tournament formats

[GinaSD]

I entered a tournament tonight-- and got a big surprise. The tables only filled with 3-4 people each, and the winner of each table moved on to play a final table.

since i've almost exclusively played full-ring live casino poker, this really threw me for a loop.

which tournaments would you recommend for a live-cash-game casino player who is trying to convert to internet play with a smattering of tournaments? My live game was 1-2 or 2-3 no limit... but the competition online seems to be exponentially more fierce at those levels.

My real interest is finding nice tournament structures where I can play full ring, slower blinds, and as deep-stacked as possible.

edit to add- i am only playing pokerstars at the moment, though i do have an ultimate bet account if that would be better.
thanks,

g

[pzhon]

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My live game was 1-2 or 2-3 no limit... but the competition online seems to be exponentially more fierce at those levels.

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Yes. The lowest levels of NL available are always filled with terrible players, but there are lower games available online. In general, people are much looser in live play, since people don't go to the casino to fold. Live games with a $2 big blind are more similar to online games with a big blind from $0.05 to $0.25. On the other hand, the online games have a lower rake, and you can play many more hands per hour, particularly if you play multiple tables.

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My real interest is finding nice tournament structures where I can play full ring, slower blinds, and as deep-stacked as possible.


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You should be able to find plenty of those. You will probably want to avoid the turbo tournaments, but even those are comparable with many live tournaments. Ordinary online tournaments tend to give you deeper stacks and slower blind increases (in hands per level) than all but the slowest live tournaments. There are also some deep-stacked tournaments with slow blind structures and larger starting stacks.