I was playing these 18 man $3.50 turbos regularly on Pokerstars last year and I had a decent win rate and was able to move up to $7.00. I struggled a bit there and had to move back down to $3.50, and then I took a break for a few month.

I've been back to the $3.50 games and I've found it to be much tougher/tighter. I notice that when we get to late stages like final 6, it is seems later than usual where blinds are 150/300 or bigger. It seems like players are playing tighter and waiting each other out for cash spots, even when they don't have much more than 2 or 3 big blinds.

Usually a sign of a soft field is players overvaluing hands like top pair and busting out in early stages, and hitting the final table stage with blinds as low as 60/120 or 80/160. This isn't as common these days.

I still notice some really loose/soft/newb players who tend to be from Brazil, so it seems like they are promoting/growing the game in that area, but otherwise the game at this level seems alot more difficult than it was last year. Any thoughts or opinions on this?

I've noticed that all of the best regulars (guys with OPR % > 99%) playing the $2.50 180 man Turbos are either from ex-soviet countries or Brazilians. The Brazilians were a surprise to me as I've mostly played full-ring cash on the same site and I don't recall seeing a single reg from that country playing 10nl, 16nl or 25nl whereas those limits or stuffed full of regs from the ex-soviet countries. I've been wondering why the Brazilians are playing micro buy-in sit & gos but not micro cash.

I don't see what would have changed over the past year so perhaps it's partly a sample size issue?

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I just realized this question would fit in better in the MTTSNG forum. Is a mod able to move this for me? Or does anyone know how I can request this?

Agreed. I don't remember seeing many Brazilians in cash games either, yet in mtt sng's, they are the biggest majority of players. Maybe they can only get staked for mtt's.

MTTSNG has been moved in to this forum now as it was pretty dead.

Best answer I can think of is volume.

To address the sample size/volume comments regarding my thoughts, I have played over 2,700 18-45 man sit and goes on stars, mostly at the $3.50 buy in level. That is over 500 hours at a whopping $2.28 per hour!

I know it is a small sample size compared to the long run, but I think its still enough for me to realize that games seem like they have gotten tougher/tighter. My profit graph has been break even for the past 600 games, where as I had a positive slope during the first 2,000.

Is it worth it to try another site like 888? Or is Stars the only site in town these days?

Hard to know but I don't see what would have changed over the past year to explain the difference. It's not like 18-man SnGs are a new game that people just recently figured out. Perhaps an influx of international competition has added more variance, not made the games tougher.

I play on 888 and I've had more success there than on Stars, both in MTTs and SnGs. There isn't as much variety and the games don't fill as quickly though (I only play 9-man SnGs on 888).

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How many tables are you playing?

2,700 is ~ a month of grinding if you want to make money at sng's.

Darth, ya I'll give 888 a try. Maybe Stars is too full of grinders who are quick to sign up for training sites and turn into regs.

Stratify, I play 2-6 tables at a time, usually at 3-4, and generally on weekends. There were a few months I took off though.