Poker Heads Up Hyper Turbo Strategy
One of many innovations online poker has introduced and made popular over the years is the “turbo”-styled multi-table tournament featuring short levels and rapidly rising blinds and antes. Many live tournaments also feature fast structures and in some cases even borrow the “turbo” designation as a way of advertising to players they can expect a quick pace.
Pick practically any online poker site and you’ll find no shortage of turbo or fast-structured tournaments from which to choose. On the WSOP Social App, for example, you’ll find a number of tournaments that have a blind structure that wold be consdiered to be turbo or hyper-turbo.
The structures of “Turbo” and “Hyper-Turbo” tourneys might suggest that such tournaments reward luck more than skill, since the format demands more preflop all-ins and thus more dependence on being dealt strong starting hands. But the fact is they also tend to reward the same kinds of skills regular, slower tournaments do. Being smart with your starting hand selection, understanding the power of position, sizing your bets effectively, and being able to read opponents’ tendencies and styles are just as important in fast-structured tourneys, and players who have developed those skills tend to perform better as a result.
A philosophy of ‘bet until your opponent gives you a reason to stop’ is a good first principle when developing a hyper turbo strategy. This will be most effective against recreational players and at lower limits. Employ a more fluid strategy against stronger players. Heads up hyper turbo SNGs boast exciting 1-on-1 competition and fast action like no other game type. Learn to maximize your profits and minimize mistakes! Article by Upswing Poker.
- When you make the heads up stage of a super turbo SnG the blinds will usually be around 50/100 or higher. Since there are only 2700 chips in the tournament this means that at least one player will likely be under the 10 big blind limit for the majority of heads up play. This means that the heads up stage will be pretty much all push/fold poker.
- This time on the daily fast, I use an exploitative strategy in heads-up hyper-turbo tournament against an aggressive villain. Heads-up hyper-turbos are played with 2 minute blind levels and with starting stack of 25 big blinds. Blind level 1 ($10/20): Hand 1: I min-bet T♣T♦ from.
- Heads up hyper turbo bankroll. Hyper turbo car. Heads up preflop chartheads up sng strategy. Heads up hyper strategy “This is an excellent video series for aspiring hyper turbo professionals” “A very complete guide that covers all of the fundamental topics needed to start 2 Jun 2012 29 Oct 2012 I haven’t talked much about my experience.
It’s just everything is happening faster in turbo tournaments. You have less time to make adjustments, to recover from mistakes, and to wait for the perfect hand or spot from which to make a move. While you may start relatively deep stacked in this turbo games, you can quickly find yourself short-stacked if you do not manage to chip up early in the tournament, so it literally pays to play these tournaments aggressively.
That said, such a progression isn’t all that different from what players experience in tournaments with slower structures — you just get there a lot more quickly.
Here are 10 tips to keep in mind when playing fast-structured tournaments:
1. Don’t change style during early levels (tight is still right)
With such a deep stack with which to start, you can approach the first couple of levels of a turbo tournament the same way you would regular MTTs. The blinds and antes are too small to be worth stealing, and in fact you’ll likely benefit more later on by demonstrating a tight image early. That will earn you folds in later levels when you do open up your range and go for blind steals and bluffs.
2. Develop reads on opponents during early levels
Just as in a regular MTT, you should always be watching the tendencies of your opponents in order to figure out who is loose, who is tight, who seems to be more savvy with their plays, and who appears to be making mistakes. The difference is you have less time to develop these reads, and a smaller sample size of hands in which to do so.
3. Don’t snooze (and lose)
Players accustomed to regular MTTs are used to the slow pace allowing them to register late, to sit out hands, or if online to surf around and let their attention be divided during the early levels. Such is not the case in a turbo, where you’re much better off being present and focused on every hand from the very start.
4. Be ready for the “middle stage”
In the WSOP Social Poker app's tournaments, you’re already edging into what might be considered the “middle stage” of a tournament even before the antes kick after a half-hour. You should still be selective but can start looking to open more often from late position with a wider range, especially after the antes are introduced and there is more dead money to be claimed.
