DIY "Tounaments"

[bcubed72]

Just occurred to me:

Tournaments are all about building a stack. First, the escalaing blinds require it, second, as players get eliminated, the same # of chips are distributed among fewer players.

How about this? Instead of playing a $100+8 tourney, buy into a $100 NL ring game. Play until you double up or are bust; if you double up, buy into a $200 NL game. Do this until you finally bust or reach a set goal. Since 10% of tourney players cash, perhaps call yourself a "winner" when your stack is 10x what you started with.

The advantage to this as opposed to an actual tourney is that you get to decide when to "increase the blinds," so a lot of -EV plays you have to make in a tourney are no longer necessary.

Naturally you bust out most of the time, but occaionally you break a big one.

[Unknown Soldier]

interesting idea. One problem that springs to mind though; the players in a cash game will have a different mentality then a tournament player. Might take alot longer to double up.

Any thoughts?

[bcubed72]

[ QUOTE ]

a lot of -EV plays you have to make in a tourney are no longer necessary.

[/ QUOTE ]

Correction: you make plays in tourneys that might result in a net loss of chips, over many iterations. That's not the same as -EV, and I misspoke. Sorry.

[wazz]

This is called a parlay or spin-up.

It's fun and can be very profitable if played correctly.

[mad00hattr]

You are right here, the biggest problem with playing this idea is that the cash game will not have the same sense of urgency as the tournement. But as stated by wazz, this is a fun idea when you are getting bored of constantly getting sucked out on in a tournement.

Actually, it would seem that what you are effectively doing is playing the early stages of a deep-stack tournement over and over again. This is of course assuming you are playing a cash game with a very high M value. Any thoughts?

[GotRivered?]

Doesnt work because of different mindsets in the game. No one is going to push 600 dollars when you reach that level with a 30% draw like they will in a tourney

[IRV]

Sounds like a fun thing to do.

The only problem I see is that if you've jumped into a game you've never played in before and don't really know the skillset involved in beating that level. One example of this is feeling confident when you 3 bet TT in 5/10 NL as oppossed to flat calling this in say 2/4 NL where you're opponents preflop ranges aren't so wide. Postflop betting also changes between some levels where the same bet in (a) means something totally different in arena (b). Simplest example of this would be in interpreting a blocking bet as weak or strong.

[Xhad]

IMO part of the advantage of tournaments is that your opponents can't leave either.

[rakemeplz]

Obvious problem being the higher stakes you play the less EV and more variance as players get better and your buy in is higher compared to your roll.

[slcseas]

Cash games move way too slowly once you approach middle limits (NL$200 and up) to make this truly workable. Alot of guys use this technique with a short buy strategy that makes it a little more feasable. Buy for 25-50% of max in a ring game and parlay up levels. This strategy requires a solid understand of short stack play however.

Consider another option; Sit n Go's - where 30% of players are paid, and the timetable is much shorter to multiply your buy in. A 3rd place finish will stake your buy in to the next level up, and anything better than 3rd is your own vig. I've parlayed $10+1 up to $100+9 and pocketed $400 or so a few times. If you are a solid STT player, you should have no problem making a your 10x goal this way. You often can do that in your first two games if win one and cash the other.