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Tournament strategy turbo super turbo and ultra turbo tournaments

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Friday December, 4th 2009 by fullhouse

There are many different types of tournaments that players can choose from, and each one should be played a little bit differently from the others. The most common variation is a turbo tournament. A turbo tournament is a tournament with a standard structure in every aspect except for the speed at which blind levels increase. Where in normal tournaments you might see a 10 minute time frame from one blind level to the next, a turbo might had a 5 minute separation between blind levels. There are obvious adjustments that will need to be made when these restrictions are put in place. Turbo tournaments are great for players who hate to sit around and wait for hands and slowly build up their stacks. Turbo tournament are one of the highest variance types of tournaments because of their speedy nature. Players will naturally have fewer opportunities to make plays in an attempt to build up their stack because they will be forced to focus on situations where they will be all in. Open shoves are very common in turbo tournaments because the blinds will leave players short stacked in a short amount of time.

The extreme version of the turbo tournaments are called super turbos or ultra turbos. As you can imagine, these tournaments run at an even faster pace and leave ridiculously small amounts of time for players to build up their stacks. If you thought turbo tournaments were high variance you will be blown away when you sit down at an ultra or super turbo tournament. Many players don’t like to participate in ultra or super turbos because the luck factor is just a bit too large. Most tournament players understand that luck is a pretty big factor when it comes to making deep tournament runs and they are unwilling to increase the variance by speeding up the tournament. Some poker sites call these types of tournaments different names, but they will usually resemble the turbo or super turbo format.

Optimal strategy in turbo tournaments

The optimal strategy in a turbo tournament is to put the pedal to medal as soon as possible. It is vital to your success that you work at a rapid pace and don’t miss out on any opportunities where you are likely to have even the smallest edge. Major pots will come up very frequently and there is a good chance that some rather weak hands will get involved, it is your job to pounce on them. In most tournament formats it is optimal to sit back and wait, especially at the beginning, for good hands in order to safely and slowly build up a strong stack. This is typically done by winning small pots one by one. Turbo tournaments do not afford players this opportunity because there is little to no time to waste on small pots. Small pots only exist for a short while when you are playing in a turbo tournament. Before you know it you will be left with five big blinds, so build your stack while you can.