5. Widen your range
Dovetailing on the advice to start looking for spots to steal more often, once you get past the opening levels of a turbo tournament you’ll want to open up your ranges for other actions, too, including reraising others’ preflop opens, calling raises (preferably with position), and making postflop continuation bets/raises. Again, don’t become irrationally loose with your decision-making, but be aware that the rapidly rising blinds and antes necessitate you remain in action frequently. You might well mostly fold through the first couple of levels of a turbo, but after that you can ill afford to do so.
6. Pay attention to changing stack sizes
Players can quickly slip from having comfortable stacks to having 20 BBs or less in turbos, with the change in level sometimes suddenly affecting a player’s status. Understand that players with such stacks will be more likely to push all-in should you raise or reraise them, meaning you’ll want to anticipate that possibility when making such moves.
7. Be aware of impending level changes
Depending on how fast players are acting, you’ll usually only be getting through about an orbit or a little more at a nine-handed table during five minutes of online play. That means that often each level will find you playing from all of the positions at the table just once (the blinds, early position, middle position, late position). If you are getting short yourself, you may find it necessary to reraise-shove or make other aggressive moves before the level changes and your stack becomes less able to elicit folds because your fold equity has decreased.
8. Consider isolating short stacks
As in regular MTTs, players slipping to 10-15 BBs will be looking for spots to double-up in turbos and you’ll see many open-raising all in when given the opportunity. Picking up good hands (medium-to-big pocket pairs, big aces) behind these players may mean reraise-shoving in order to clear the field and set up heads-up showdowns against these short stacks. Weigh the risk carefully and don’t enter into such showdowns without worthwhile hands, but be ready to seize opportunities to gobble up the shorter stacks when they come.
9. Don’t reshove light if short
A big mistake players often make in turbos after slipping down below 15 BBs is to reraise all-in over an opening raise with hands with which they don’t want to be called. Say a player opens for 2x from middle position and you have on the button with 10 big blinds. You reraise-shove and it folds back your opponent. Now he’s facing calling 8 BBs in order to win about 15 BBs in the middle. That’s almost 2-to-1 pot odds you’ve given him, meaning he can call with a wide range of hands, many of which give him more than a 33% chance to win. Don’t feel obligated to reshove ace-rag or similar hands, especially when you can fold and be dealt almost an orbit’s worth of hands from which to find something better.
10. Be smart about open-shoving when short
First off, before entering into “push/fold” mode be aware that having 15 BBs late in a turbo tourney isn’t necessarily bad — in fact, a lot of times that might mean you’re one of the bigger stacks at the table. But when you do fall to short-stacked status and are down only to open-raising all in or folding, pay attention to your position. From early position your range for shoving should be relatively tight, while from the cutoff or button you can open-shove a much wider range of hands as you have fewer players behind you left to act. (Open-pushing your last 10 big blinds with from the button is much better than reraise-shoving.)
Those are some tips to get you started with turbo tourneys. Something else to keep in mind is that the faster-paced tourneys tend to attract a lot of inexperienced and lesser-skilled players. In other words, employing some strategic know-how can give you a significant edge in the turbos, one that over time can overcome the increased variance such tournaments invite.
Photo: “Ludicrous Speed Go!” Michael Shaheen. Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.
This article was originally published on November 25, 2014. Last update: July 8th, 2019
Tags
tournament strategyturbo tournamentsno-limit hold'emRelated Room
Full Tilt
Poker Strategy
Poker Reviews
Poker Bonuses
Hyper Turbo SNGs are some of the fastest and most aggressive SNGs offered at online poker rooms. The starting stack size is a mere 300 chips with a starting big blind of 30! This gives the player very little wiggle room and quickly forces gamblers to make decisions for all of their chips.
Also the blinds increase every 3 minutes as opposed to every 5 minutes in typical turbo SNGs.
These hyper turbo SNGs are not without skill. A competitive edge can be gained by players who know how to take advantage of the tournament’s structure and are able to pounce on mistakes in their opponent’s game.
Poker Heads Up Hyper Turbo Strategy Games
The short and skinny of it is, play relatively tight in the very early stages of the tournament, know when to kick it into high gear, be aware of your stack size, use position to your advantage, shove or fold.
