Selecting an Online Tournament Site
You have probably played on multiple sites and noticed that the style of play varies dramatically. You may chalk that up to the unknown, but it is likely that the site has contributed to the situation you are seeing. Also, the aggressive or more passive play you are seeing is a considered move on the part of many players.The structure of these tournaments dictates a playing style. Your objective should be to select a site that corresponds to your style.
There are a number of factors that determine how tournaments play:
1.Starting stack
2.Number of minutes of play at a level
3.Rapidity of blind progression.
4. Implementing an ante structure
Let's go through them one by one, so that you can make the best choices available for your bankroll and skill level.
-- Starting Stack --
The typical starting blinds are 10/20. On a site that gives you a starting stack of 800, you start with 40 big blinds . The next site may provide a starting stack of 1,500 chips hence 75 big blinds. This is a significant difference.
-- Number of Minutes of Play at a Level --
There are turbo tournaments along with more standardized level increases. Turbos are for gambling, where everything about aggression is magnified. We'll be discussing normal play and you can extrapolate from that discussion about the turbo.
Levels vary from eight-minutes to as high as an hour in major tournaments. The norm for typical low buy-in tournaments is usually between eight and twelve minutes. At the end of the first hour, the twelve-minute site will be finishing level five. The eight-minute site will probably extend the last level of play so that a new level starts after the break. This will be level eight. Again, we have a significant difference.
-- Rapidity of Blind Progression --
The blind structure on each site varies.
One site might have the following structure:
Level Blinds
1 10 - 20
2 20 - 40
3 40 - 80
4 50 - 100
While the next might look like:
Level Blinds
1 10 - 20
2 15 - 30
3 20 - 40
The examples make the differences obvious. You have lost a comparable level at the one site in just three blinds and both finsh the levels shown in about the same time frame if this is 8 vs. 12 minutes.
-- Implementing an Ante --
Some sites will start using an ante somewhere close to the 200-chip level. This also has dramatic consequences.
Level Blind Ante
x 100 - 200
x +1 100 - 200 25
x +2 200 - 400 25
x +3 200 - 400 50
Level Blind Ante
x 100 - 200
x +1 200 - 400
x +2 400 - 800
x +3 800 - 1600
Although I am using the same blind progressions which may be at the top of the blind aggression scale, the differences are manifested in our example in a significant manner. On the first table the cost at the last level shown of a full table rotation is 1100 chips. On the second, the cost is 2400 chips per rotation. An average chip stack may be approaching all-in moves with 800/1600 blinds.
-- Beyond the Basics --
Okay. We've gotten the basics and see there can be major differences from one site to the next. As players, we have varied strength at different styles of play. The classic tournament player is tight-aggressive. He looks to win a number of smaller pots and is only willing to take major risk with a very strong hand. He can fold to a bluff or major risk - even where he is fairly confident he has the better hand. Another player may be more successful and confident playing with more aggression and putting more pressure on his table. These players should be seeking to play on different sites - ones that are suit their style..
You should now have a general idea of what type of game the site offers and how it fits your strengths. You can quit here and select a site from the information provided by looking at the structures and making some assumptions. And that will be 90% correct.
I like to extrapolate the blinds at the end of each hour of play. I look at the blinds and compare it to typical on-line longevity and the style I need to play at the various levels.
Typically at the end of:
Hour 1 About half of the participants have busted out
Hour 2 About three to four times the number players vs. payouts are left
Hour 3 Very close to the money
Hour 4 In the money and looking for a better payout
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Now this is a pure guesstimate. And, it can be very wrong. That highly aggressive blind sites might move hour four up to hour three. The reason they use aggressive blinds is to limit their server load and make a higher profit from the add-on. This would reflect a $.33 per player-hour profit as opposed to a $.25 profit with each house dollar they receive. That is a significant difference.
So, it never hurts to keep an eye on what your expectations are against the actual participation level at various times. This can often be accomplished in a few minutes as most sites will have a number of tournaments with various time-frames in play at any given moment. They should have a recap screen that you can bring up to show the numbers: entrants, players remaining, average stack, leader board, current level, and blinds. With this information you can envision what you'll need to do to be average or above at that point. You'll see what pressure is like on an average stack based on those current blinds. We now have 100% of what we need. When we translate our perceptions into empirical data, we validate our assumptions. And poker comes with too many assumptions as it is.
Let me share my experience on two sites where I've ended up in final table play with the one being more aggressive. Both sites had large and equivalent fields. On the aggressive site the big blind ended up at 80,000 - on the other site it was 12,000. Both provided 1,500 starting chips. So, with a tournament field of 2000 that is about 3-million chips. That is around 150-250 (consider it also has a substantial ante at this point) big blinds in play versus 37.5. The last site requires super-aggressive gambling. If you didn't come to that table with a top stack you are in serious trouble. Players must push hands that would have been easy folds earlier. Big stack play is the norm.
What all of the above tells us is that the site is going to impact our profitability. We, therefore, want to pick a site that fits us best for the majority of our play. However, I would suggest playing on the opposite setup too - just at lower buy-in amounts. If that is the aggressive site, it will let you improve the weaker aggression side of your game. You might find it more profitable and enjoyable to use SNGs instead. It isn't quite the same as the aggressive site multis. You must pay attention to a lowered starting stack in the SNG that may make them even more aggressive. But you'll find it much closer to that style than your regular SNG site,
I have writen mostly about multi-table tournaments. Don't think we are ignoring SNG play. It is just that the impact is a bit less dramatic.
Poker's axiom is that "Slow structures reward the better player." But they also say that you must change gears. So use the information to work on your weaknesses while maximizing your strengths. You may even find other benefits by playing aggressive site freerolls.
To close, let me add a caveat. You will find the occasional site where you think you'll be encountering a certain level of aggression and it will fool you. I know of two sites I have played on that were that way. They have developed a culture that is not what their normal blind structure rewards. But, they have a lot of really low buy-ins and turbos that seem to tilt things. You cannot blindly follow the guideline. But you should be able to track down the cause of the shift.
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