Introduction to Double or Nothing Tournaments

Double or Nothing (DON) tournaments were first introduced to the online poker world most notably by Pokerstars . This style of tournament offered players an alternative to the traditional SNG payout structure where the money is weighted towards the top finishes. Besides a fresh style, people found that the tournament strategy was a bit less complex, and the variance somewhat reduced. They quickly began to escalate in popularity and sites ranging from large rooms like Full Tilt and small rooms like Cake Poker and Doyle’s Room began offering them.

This book details simple things like “what is a DON”, and more complex things like pushing and calling ranges for bubble situations. If you are already an accomplished DON player, you may want to skip ahead to the strategy section. Noobs, skim through the first few areas to get familiar with these tournaments before delving into strategy.

What is a Double or Nothing Tournament?

A Double or Nothing tournament is a tournament where the top half of finishers is paid the double what they bought in the tournament.

Examples:

In a 10-man tournament with a buyin of $10, the players who finish 1-5 would win $20 each. They would net a profit of $10 each, less the rake.

In a 10-man tournament with a buyin of $5, the players who finish 1-5 would win $10 each. They would net a profit of $5 each, less the rake.

How it normally works:

A player selects a tournament that they would like to play in from the tournament lobby of whatever poker room they prefer.

After the required number of people sits down, the tournament starts. Every player has the same number of chips. The blinds start out small, and escalate at a set time interval or by # of hands played. After half of the players are eliminated, the tournament is over and the winners collect their prizes.

Where Can I Play DON Tournaments?

You can try your luck at the DON tournaments at any of the following poker rooms. Clicking on the links in this guide will take you to feltpoker.com’s special bonuses and rakeback pages. We have a good relationship with the poker rooms, and can offer bonuses not available at other places.

Pokerstars
Full Tilt
Ultimate Bet
Absolute Poker
Bodog Poker
Doyles Room
Cake Poker

Double or Nothing Strategy Introduction

This strategy guide is broken into three different sections: There is general strategy given for Early Rounds, Middle Rounds, and Late/Bubble Rounds followed by advanced analysis for Early, Middle, and Late/Bubble rounds. The reason for this is simple. There are distinctly different strategies for each round. The strategy could be broken down even farther, into different situations by blind level, but it won’t be in this guide J. There is also an added “3 tips guaranteed to increase your ROI” section at the end. The tournament structure used in this guide is the Pokerstars Turbo structure. For more info on this structure, see Pokerstars’ website.

Double or Nothing Strategy: Early Rounds

What are the early rounds?

The early rounds are characterized by low blind levels and equal starting stacks. The starting stacks are 1500 chips, and the early blind levels are the 10/20 and 15/30 levels.

General Strategy

Double or Nothing tournaments are all about survival. It doesn’t matter if the tournament ends and you are the chip leader, or you have 1 chip left; you get paid the same amount. So how do you apply this “survival” strategy?

Tight play is generally best

Similar to normal structure SNG tournaments, the donks will eliminate themselves early in the tournament. In a double or nothing, this is great because you get even closer to the money, and you are not at as severe of a disadvantage to the larger stacks.

Early Coin Flips are BAD

Taking coin flips early in a DON is a formula for a negative long-term ROI. Seeking coin flips in a regular SNG is not desirable, but not as bad as a DON. In a regular SNG, winning a coin flip early and getting a big stack significantly increases your chances of winning first prize, which is normally 50% of the prize pool. While winning a coin flip early in a DON significantly increases your chances of making the money, the most you can make is double your buyin. Think of it like this. Because of the rake, you need to finish in the money (ITM) more than 50% of the time. If you are taking coin flips early, you are losing half of the time, and doubling up half of the time. Every time you lose, you are out with no money. Every time you win, you have a good chance of cashing, but you will not cash every time.

How do you avoid coin flips early?

Two hands can get you into big trouble when trying to avoid coinflips early in a Double or Nothing: JJ and AK. Against some players, you may even want to fold QQ. Obviously anything weaker than these two hands is even worse. Raising these hands in late position and playing cautiously is okay, but facing fierce resistance it is best to just fold. If there are a bunch of early position limpers/raisers, just fold. Simply playing AA and KK only in level 1, though boring, is a sound strategy. Remember, the goal is survival. In level 2 you can feel a bit more comfortable playing QQ, and opening AK in late position. By this time, you may have some reads on some players which will help with the next topic.

Exploiting Tight Players in the Middle Rounds

After playing a few tournaments, you may see the same players showing up at your tables. You should start to pick up on their tendencies. The player that is exploitable in the early rounds is the player using the same general strategy that is preached in this book. The player you are looking to exploit plays only AA and KK early. Pay attention to the two players to your left. These are the players who you may be able to exploit. If you notice that these two players to your left, especially the player immediately to your left, are content to sit and wait until the later rounds, take advantage when folded to you. A small raise, maybe just over the minimum, should be enough to take down the pot preflop. Obviously if you face any resistance, dump your hand immediately.

In round 2, there are situations where you can even shove all in to force these players to fold. This strategy is examined further in the early round advanced analysis section.

