Quick tips for Super Turbo tournaments
Don't let the pace of Super Turbos change the fundamentals of your game, says Dara O'Kearney.
Last week the World Series of Poker hosted a Super Turbo event and I had several players message me asking for quick tips (pun intended) for playing in fast-structured tournaments.
Most of them made the assumption that we had to play faster and more gambley in these tournaments, which is not quite true.
The turbo element should make no difference to the ranges you play or the way that you play them. You should not be playing more hands and playing them more aggressively, don't let the speed of the structure fundamentally change the way you play.
The only adjustment is that you should not pass any profitable spots. In a slow structured tournament you can, for example, fold a hand that is likely a coinflip because you can wait for better spots. In a Super Turbo if you think that coinflip hand is slightly profitable, you should take it, because otherwise you will blind out waiting for a better spot.
Expect loose calls
However, most people do not recognise this and they play way too loose. So be on the eye out for players playing too many hands, too aggressively, and adjust accordingly.
This will often mean tightening up, especially near the bubble, but it can also mean value betting a wider range against them.
Finally, people will call you more often when you are short stacked in these tournaments. A hand like 87s might be a profitable shove with 5BBs in normal circumstances, but in a Super Turbo it's just going to get called too much, by weak hands like J7o.
Therefore adjust your short stack shoving range to high card hands. Surprisingly a hand like Q6s might be a very profitable shove if the table is overcalling with hands like J7o preflop.
Obviously, there is way more variance in Super Turbo tournaments so be prepared for lots of early exits and bad beats with hands you would not expect Villain to show up with.
Dara O'Kearney's new book Mystery Bounty Poker Strategy is out now.
