- Oct 23, 2014 There are two main Double or Nothing poker strategies: 1) Take a lot of risks right from the beginning. Play very aggressively to try and gather as many chips as possible. You'll be taking advantage of your opponents' fear since most people are usually pretty tight in these tournaments.
- This is a discussion on Double or Nothing 6-man SNGs within the online poker forums, in the General Poker section; What is a solid win rate for these double or nothing SNGs? I usually play the $3.
Strategy Overview For Double Or Nothing SNG Tournaments
Part #1 of this series gave a detailed overview of Double or Nothing SNGs, this article follows on by looking at some of the specific poker strategy adjustments required to make a profit from these games.
I will break this into two sections, the first re-capping where the profits come from and looking high-level errors in your opponent’s play in these games. The second then follows the ‘early, middle, late’ staged approach to strategy for beating Double or Nothing Sit N Go tournaments.
Created by linaker on July 28, 2009. To go all in against one opponent who has the same or more chips and win the hand, consequently doubling the number of chips you have.
Double or Nothing SNG Strategy – High Level Overview
My perspective is that these are true ‘grinders’ games in which your profit comes from those few ‘crazy’ players who will simply give their buy-in away during the early stages. Solid bubble play is a must – as this will allow you to take your share (or more!) of the cash left by the players who misunderstand the correct strategy for these games.
You will find many multi-tabling grinders in Double or Nothing SNGs, at the mid-levels this might include several opponents on each table. It is vitally important that you identify who these players are, and adjust your strategy when they enter the pot with a raise.
Observing the names at the tables and looking up stats on a service such as Sharkscope will help you avoid tables with 4, 5 or more winning regulars.
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Looking in terms of prize pool equity (poker ICM) will quickly show that the later stages of these games play more like satellites than normal SNGs. Since you can only win double your buy-in the risk of busting is much greater than the reward for doubling up, making survival paramount. More on this in the ‘late stages’ section below. You also need to be aware that all of the early / mid stage strategy is geared towards having a playable stack at the bubble, where playable is defined simply as ‘not one of the smallest + with some fold equity.
Double or Nothing SNG Strategy – Stage by Stage
DoN Strategy - Early Stages – Blinds 10 / 20 to 25 / 50:
- Watch your opponents, grinders will be folding 95% of hands here while those new to the game will raise or call with a wider range. Find out who is only playing top hands and avoid them later in the game.
- Fold all but premium hands in early position and avoid flat calling raises from any position, reraising with monsters. Big-pot hands such as small pairs can be limped behind from later positions, however if a player yet to act has shown themselves to be aggressive this should also be avoided.
- Preserving your stack is key in the first few blind levels. This gives opponents the opportunity to bust each other, while maintaining the threat of a large raise during the middle stages.
DoN Strategy - Middle Stages – Blinds 25 / 50 to 75 / 150:
- With a small ante kicking-in at the 25 / 50 blind levels the incentive to steal blinds is increased, by the 50 / 100 level this becomes an important stack-maintenance strategy. Combine good position with your prior observations and focus on the medium-stacks and the tight opponents at your table to ensure that you steal your share.
- Rarely call any raises. Any time you are faced with a raise you should ask yourself how often you expect your opponent to fold to a re-raise, based on previous behavior, their position and expected raising / calling ranges. If your hand is not good enough to re-raise all-in then it is rarely good enough to see a flop with when the risk of losing chips is vital to the later stages of the game.
- Stack size considerations start to become important during the middle stages, especially in those games where 3 players have already busted. Avoid playing pots with the very large stacks where possible. You should also bear in mind that a short-stack might make a stand with a less than premium hand and avoid being pot-committed against them without a strong holding – flipping a coin for half of your stack in a disaster with such a flat payout structure.
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DoN Strategy - Late Stages – Blinds 100 / 200 +
- At the 6-player bubble and interesting phenomenon occurs, with (hypothetical) ‘even stacks’ each player would have an equity equal to 16.66% of the prize pool – so $16.66c in the $10 buy-in games. However, winning an all-in can only increase this to 20% (or $20 in our example). In any confrontation you are risking almost $17 to win an additional $3 – this ratio affects bubble strategy in a fundamental way.
- Never calling all-in during the late stages should be your default strategy, with only very rare exceptions where you either hold aces or have a very large or very small stack. This also relates to situations where calling a smaller raise would commit either you or your opponent to the pot.
- Pushing all-in to steal the blinds is a great strategy against players who understand the dynamics of the Double or Nothing Sit N Go bubble. Since you should be called only a tiny amount of the time this is a low-risk way of ensuring you maintain enough chips. Your observations from early in the game are important. If an opponent calls with a weak hand then ask yourself how you could have predicted this from previous hands before you blame someone for ‘bad play’.
