Early stage play in online turbo tournaments
Look for habitual callers and weak passivity early on – someone is going to win their money and it may as well be you.
Although the importance of generally playing tight in the early stages of turbo sit and goes, but then becoming much more aggressive later as the blinds quickly rise to huge levels is already a well established strategy, people often forget just why these games are still profitable with such a coherent game plan already in place for them; but understanding where the money comes from can add a huge extra advantage to you when you sit down in these games.
Many people play poker purely for fun. Folding is not fun. No matter how you justify it to yourself in terms of profitability, game theory, or meta considerations, just sitting back and throwing hands away is not a good leisure activity for any sane player, and the instinct to start getting involved is ever present at all poker tables.
It is for this simple reason that so many players - despite such a wealth of very accurate strategy and information being available - go broke early in turbo sit and goes. They pay their money, and don't want to just fold everything and stay out of the action for the first few blind levels, with the result that they end up getting a piece of a flop against someone, and either doubling up or going broke.
So what does this have to do with our strategy? Well it enables you to try and get involved in pots with such players early - particularly in multi table sit and goes where building a stack starts to become as important as simple survival. As these players are here to gamble and stack off so light, they provide ample opportunity for you to try and hit flops with hands like small pairs and suited connectors provided you can get in cheaply and early before the blinds get too big to speculate.
Provided you keep your post flop tendencies very tight (which these players invariably fail to do) it can be OK to get involved early on in turbos, particularly those with larger fields where an early double up can really help you exert pressure and survive easier later on. Look for habitual callers and weak passivity early on - someone is going to win their money and it may as well be you.
Prices quoted in copy are correct at time of publication but liable to change.
