In online poker rooms, turbo poker tournaments are becoming increasingly common. In most of the best online poker sites, you can typically find a decent mix of a turbo, super turbo, and even an extreme turbo poker tournament.
By quickly raising the blinds and antes, turbo and hyper-turbo events increase this excitement. In fact, turbo blinds increase blinds every five minutes and hyper-turbo every three minutes.
Unlike a normal poker tournament, the blind structure changes every 10 to 20 minutes. If you are used to slow-paced games, you must change how you play your hands in turbo tournaments.
Turbo Poker Strategy
The pace of turbo poker tournaments means that while they are not impossible to win, they require a little more luck than your typical tournament. In these games, you often have a short stack of chips, limiting your options to going all-in or folding, so your plays are mostly limited to these choices.
In these games, post-flop play is minimal, and after the first few rounds, you won’t be playing any poker after the flop because you’re probably all in by then. Therefore, in a nutshell, choosing the appropriate starting hands and moving into the right places are key components of an effective turbo poker tournament strategy.
Early Stage
Any tournament’s opening stages are quite similar. You’ll begin with a sizable stack. This implies that you shouldn’t make a special effort to pick up every pot.
In big poker tournaments, saving chips at the game’s beginning is more crucial than acquiring them. By all means, use your powerful, well-built hands to be quite aggressive, but try to project a tighter picture because it will be helpful later.
But you shouldn’t try to pick up small pots or steal blinds in the early rounds of these tournaments because they won’t impact how the tournament turns out. This is not the time to try and win small pots with intricate tactics, even if you have a great hand. Instead, raise a lot in the hopes of surprising someone who is playing a weak ace.
Middle Stage
The middle stages of the event will proceed much faster than in a tournament with a typical structure. It would be wise to anticipate stealing more frequently from late positions and with a wider range of hands than you may be used to.
Many players who participate in turbo tournaments tend to play too conservatively for too long, which can lead to an unfavorable situation where they are forced into push-or-fold mode earlier than necessary.
Starting hand selection will be extremely important in the middle stages of a tournament, as it is in every step of turbo tournaments. You are in the middle of a Texas Holdem game if the average stack size indicates players have between 7 and 12 large blinds. There won’t be much opportunity for maneuvering since this will only allow for two raises before one player goes all-in.
Generally speaking, if you are entering a pot, do it with the thought that you would play with your full stack. A strong all-in push from a late position may occasionally be wise if you are low on chips, and the blinds will be valuable enough to pick up. But other than that, stick to playing with strong hands while expanding your starting range at the late position.
Late Stage
The actual game starts at this point. The majority of poker players play aggressively in this situation, which makes the game more dynamic and causes the pressure to increase. Players with a significant chip advantage in this scenario typically dominate the hand and, consequently, the course of the game.
Nonetheless, given the hefty cost of the blinds, even players with large chip stacks experience an inherent disadvantage of their stacks getting smaller.
As a player in a turbo event, your sole focus should be selecting the optimal action and maximizing your earnings. You must keep in mind that aggression works.
Avoid falling into this trap of playing tight because, historically speaking, most tight heads-up players typically wind up losing a lot of money in a poker game. You must adjust your methods according to your opponent’s game strategy.
Don’t be scared to put everything in the middle since you can exploit opponents who will fold many strong hands to get closer to the money by using their folds as leverage.
Instead of being extremely cautious and attempting to make money, play to win the event by taking first place.
Things to Consider in Turbo Tournaments
Size of Stacks
In these events, players frequently find themselves in a predicament where they have just enough cash to cover the first 20 big blinds but not nearly enough to cover the next 10 big blinds. Hence, a player’s position in the game generally changes significantly along with the change in stack size.
For instance, when facing a re-raise or raise at a vital point in the game, a player with a small stack size may shove all in. A player in a turbo poker event must always pay attention to their stack size as it changes.
Changing Levels and Positions
You probably have one opportunity to play from each position in online poker tournaments with a 9-handed table. Yet, how quickly the players in a hand are acting will greatly influence this. If you see your stack getting smaller than usual throughout any round in such a situation, do not restrain yourself from making some aggressive actions before the game’s difficulty level changes again. This advice is crucial since your fold equity will decrease as your stack becomes smaller.
Conclusion
Turbo poker events can be unpredictable, with significant swings, and even experienced players can struggle to adjust to the high variance. Therefore, approach these tournaments with caution and consistency.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach that applies to every tournament. Instead, try to master the strategies outlined above and be prepared to adapt them to meet the challenges of each game.