Top Five Hyper Turbo SNG Tips
1. Play Tight In The Early Stages
One of the best things about hyper turbo SNGs is that many players in these games are just gambling. In the early stages of the SNG you will often see players shoving their whole stack in with very marginal suited hands or a naked Ace.
At the beginning of the SNG you should be looking for relatively strong cards from early and middle position and opening your range up a little closer to the button. Typically from early and middle position you should be looking for 77+ AJ+ to move all-in with. If the pot is unopened ahead of you then you can move all-in from the button with any pair, any ace, and a strong King. The same goes for opening the pot from the small blind.
2. Know When To Shift Into High Gear
Hyper turbo and Super turbo SNGs require significant aggression from any player looking to be competitive.
In the middle stages of the SNG, more often than not the cards in your hand matter less than your position and stack size. Many times it is correct to move all-in no matter what two cards are in your hand. For instance: If you have 5 or fewer big blinds, and no one has opened the pot in front of you, it is correct to move all-in from the button or small blind with any two cards. You cannot allow yourself to “go like broomcorn’s uncle” as Doyle says in Supersystem. In other words, you cannot pay blinds until your stack is too small for a double up to matter.
3. Manage Your Stack Size
Your stack size will frequently dictate your actions in hyper turbos. If you have a comfortable second place stack and you are in the small blind with 4 players remaining and the big stack is in the big blind, you should fold KQ without a thought. The top three players get paid and there is no reason to risk bubbling the SNG with a hand that is easily dominated. If you are the short stack however, this is a no-brainer shove.
Poker Heads Up Hyper Turbo Strategy Builder
In general however, whenever you are approaching the four to five big blind mark, you should be looking to move-in on the first unopened pot where your cards are not terrible (and sometimes even if you have 72o).
4. Position, Position, Position
This may be the most important tip to take with you into the hectic world of hyper turbos. Position is key! Whenever the pot is unopened ahead of you and you are in the small blind, you should be giving serious consideration to moving all-in. You have only one random hand to worry about. The big blind will typically be folding more than 60% of the time, and when called you still have a chance to win even with two random cards! This situation is always +EV for the player in the small blind. The same goes for the button, albeit to a slightly lesser degree.
5. Shove Or Fold
Everyone starts with exactly ten big blinds. In regular multi-table tournaments this is known as “shove or fold mode.” The same holds true for Hyper Turbo SNGs. In Hyper Turbos you should almost always be making a decision for your entire stack right from the beginning of the hand. Either fold and conserve your ability to apply maximum pressure, or shove and apply maximum pressure.
Because stack sizes are so small, if you make a standard raise it is usually incorrect to fold if your opponent moves all-in. Because you have already dedicated 30% of your stack (if you raise 3x the big blind) and then someone shoves all-in for 100% of your stack; you need to call the last 70%. This means you are getting 130:70, which makes it about 2:1. If your hand can win 33% of the time in this scenario, then it is correct to make the call. If you don’t think your hand can actually win 33% of the time, why are you raising in the first place?
Most of the time the only decision you need to make is shove or fold. Now you can just sit back and laugh when other players spew chips by raising and then folding to your shove. The exception to the rule is that if two players have both doubled up early on and each has twenty big blinds, then it may be correct to make standard raises.
As with all SNG formats, make sure you tread very carefully on the bubble with tight but aggressive play. Check out our Poker SNG Tips article for tips on bubble play and more general tips on playing the Sit N Go format.
Check Out Party Poker's Hyper Turbo SNGs
Party Poker and Pokerstars have a similar selection of Hyper Turbos. The TopFivePoker crew prefer the Party Poker hyper turbos because they are simply easier to beat! Party Poker also offers much better signup and reload bonuses than Pokerstars. First time players signing up for Party Poker through TopFivePoker.com will receive a deposit bonus of $500!Head over to PartyPoker.com and get a piece of the easiest Hyper Turbo action online!
Top 5 Poker Rooms
Poker Heads Up Hyper Turbo Strategy Tactics
