Let's Twist Again: Twister Poker Strategy
Earlier this year, Betfair Poker launched an exciting and an explosive poker variant called Twister Poker. These fantastic tournaments have the potential to be extremely profitable for reasons that will become clear soon, but you will almost certainly have to adapt to a new strategy in order to win.
Twister Poker is the name for the new three-handed super turbo structured tournaments offered by Betfair Poker. These sit 'n' go tournaments adopt a winner-takes-all payout structure, with the prize decided at random to be between double your buy-in and up to 1,000x your initial buy-in!
The Super Turbo format see you start with 500 chips and play to a 2-minute clock where the blinds start at 10/20 and increase to 15/30 with a 5 ante, 20/40 with a 5 ante, 30/60 with a 5a, 40/80 with an 8 ante, 50/100 with a 10 ante, 60/120 with a 10 ante and 80/160 with a 15 ante, although most tournaments are done and dusted within 20 hands or so.
As you can see, the stack sizes are extremely shallow and as a result you will need to take the following steps in order to try and turn a profit from this new poker format.
Have A Substantial Bankroll
The super turbo format of Twister Poker means your Return On Investment (ROI) will be quite low - your hourly rate could be quite high, though - which in turn means the swings in your bankroll could be rather big.
Personally, after playing a few of these prior to writing this article, I'd suggest a bankroll of at least 50 buy-in and possibly higher if you cannot afford to add to your bankroll should you go broke.
Get Used to Min Raising
If the effective stacks are 10 big blind or more you should be min-raising whenever you enter a pot. Don't waste chips by raising three or four times the size of the big blind, conserve chips and "click it open."
Basically Don't Call Raises!
You shouldn't be calling preflop raises at all, mainly because you will be calling off 10% or more of your stack. You will never have proper implied odds for trying to flop a set, so don't bother trying. Even hands as strong as king-queen or ace-ten shouldn't be used to call. If a hand is worth playing it is worth moving all-in with.
Learn to Push or Fold
Within a couple of minutes the effective stacks will be less than 10 big blinds which means you will be in push-or-fold territory. Never simply open-raise in the small blind or on the button with stack this shallow, get your chips in the middle or fold your hand.
Twister Poker is high variance but also high excitement. Keep your cool, learn to be a "pushbot" and you could find yourself hauling in the cash and climbing up the Betfair Poker VIP ladder, too.
Prices quoted in copy are correct at time of publication but liable to change.
