.
Believe it or not, there is actually a tiny window in which you can wait for an opportunity, rather than just shoving the first Ace that comes along. Depending on quickly the action moves, you do have an orbit or two to find a good hand. For me, a good hand is A-J or higher and a pair of Tens or higher. I prefer A-Q, A-K, Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces, but like in any poker game, position and the actions of the players in front of me may allow me to play A-J or Tens. The point is, you want to make your move with a hand that will usually be favored, even if only slightly. With blinds already so high in relation to stacks at this stage of the game, you are going all-in whenever you decide to commit any chips to the pot. Thus, at least for an orbit or two, you don’t really want any coin flips.
Super turbos are really just an exercise in short stacked bubble play. If you’re good at surviving as a short stack on the bubble in a regular Sit-and-Go, you’ll probably be good at super turbos. The difference is that in the first couple orbits, as I already said, you don’t want to just be going all-in with anything resembling a decent hand. While you have plenty of fold equity in a super turbo (after all, the stack you’re shoving with is the same size as everyone else’s), your opponents are going to be more likely to call in the beginning because they aren’t in that “afraid to bust out on the bubble” zone. That and the fact that super turbos are usually filled with players who just want to gamble.
Whereas in a regular Sit-and-Go, your goal in the early stages may be to just stay ahead of the blinds, your goal in a super turbo needs to be to double up quickly. Again, you can still use some sort of hand selection, but it is imperative that you do more than just steal the blinds as soon as possible. The blinds go up so fast that just staying even will put you in a bad situation. And limping is not an option, unless you are planning on calling an all-in or pushing on the flop. You cannot afford to waste any chips. You must hang on to as much fold equity as possible.
After the first couple orbits, there will almost assuredly be at least one person, and likely two or three, already eliminated. If you haven’t made your move yet, you will need to find something and go for it. If you have built up a stack, you can start putting pressure on your opponents, just like you would with a big stack on the bubble of a regular Sit-and-Go. Remember, it’s still a nine-handed tournament and it still pays like any other Sit-and-Go, so the goal is to win. Doubling or tripling up early may be the initial goal, but it’s just a means to an end. Use that stack to force your opponents to either fold their already short stacks or commit to a sub-par hand.
You may be thinking to yourself that super turbos seem like they would be high variance. And you would be right. Even the best players are going to find themselves all-in many times as only slight favorites. So yeah, you are going to bust out without winning or even cashing frequently. But because super turbos finish so quickly and require very little thought, it is very easy to play several at a time and even out some of the short-term variance with high volume. You’re ROI will be low, but you can make some solid money by simply playing a ton of tournaments. Plus, like I said earlier, the majority of players in super turbos aren’t very good, so with some practice, you will be ahead of the competition in no time.
