i play a home game with the following structure:
5k starting stack
7-9 players
25/50 starting blinds
blinds double every twenty minutes (50/100, 100/200, 200/400, etc.)
no antes

blinds go up pretty fast IMO and with no antes stealing is not as helpful. i try to play tight early. towards the end when blinds are 500/1000+ and its 3-4 handed i will be shoving often unless i am chip leader, which i often am not due to my tight early play. i consistently finish 3rd or better but don't win often because i am usually short stacked when its heads up.

any tips on how i could adjust my game?

i feel that the current structure makes it resemble a lottery, but wanted a more unbiased opinion. i've tried to have the structure changed but i have run into resistance.

Yes, starting at 100 BB then going up that fast there is not a lot of play in this one. Does everyone play tight early? If so, I might look for opportunities to be more aggressive earlier, if there is any limping, and I have a decent hand in late position. High risk, yes, but it could set up a nice table image for the next few orbits. I would only go big once with a decent hand, and then hope to do it again soon after with a great hand.

Of course, if there are multiple limps and you have people who tend to call anything preflop, this is very risky. You've got to be able to play very skillfully postflop.

yes often many limpers early and will call flop bets with bottom pair or high card

How do they respond to C-bets on a dry board? Risk level rising...

i will admit that its not impossible to take down a pot, but i don't make those moves often. as you say, very high risk... if someone has middle pair and i missed the flop, i've just given away 20% of my chips with a pfr and cbet.

it really irritated me when i was told that "the game is much more competitive when people can't just sit on their money"

LOL, yeah, coin flips are competitions...based on luck! Looks like they like the rush-to-the-money approach to tournaments. Of course, all tournaments have that characteristic at some point.

I'd forget all this post-flop thinking. this is a turbo, and turbos are all about flipping accurately. Learn about short-stack/high-blind poker. Steal blinds (who needs antes, if the blinds are big, that's a pot worth stealing). Get good cards, get all-in with them.

yes, it's not the same as a deep-stacked cash game, and yes there will be a lot of variance. But this doesn't mean you can't be better at it than your opponents. In fact, many players make very bad decisions as stacks get short. Most online experts consider shorthanded turbos to be an excellent income-generator.

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don't get me wrong -i agree with you completely. i used to play turbo sngs and they are definitely profitable (though the variance is tough sometimes)
i guess i was just wondering (i.e., wishfully thinking) if there was some magical adjustment i could make with the additional dynamic that home games bring (bad players making bad decisions) but i guess variance is what is it

Outside of knowing your opponents, there isn't a magical adjustment.

This type of game used to be my bread and butter, as I am sure it is for a lot of people on this forum. This isn't an issue of substance over style-like any other card game, its about playing your opponent and picking the correct spots to get your money in.


One thing about these games-I try to play tight early myself and in the group of people I used to play with, I was known as one of the tighter players. I was able to use that to my advantage and change gears when the blinds got higher. It sounds like you might be doing something similar. Unless you are leaving yourself essentially crippled when it comes to short handed play, don't be so results oriented. At some point you are going to double through an opponent late and go into HU play with a formidable stack. Variance can work for you if you give it time to happen.