Have you seen the new HellKat sit and go tournaments over at Party Poker? They are just like regular SNG’s only they have a maximum time which the game can last (5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes at this stage though the filters in the client hint that there may be longer games to come), at the end of which the prize pool is divided up amongst the top 3 chip stacks. As an added twist some of the games have a random finishing time (within 10% of the scheduled finishing time) that make it more difficult to predict how many hands you have remaining.

My initial thought on these games is “what a crap shoot” with most of the tournaments I’ve been watching quickly turning into all-in fests. However, it does seem there could be some interesting strategies to be tried. Especially in the later stages of the game. I’ve only played in one so I’ll reserve judgment on the idea as a whole until I’ve researched things a bit more, in the meantime consider this final hand from the HellKat tournament I just played in:

Let me set the scene, there are five players remaining:

SB has 670
BB has 5,160
I’m UTG with 3,720
UTG+1 has 7,730
and the button has 2,720

Blinds are 150/300 but that is almost completely irrelevant as the HellKat timer is at 14:45 and this is a fixed time tournament capped at 15 minutes. This is our last hand.

The cards are dealt and I find:

What do you do here?

With my timer already beeping and all eyes on me I quickly consider the current state of the game, my options, my opponents likely moves and how this all affects me and my money chances. I do all this in the few scarce seconds you get to think in these things and then I fold. As the play moves around the table I double check the numbers in my head, I think I got this right…

1. I’m third. The only way this can change is if the current first or second place player doubles up fourth place in this hand.
2. First place will not play this hand as fourth place is going all-in regardless and if first loses he’s back to second.
3. Second place will not call the all-in as a loss will put him out of the money.
4. Since fourth has to push to have any chance of making the money and since I’m around 60/40 give or take against most random hands here it’s a big gamble to try and grab second place.

I’m convinced in this specific situation that folding is correct (and should have been done blind, though AK made it that much more interesting) however, if fourth and fifth place have more than 1860 in chips (half my stack) each here I have to play and in that case we would have been all-in preflop and I would have had a race on my hands for a chance at second place or nothing! That’s what these tournaments can come down to and while it’s interesting to try and run these scenarios in your head while under pressure at the table as the final minute ticks by on a clock it remains to be seen whether or not this type of game suits my style.

As far as a way to kill a quick 15 minutes goes though I can think of worse things to do.

Oh, by the way… the board after fourth and fifth place played the dead rubber of a final hand:

I’d have rivered the win and taken second. C’est la vie!