At the quarter pole

I'm one-quarter way through Level One of the Self-Imposed Poker Jones SNG Challenge. The plan is to play 100 turbo SNGs of the $3.40 variety on Stars and then see where I'm at. The obvious hope is that I'm crushing those games at that point and will be ready to move to the next buy-in level ($6.50s). Or, given my short attention span, I might be bored to tears. We'll see.

A harried father with much more game than than me suggests there's no difference in skill level from $3.40 to $6.50. I'm sure he's right. And while it's just short of life changing money, the payouts are obviously better at $6.50. But at this particular point in the poker space-time continuum, it's less about money and more about practice -- and discipline. I'm treating the challenge like minor-league baseball, rewarding myself with a promotion to the next level when I believe I have earned it.

I am getting a better feel for the rhythm of turbos. The structure feels similar to the old 1,000-chip Party SNGs. I'm still learning to groping a bit, but the one play I've adopted is to turn into a push-monkey when blinds reach 75/150 and try steal every pot I can. I've been surprised how often it works.

I'm planning to order Scott Fischman's book. I've found a couple of useful nuggets about SNGs in his Cardplayer columns and hope the book will prove even more insightful.