Thursday, July 06, 2006

Slow turbo

So despite telling Zog, in a recent podcast that got screwed up by some gremlins, how much I disapproved of turbo games (usual reasons - discourages good post-flop play in favour of pre-flop gambling, no chance really to recover from a bad call or a bad beat) I have found myself playing the odd game during the week - just not really having time to play a proper game but wanting a little poker action to spice up my dog-dull day.

On three or four consecutive evenings I sat down to a little turbo SNG, either $5 or $10, hoping for some quick action. The clue is in the name. Now, I don't know whether someone somewhere has written something odd about turbo strategy, or whether it's some kind of bizarre online poker meme, or whether I was just unlucky, but in each of the games there were players consistently waiting until the last moment to fold, and the overall speed of action was so slow that the blinds were rising after every other hand. In one game they went up for the fifth time just before the ninth hand.

We aren't talking about a lot of money, so it's not some kind of scam. I think it's widely accepted that although there are some good winning strategies for playing turbo games, the element of luck is higher than in slower games. And by collectively reducing further the number of hands at each level, it's increasing the role played by chance.

Is this a technique being promoted by those who prefer to gamble?

I've been breaking even, so it's not sour grapes...

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