I switched back to Pokerstars to see what their tournaments are like. The blinds went up slower and started at lower amounts, so the play was a lot slower. The PartyPoker SNG’s seemed to rapidly change to fold or push, turning into a preflop crapshoot, while the PokerStars SNGs involved a bit more poker.
That said, I’m probably better at preflop crapshooting 
I played 5 $1 SNGs, again one tabling while watching tv (this isn’t serious poker!), and finished in the money in two of them. One third place and one second place, which meant I ended up down $1.50.
That was yesterday, and today I tried some multitable tournaments. I signed up for a $1 event, and then noticed that there were no rake $0.25 events – considering I was just doing this for fun rather than to challenge my awesome poker skills, zero Rake seemed pretty good, so signed up for a couple. I played all three at the same time.
I held my own for a while, but two of the tables went awry and I crashed out about midway. I then checked the lobby of the remaining one to see it was the $1 game, and I was currently in 2nd place! (bit of a surprise as I hadn’t been particulary pushing hard).
I kept on going, and won the thing. Fortunately there was just two of us getting all the chips, and the other guy had no idea about HU play. Prize for winning was $14, which not only puts me well ahead on my tournament pokertracker graph (sample size 50 tournaments!), but also repayed all my recent losses at the cash tables, and returns me to my original PokerStars deposit.
Looks like I’m becoming a tournament convert. At least while I’m winning 
hmm, just realised the MTT I just won was 45 players, which I thought would mean a first prize of $22.50. Didn’t realise that prize structures varied so much. Guess I’ll watch that next time (because, like, I’ll be first place lots of times!)
Good luck. think your ready to move up to $3 sng’s
you might wanna try the $3.40 18 man SnG’s on stars (once you get a bit more cash) I think they do $1.40 ones aswell. Theres also $2.20 satellites to the sunday $200000. These pay seats to the first 4-5 (can’t remember) Historically I’ve never done very well at tournies. But I’ve won my seat to that event twice. I hope they go well for ya and of course theres always the cash tables to fall back on if variance gets the better of you. Good luck buddy
I hadn’t previously done well at tournaments before either, but that was quite a while ago. My cash game skills seem to be holding up in these tournaments which is a good start.
Are tournaments higher variance? I guess so, since they seem to become preflop coinflips towards the end. I wonder if that changes at higher levels?
I have found there to be more variance. Maybe its because your up $20 one minute then you dont cash in the next five you play and your back to square one.
I might invest $10 this week, play a few and see if my recent cash game improvements help.
you need ~40BIs for STTs and 100+ BIs for MTTs.
def. read “Kill Everyone: Advanced Strategies for No-limit Hold ‘em Poker Tournaments and Sit-n-go’s”
Does 40BIs for STT suggests it’s variance is similar to cash tables (marginally worse)? If that’s true and MTTs are really 3x worse, maybe that’s outweighed by the thrill when you win one. You just have to keep playing until you do win though…
I’ve heard other people recommend that book too – I’ll try and track it down. Maybe it’s time to read harrington too – I’d not bothered previously since it was for tourney play.
when i was at the final table of that $26 45-man SnG i felt like i need to smoke like 5 cigarettes (though i’ve never smoked)..so yea, that was fun.
my friend switched to MTTs entirely..he losed few hundreds here (he plays $50+), few hundreds there to win few grand one day..not my cup of tea.
quote from phil galfond’s(2nd biggest cash winner, afte phil ivey) bio:
Phil Galfond started his poker career playing sit and go tournaments in 2004, and by 2005 was already beating the largest sng’s on the net.($5,000 buy in level) Soon thereafter, he determined that cash games were more lucrative than the sit and go’s, and in 2006 made the switch starting at 5/10.
while harrington on holdem is great, kill everyone is so much better, imo