- Folding is profitable at an aggressive table, with 6 people at the bubble there is a higher chance of 2 other players busting than in a normal SNG. This also means that the ‘pressure’ from the blinds is lower than usual. Folding should be the default play from the first two positions assuming you have maintained a playable stack.
Double or Nothing SNG Strategy – Final Thoughts And Next Steps
Poker is all about adjusting to the situation and your opponents, the profits from Double or Nothing SNGs comes from thinking through the structure + bubble-dynamics and then ‘out-adjusting’ your opponents. Remember, in terms of the risk / reward at the bubble it can be correct to fold a hand such as Ace-King even if you know your experienced opponent is pushing any 2 cards – if you are capable of understanding why this is (and acting on it!) then you will find the Double or Nothing SNGs very profitable indeed.
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Freeroll tournaments are very popular amongst online players who do not want to make a deposit into their poker accounts. If you play well, it is indeed very possible to start a successful poker bankroll through simply playing in freerolls
All you have to do is place in a few of these freeroll tournaments, build up a small sum of money and head to the cash tables.
If you invest time and effort with good bankroll management skills, there is no reason why you cannot set yourself up with a decent online bankroll to play with.
Freeroll tournaments can be tricky.
Due to the popularity of freerolls, you will often find yourself sitting in a tournament with thousands of players hoping to get a slice of the prize pool to add to their own accounts.
A large number of these players will be there to see how far they can ride their luck; pushing in on any random hands without even attempting to play some 'real poker'. Initiating an online bankroll through freerolls can be a tedious affair, therefore I have compiled these top 5 tips for winning money from online poker freerolls.
Freeroll tournament tips.
1] Be prepared to accept losses.
As negative as it sounds, you really have to be prepared to lose when playing in freerolls. The best player in the world will have trouble placing well in any of these freerolls because luck plays so much more of a factor than in any other tournament. If you focus too much on expecting to win, you will only be more disappointed and frustrated when you end up getting sucked out on for all your chips.
The best formula for online, freerolls is to play well, and get lucky. You can't control luck, but you can improve your chances of winning by playing lots of freeroll tournaments.
2] Play a lot of freerolls and play them well.
As mentioned above, we cannot expect to place well in all of the freerolls that we play in. By playing in more freerolls we are giving ourselves a better chance to finish in the money.
You can increase the number of freerolls available to you by signing up at a number of different poker rooms. Almost all rooms offer freerolls, and they are happy for you to sign up just to play in them. So now not only do we have to play well and be lucky, but we also have to play often.
3] Sit tight at the start.
The start of an online, freeroll is always a bit of a frenzy. The luck riders will be straight into action, pushing all their chips in the middle with any two cards hoping for the quick double up at the start. This usually results in a rapid decrease in the number of players and you will find a few players sitting with monster stack sizes compared to the rest of the field.
This is only natural, so don't think that you should have a large stack size like theirs to stand a chance of winning. Just sit tight wait for the good hands, and wait for your turn to double up. Do not be phased if you end up busting out early, just forget about it and head onto the next one, it's probably only around the corner.
4] Look out for the players sitting out.
If you look around the table at a freeroll, you should notice that some of the players are sitting out and not playing in any of the hands. This is because they have signed up for the tournament, but have not turned up to play in it. This means that their blinds will be up for grabs for anyone who decides to raise pre-flop and doesn't come up against an opponent that is actually playing in the tournament.
Keep your eye out for the players who are sitting out, so that you can raise and take their blinds when you feel that you will not come up against any resistance from an actual player. Make sure that you pick your spots carefully, and try not to get into any heavy contests with any of your opponents for these free blinds.
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5] Be aware of when the dynamics change.
As already mentioned, the start of a freeroll will be a complete frenzy. Players will be dropping out at a rapid rate and it seems like you will be in the money in no time. But you should realize that this pace will not be sustained throughout the tournament, and as the numbers decrease, the skill will increase.
Great tournament players are able to quickly identify and adapt to changes in the game.
As the luck riders drop out you will be left with opponents that have more of an idea of what they are doing, and they will now have their eyes on the money positions. This means you can play more tactically, and use a few more plays that you couldn't have used at the start, because these players will now actually be able to fold their hands. So be aware of when the transition from luck to poker starts to take place, because it will be time to change gears.
Freeroll tournament tips evaluation.
These tips should prove useful for when you decide to play in your next freeroll. One key point that I feel I should highlight once more is the fact that you are going to lose far more of the freerolls you play in than win. Do not be disappointed if you have a long run of losses and come close to winning but fall at the final hurdle.
Try to have as much fun as you can playing in these freerolls and one day you will end up walking away with that initial sum of money in your account. After all, what have you got to lose?
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