January 20th, 2005, 2:12 am EST
What Is The Deal With Party Poker Speed Tournaments?
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Recently I had the misfortune of entering in a $10 + $1 Party Poker Speed Tournament. The basic premise behind these tournaments is that the blinds increase every 3 minutes, with the blinds eventually maxing out at $50,000 - $100,000.
There were about 1000 entered into the tournament, and I would say at least half were gone within 15 minutes. The blinds increase so quickly, that if there is a long hand with a bunch of people in the pot and a bunch of pondering, you can miss an entire blind level.
Basically the entire tournament is a crapshoot. If you aren't putting all your chips in every 3rd or 4th hand, and doubling up every couple of blind increases, you are going to get blinded out.
The worst part about these tournaments are the people that stall; people that stall so that they won't get hit with a Big Blind before the tables get re-seated, and people who stall when they are getting close to the money. The amount of stalling when there are say, 160 people left and the top 140 are paid is just ridiculous.
The blinds get so high so fast, that I was actually the chip leader a couple of times during this tournament, and had all of my chips in automatically on the big blind. This is how ridiculously high the blinds get. I managed to finish in the top 10, but only because I got ridiculously lucky a couple of times.
My advice would be to play a nice multi-table SNG instead of one of these speed tournaments. They just aren't worth the aggravation.
Filed Under: Opinion Pieces |