Exploiting Loose Players in the Early Rounds

Loose players are not easy to exploit in the early rounds. It’s great when you have AA, but you won’t have AA every time the loose player wants to splash around. The best way to exploit a loose player, or a group of them, is if they limp in early position and you have a pocket pair in late position. If this situation comes up, happily limp along, and if you hit your set, go nuts. If you miss, fold and let the donks eliminate themselves.

Double or Nothing Strategy: Middle Rounds

What are the Middle Rounds?

The middle rounds are characterized by 20-30bb stacks relative to the starting stacks. There is also an added variable, the ante. The middle blind levels are 25/50 + 5 ante, and 50/100 + 10 ante.

General Strategy

The middle rounds are still about survival, with a twist. There are opportunities to safely and unexploitably gain chips in the middle rounds. You will do this by raising, sometimes pushing, in late position.

Tight Play is Still Generally Best

There are a few more chips at stake in this level, but the general theme is the same. You want to play tight and survive. While tight is generally best, there are a few interesting situations which will present themselves in these levels. In some situations, you will want to make your range extremely tight, and others you will want to widen your range quite a bit.

When to Keep Your Range Ultra Tight

The range of # of chips from big stack to small stack in these levels will usually be much larger in these rounds. The large stacks may try to start bullying you and stealing your chips. Most of the time, depending on your chipstack, the best thing to do is just fold. You don’t want to be calling or shoving and getting called with less than premium hands at this point. If you are low on chips and have a high ace or pocket pair, by all means shove it in. Most times, though, you won’t be low on chips because of the tight early game strategy. Situations for keeping your range ultra tight are analyzed in more detail in the middle round advanced analysis section.

When to Loosen Your Range

While you are avoiding big stacks (read: stacks that can eliminate or seriously damage you), small and mid stacks can be attacked.

*IMPORTANT*: Do not mistake “loosening your range” for “going ape nuts”. Make sure you have solid logic behind opening up your range.

Loosening Your Range Against Short Stacks

Small stacks are stacks below 10BB in the middle levels. They can be attacked by either calling their shoves, or pushing all in against them. Let’s think about the first one, calling their shoves. Most short stacks, if they have any idea what they are doing, will be shoving a wide range. You can make +EV plays by opening up your calling range to match. Use your brain though; don’t just call an all-in with A10 because you have high cards. Know your opponent.

While there can be some opportunities for calling short stack all-ins, the better move is to be aggressive against short stacks by shoving into them. Something important to consider when shoving against short stacks is that some are crazy and will make plays that are –EV for both of you. A lot of times this is your fault, for not adjusting your pushing ranges. But sometimes a player just does something really strange, and there’s nothing you can do.

To see more specific situations and how to adjust your range, see the middle rounds advanced analysis section.

Loosening Your Range Against Medium Stacks

Medium stacks in middle rounds are vulnerable to attack. If you play tight early, you will find yourself in this situation often. Why are they vulnerable? At this point, there are normally a couple of big stacks, a couple of medium stacks, and a couple of small stacks. The medium stacks don’t want to risk their tourney life by calling an all in, when it is possible that they could just fold into the money. If you find yourself being attacked, there isn’t much you can do. Don’t worry; there isn’t much you should do when getting shoved into by a stack that can eliminate you. You can open up your calling range slightly if you think you are being hammered with a huge range by a certain player but most times it’s best to just fold.

Another option for taking advantage of middle stacks, and the better one most of the time, is to push against one of your opponents. The opponents you want to push against specifically are the two to your immediate left. If you are SB and BB is a medium stack playing a very tight strategy, it’s often correct to shove any two cards, even with more than 10 BBs. It is critical that you get some sort of read against the player to your immediate left. One +EV play here and there against this player over time will have a noticeable effect on your ROI.

For more info about playing mid stacks in middle rounds, see the middle rounds advanced analysis section.

Double or Nothing Strategy: Late/Bubble Rounds

What are the Late/Bubble Rounds?

The middle rounds are characterized by 5-15bb stacks relative to the starting stacks. The late round blind levels start at 75/150 + 15 ante, and escalate from there.

General Strategy

The late rounds of a DON are the most important rounds. They can be played unexploitably, and there is also a twist for very good players. There are lots of situations where ICM (click here if you aren’t familiar with ICM) can’t take into account certain variables. For example, on the bubble if the two players behind you can’t cover the blinds in the next round, but small blind shoves into your big blind and you have AA, should you call? ICM might say you should, but this is a situation where you probably should just fold it and let the blinds eliminate the stacks that can’t cover. Look at both sides of this situation. You know you should fold, so if you are in the small blind when this situation comes up, exploit the fact that big blind has to fold.

Here are a few general pointers for the late rounds:

Find stacks who will fold to your raises
Very rarely call other peoples’ raises, especially on the bubble
Don’t tangle with stacks that can eliminate you

The late stages of a tourney are best examined with SNGWiz. You will find more detailed analysis in the late/bubble rounds advanced analysis section.

Double or Nothing Strategy: Advanced Analysis Section

What is the Advanced Analysis Section?

The advanced analysis section features several situational examples from each stage (early, middle, late) of a double or nothing tournament. For the middle and later rounds, the number-crunching is done by SNGWiz , which uses the ICM (Independent Chip Modeling) model to determine the expected value of a given situation.