Evan Jarvis said:
Knockouts are a very fun format of poker, but the math required to play them well is more advanced than normal tournaments
As a beginner I wouldn't recommend them because it's calculating the right odds to gamble based on the size of the bounty, and how many chips relative to starting stack you are risking to get it, just adds another variable and layer of complexity to the calculations.
PKOs may appear as lower variance because you win some of your money back some of the time even if you don't cash the tournament, but the reality is that because these bounty monies encourage people to gamble more and take more all ins, PKOs are actually a higher variance form of poker than normal MTTs.
For a beginner I think the best types of MTTs are small field tournaments with a good blind structure (8,10,12 mins) and short late registration (1-2 hours max). These formats will give you great practice and not take too much time to play.
That's also with sit n gos, be them 9 man, 27 man, 45 man, 90 man or 180 man are great places to get your feet wet and starting enjoying tournament poker!
I completely agree with Evan Jarvis. On PokerStars in particular I think, PKOs tend to be softer than normal tournaments, but they are also higher variance, which is not always ideal for beginners. Judging from posts in this forum quite a few people tend to tilt, if they jam KK, get 3-4 callers, and then someone get lucky with some random hand, they should probably have folded. So you need to be prepared for that, and you dont always learn so much from watching people gamble like crazy, as you will often see in the first few blind levels of for instance the 3,3$ "on demand" turbo PKO.
Still speaking about PokerStars specifically finding those small field MTTs, which Evan talk about, can unfortunately be a bit challenging, since the player pool is so large. Its especially challenging or outright impossible, if you want to play in the european evening hours, where most MTTs on PokerStars see tousinds of entries especially in micro stakes, where beginners should start.
The best option is probably the player capped MTTs, or you can play outside peak hours, where most MTTs on Stars at least see less than 1.000 entries. They actually have some pretty good structures like for instance the "big", which have 10 min blind intervals and less than 2 hours late registration.
But even so there is no way around the fact, that the SnG lobby is, where beginners should spend most of their time on Stars. There is everything from 6-mans to 180-mans, which can all give great practice, and if you are really short on time or want to avoid shorthanded play, there is the Fifty/50, which is usually over in no more than 20-25 minutes. Some of the SnGs on Stars also have bounties, but when they are not progressive like in the 1,5$ 90 man KO, they only really matter in the beginning. Once you get near the money bubble, its essentially like playing a normal MTT for slightly less money.
