Tournament Review @ Paradise

[SteveO]

Just signed up for paradise last week and recently had the chance to play some tournaments SNGs and a Multi. Had been hanging around the cash games to clear bonus $$$.

Anyway, I strongly advise that everyone avoid the Rebuy and Add on tournaments at all costs. I believe this has been posted elsewhere on this Board. It was not poker. It was my first R&A experience and it was unpleasant. People play any garbage and play it like AA. My initial 1500 chips lasted an hour then when everyone added on I left just to be blinded away. It was that bad. People must have dumped $120 into the game and you had to make nearly final table to break even. I will stick to the freeze outs.

However, the 20SNGs were soft, really soft. They played like limit games. Start w/ 1000 in chips. It was down to 4 people and blinds were only 50-100. The hands people were showing down were pathetic. Too bad for me, my hot card streak ran out and I got caught defending by BB. At a table of 10 there were about 2 people playing solid. IMO 20SNG at Paradise was much softer than Party, but I have only a small sample size so far.

[DrNoChance]

I actually had a better SnG record at Paradise vs. Party as well. My sample size from Paradise wasn't very large either though. I liked having 1000 chips vs. 800, it gave me a bit more time to outplay the weaker fish at the table before things became an all-in fest with huge blinds.

[jmrogers7]

I've been preaching Paradise SNGs for a couple of weeks now. I too find the game pretty soft there. I HATE Party's 800 starting chips and stupidly large blind increases. Paradise has the perfect number of starting chips (1000) and blinds start at 5/10 and increase at a reasonable rate.

The $20+$2's play about the same as the $10+$1's. I MUCH prefer Paradise SNG's over any other site right now.

DISCLAIMER: I have yet to try PokerStars SNG's.

[stevedonel]

I used to play on paradise, but got tired of the 10 hand blind increase. I prefer the blind timer on pokerstars. My strategy on paradise SnGs (this is an absolute blast):

On the deal and flop, the only bet you can make is 5x the BB; never call, and never raise anything other than 5x the BB. This removes all possibities of other players finding a betting patern. It really annoys the other players too, especially when the blinds increase.

On the deal, only play group 4 or better hands, make it 5x BB to play. Half the time you'll pick up the pot right there. If its raised back at you, play it like you normally would.

At the flop, no matter what the flop is (hit, miss, monster, doesn't matter), bet 5x the BB; this will win a large majority of the other half of the hands. Again, if raised back at you play smart.

If the hand goes any further, bet 5x BB about half the time and play like normal about half the time; value betting, calling draws with pot-odds, ect. The only exception is check-raise monsters or big over-pairs. With all the bluffing you will do at the flop, you may have to check and fold to someone's raise at the turn. After seeing this a few times, they will bluff, with their drawing hands or lower pairs, alot when you check the turn, thinking you are letting go of a bluff. This drives them crazy.

You will pick up alot of blinds, small pots, some very large pots, and only get beat about 10-15% of the hands. Everyone will be on tilt, and they all hate you. But you will typically finish the game about twice as fast. The last time I played this method, I did it 10-12 $20 games in a row and won ~8, took 2nd in the rest. (can't remember the exact numbers) but never got below 2nd. Maybe I shold go back on paradise and have some fun

[DrNoChance]

On the deal and flop, the only bet you can make is 5x the BB; never call, and never raise anything other than 5x the BB. This removes all possibities of other players finding a betting patern. It really annoys the other players too, especially when the blinds increase.

Couldn't agree more. I am a huge fan of keeping pre-flop raise amounts consistant. Deny them information. Whether you have AA or AQ in the hole is their problem.

At the flop, no matter what the flop is (hit, miss, monster, doesn't matter), bet 5x the BB; this will win a large majority of the other half of the hands. Again, if raised back at you play smart.

Mostly agree here. When you are out of position, though, some healthy fear of a flopped ace that you don't have is a good thing IMO. Too many players on Paradise who call pre-flop raises with any ace. You also don't want to get pigeonholed as the guy who bets every flop, or people will start playing back at you with weak hands.

[Krapp]

Absolutely Paradise SnGs are the best place to play. I have played about 1000+ SnGs on Paradise and have noticed good playing will get you in the top-3 (not as many 50/50 coin flips). Party Poker (and the clones (even Poker Room) force faster more random wins to play in the top-3:
(1) Chip count is 800. 20% less then Paradise. With 40-80 hands completed, you will noticed your chip count isnt dramatically different from opps (where 1-good hand would give them a bigger chip count)
(2) Blinds start at 5/10 vs Party's 15/30. You have 20 more hands at Paradise to extract money from opps. During the later blind games (50/100+), you will notice signifncantly differences between ppls chipcounts (500 - 3kl). If you are sitting on 2k chipcount, you are sitting pretty. Another bonus here, you will notice at the 15/30 level on Paradise (20 hands later), its common for 1-2 to have already dropped out. Now you have 8 opps instead of the 10 opps at party, at the same blind levels.

With the aggressive betting and chipcount formats on Party, players become more desparate, faster. As a result, you will be playing in a maniac environment more times than not.

My rule of thumb for Paradise vs Party SnG. At Party, you need about 3x chipcount to have a good chance at top-3 (2400 chips). At Paradise you need 2x chipcount (or 2000 chips)

One note on Poker Room. They start you at 1500 chips and 10/20 blinds. I thought, ok this is good and bought-in. However, the blinds went up 2x as fast (not sure if it was every 5-hands or when a opp dropped out). Quickly you find yourself in the maniac environment again. I was fortunate enough to place first, but I tripled my chipcount early and still had to compete during the end games.

What what I could observe is that Party Poker intentially makes the bet formats / chipcounts fast. Why?
(1) The SnGs only last for 45-60 minutes, meaning more frequent SnGs and fees. Paradise takes about 60-75 mintues to play-out.
(2) Less time to bet. Meaning: more impulsive betting, less time to think, faster rakes for house.
(3) Betting is a bit more liberal looking (chips stack vs horitzontally laid out).
(4) Buyin-in at the .25/.50 NL games is $25 vs Paradise $50. To me this means ppl have less chips to play with and the games get quite aggressive/loose. Especially true when also considering the less time to bet and liberal animations on chipstack betting..

The only advantage I saw playing at Party was the $300 free money they gave you after playing 1500+ hands. Other than that, why play at a place where they are obviously trying to extact money from you faster while crippling your skill to profit ratio. I would rather play against good opps and lose money vs some software design.

[stevedonel]

.......Mostly agree here. When you are out of position, though, some healthy fear of a flopped ace that you don't have is a good thing IMO. Too many players on Paradise who call pre-flop raises with any ace. You also don't want to get pigeonholed as the guy who bets every flop, or people will start playing back at you with weak hands.

Thats a very good point, I have seen alot of that; even on pokerstars (where i play now). So a good alteration to my above strategy would be to mix it up if an ace flops, checking it about ½ the time. When you do have the A on those times that you've checked, check-raise. And, when you dont have it, fold if they bet it back at you (dont forget to mix in a bluff check-raise here and there).

BTW, this entire strategy is much harder to pull off in person. I might have to try it with a new group some time though; I wonder if they'd invite me back