This is probably one tourney where you'd be better off not playing turbos. Increased pressure of the blinds means less time to accumulate chips before the bubble breaks. That's a problem that's unique to these tournies.

i just played 2 of these and noticed 5th place basically got back his buy in and nothing else due to chip stack & with a 50bb starting stack and the turbos being the only one people are playing is it even beatable over the long run??

p.s only good thing i found is that the tables are passive, atleast at the $5.24 limit played...

The correct pay-out is 0.6/0.1/0.1/0.1/0.1, not 0.5/0.1/0.1/0.1/0.1.
This can lead to different result icm nash vs sngwiz.

it is...but nobody suggested the later...

i was using .5, .1, .1, .1, .1 at the hold'em resources link. pretty embarrassing when i think about it.

If you do the calcs you'll see that in order to get at least the same payoff that you'd get from a regular DoN, you have to finish with more than 3000 chips. Not an easy task to do so on a regular basis.

Thanks for the advice. I have just finished my first 500 block at $10.48 multitabling up to 16 tables ending up with a silly ROI of 1%. I will give it a try and reduce MTB to 4 or 5 for my next 500 tournaments block. Yes I do have SNGWiz. I just didn't notice that the new version has an option for the Fifty50. So I am going to use it to adapt my ranges

Thank you! Good luck at the tables...err table

Yeah I really like 5050 but is it profitable? They seem pretty easy to place 5th or better, so it's tough to lose money. I really want these to be profitable because I like them a lot

you'd think after 133 posts someone would have asked if these things are profitable or not. my guess is no money in 5050, everyone's placing 5th or better.

my real answer is, assuming reasonable rake, all forms of poker are beatable.

Of course it is beatable...

Yes, but the question is whether they are beatable enough to make them worth playing.

hmm i like this idea... if they're not tooo slow

I definitely prefer playing in sets as opposed to continuous

I load like 30-40 and basically completely auto pilot up to the point where all my tables reach ~7 players left

So it's like I pay attn for 1/3 or less of the time that I'm playing, which is cool for watching tv while playing

Here's one for discussion:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 1.08 Tournament, 75/150 Blinds 20 Ante (6 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) (t3450)
BB (t3515)
UTG (t1560)
MP (t2865)
CO (t1035)
Button (t2575)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 5, 5
1 fold, MP calls t150, CO bets t1015 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero ???

If villain is shoving fairly wide here, is this a good spot to call and try to end it? Or better to fold, which avoids the risk of some damage to our stack and enables us to abuse the bubble?

I've played a very small sample at $1.08 but I'm starting to think the key is to play all stages very aggressively, the only difference between the stages being hand selection. You don't want to play too loosely in the early stages because chip preservation is so important, but at the same time you need to take advantages of all opportunities to accumulate chips.

In the early levels this would translate into playing big cards very fast and overbetting the pot with big hands. Once the antes kick in at level 5, time to open up the throttle: start shoving if you're very short, look for shove resteal spots if you're in the 15-20BB range, start stealing more liberally if you have a healthy stack, etc. If you have a healthy stack, look to make some pot-odds calls against shorties if the risk to your stack isn't too high. On the bubble if you have a good stack, bully the other stacks that don't want to bust.

this is a +EV call, assuming cutoff is opening a standard range. URL=http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sngs/icmcalculator.html?action=calculate&bb=150&sb=75&a nte=20&structure=.6%2C+.1%2C+.1%2C+.1%2C+.1&s1=156 0&s2=2865&s3=1035&s4=2575&s5=3450&s6=3515&s7=&s8=& s9=]Nash, now calculated correctly[/URL] has him pushing 22%, us calling 44+, and the big blind overcalling 99+.

if the table is tight, we can pass up this slightly ev call for hopes of future pwnage. conversely, the looser the table is, the more likely i am to try and end it here.

incidentally, thanks for posting a hand. keep 'em coming.

And in the chapter on how not to play the bubble:


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 1.08 Tournament, 150/300 Blinds 40 Ante (6 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) (t1440)
BB (t480)
UTG (t3320)
MP (t6070)
CO (t1475)
Button (t2215)

Hero's M: 2.09

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10, J
1 fold, MP bets t600, 1 fold, Button raises to t2175 (All-In), 1 fold, BB calls t140 (All-In), 1 fold

Flop: (t2030) 4, 9, 5 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: (t2030) 5 (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t2030) Q (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t2030

Results:
Button had 8, A (one pair, fives).
BB had K, 8 (flush, King high).
Outcome: Button won t320, BB won t1710

Wait, wouldn't CO's range be the CA range not the PU range since MP is already in the pot?

I'm rethinking my point about the turbos. Loving the fact that I can play a STT in about 20 minutes...

drat. i did not notice the open limp. well, here's how i treat open limps: until i've seen them set a TARP!, i assume they're opening junk and are going away to any pressure. sngwiz says mp needs to fold more than 90% of the time for an overpush with 55+ (44 is right out). that seems fairly likely, because mp's range will be very polarized, and there's a lot more slightly good looking chaff than there are premiums, and limping premiums is just so bad.

Of course the games are beatable, until you have 5+/10 regs in every game.

Playing these like a 45 man final table seems to work pretty good.

Is this right? BB was calling a verrrrrrry wide range. Maybe trivial but I don't know which is why I'm asking.

Uh....the structures are not even close

Fifty/50 60,10,10,10,10
45-man 31,21.5,16.5,12.5,9,6,3.5

Very interesting and surprisingly very wrong to fold. Even with BB calling 100%push is +1.0%EV. Minimum plus EV is +0.7% if BB calls 70%(I'd post wizard graph if I knew how)

Pretty graphically illustrates how the endgame is very different from a DON.
Now I'm sure that people will argue that ICM is meaningless in this case because the shorty will be all-in next hand. My counter arguement to that is that unlike in a DON he may only be allin with 1 other stack and is 50/50 to win.(In a DON there would be a 6-way cooperation play)

you'd think so, but an actual F50 payout could be very similar to that 45, whereas it's almost never one person collecting all the monies.

I did (and still do a little) wonder if the fact an f50 ICM structured payout never actually happens makes a difference.