Building a BR through MTT's

[EGO]

It's taken me a few years to figure out, but tournaments are where the "money is at". I've been playing SNG's over the past few weeks, along with an occassional MTT, mostly as a break from grinding micro-limit poker. It's been alot of fun.

I've got $150 in my BR, and want to start playing MTT's and SNG's about 80% of the time. I play only on Stars. I could probably play no more than 3 tables at once.

How would you go about building a BR from this position?

[Sherman]

$3.25 45 man SNGs until you have ~$400. Then the 4/180s. By the time you get there, you will have figured out what to do next. BTW, if you follow this advice you'll be running a bit risky with $150 at the 3/45s, but probably too conservative with 400 @ the 4/180s.

[MJBuddy]

I'd like more than 150 for the 3.25/45

Granted, I have 200 in my BR and have been grinding out 1.20/45 and somehow beating the rake.

[Sherman]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd like more than 150 for the 3.25/45

Granted, I have 200 in my BR and have been grinding out 1.20/45 and somehow beating the rake.

[/ QUOTE ]

The play in the 1.20s is so bad you can actually beat the rake, I'd just hate paying a 20% rake. Also, if you are pretty good, a think getting by on a $150 BR shouldn't be a problem at the 3/45s. The play is just horrendous.

[JohnFR]

So far good advice, but I would start taking the occasional shot at $4/180s with a BR of $250-$300, because losing $4 is worth the risk of nearly doubling your bankroll in a REALLY soft field.
Move full time to $4/180s when you hit $500 and start taking shots at the $10/180s with a $750 roll, continue with $4/180s and $10/180s until you have around $1200 and then take the occasional shot at the $20/180s.

[MJBuddy]

I had a strong week and took a shot at a 4/180 and took down 8th; it's really incredibly soft.

I'll spend the afternoon on 3/45s and I'll post here again. Worth a shot; if the play that horrendous, I'll gladly admit my fault and win some money :P.

[Ontario_Tory]

my $0.02 worth: make sure you're comfortable with Turbos before blowing your roll on the $3.25's... I find the 45 man turbos have a much higher variance than the regular speed ones.

For me, the 18 man turbos (especially the $1.75 NL Omaha Hi Lo 18 man turbos) were the easiest to beat... I find that with the 45's, the blinds get so big that it turns into a crap shoot, with only 7 people paid. With 18s, however, you have 4 people paid (of 18) which reduces variance.

With the turbos, you get to the point in the tourney where it's push/fold regardless of your cards - it's all situational. With the Omaha 8OB tourneys, I found that the competition would be nut-peddling for way later than they do in NLHE, so you build up a huge stack by pushbotting - you get more folds than you do in NLHE. (not to mention the fact that no starting hand is ever really 'dead' in O8 - you always have outs...)

[MJBuddy]

I agree Ontario, entirely. That's why I switched to 1.20 slows.

I'd win 60 dollars in two days and go on 4 day sprints of losing it all because ending up with 1200/600 blinds with 11 people left completely nullified my 7k stack, regardless of my average. Got tired of that + realized I could outplay 99% of these fields post-flop so I switched. I used to be much stronger pre-flop, so I went with turbos.

[kleath]

Well it's just like a sng, you're edge in those comes a lot from your pushbotting late. I don't know if anyone has got an adequate sample yet but some of the sngicons guys have been playing the higher ones and getting ~40% roi, so high rake is a ton easier to beat than say the 3.4s, where even at the low levels your roi won't get past 25% usually.

EDIT: for the turbos you HAVE to have a plentiful roll, you'll be losing most of them and then all the sudden win a couple and you'll be up, but I wouldn't be surprised if a standard downswing was 40ish buyins at all.

[EGO]

Thanks for all the advice. I'm still pretty new to tournament play, so I'll start with the $1+.20 SNG's. The rake is high, but I really can't afford to risk my bankroll at this point to play any higher.

Is there any merit to playing satellites and selling your T$?