Double Or Nothing SNG Tournament Strategy
Double Or Nothing, the so called DON's are unique in the online poker world. The essential and characteristic feature is the pay-outs. All players who make half of the field get paid double their buy-in amount. If you bought in a 10 player tournament with a buy-in of $10, making the top 5 would qualify you for a pay-out of $20 regardless of how many chips you have left. The pay-outs are the reason players must figure, develop and apply an optimal strategy to become winners at these. Remember DON's also count towards the OPWC’s Poker Ranking.
Tournament Stages
You'll experience three main stages in every DON tournament – early, mid and late, which occurs just before the pay-out line. Every one of these requires a fair bit of adjustments in the way you approach them.
Early Stages – be very conservative about the hands you play. There is no need to get into the pot with weak holdings. Even more, there's also no reason to attack and try to steal the blinds, simply because they will be tiny compared to your stack size. Instead of being overly active, try to concentrate on your opponents and getting some idea about the way they are playing.
Mid Stages – this is where you should be starting to open up. After you watched your opponents during the early stages, you should now have a reasonable amount of information about their play style. Attack the players who seem scared and passive by stealing their blinds. Do this with caution, though and only when you’re in late position.
Late Stages – if you're closing down to making the money, you have to act according to your stack size. Is your stack really small and you'll soon be blinded down? If so, it is time to take action. On the other hand, if you have a healthy stack, there is no need to risk it. You don't get paid for having the most chips; instead you do get paid for making half of the amount of entrants.
Working Together With Your Opponents
Double Or Nothing Tournaments are likely the only form of poker where you actually have to become a team with your competition. If there are 6 players left and 5 get paid, all of you should be looking to bust the smallest stack. If a really tiny stack goes all in, there is no chance anyone should ever fold. Even if you hold 72o – the worst possible hand in poker, you simply have to call because the more players call, the higher the chance for player already all-in to lose. This might be relatively hard to understand for new players, but that's the way to be successful in this kind of tournaments.
When To Fold Aces... Before the flop
Are we crazy for telling you to fold the best possible hand in poker before the flop? No, not at all and it's a logical decision, even though many new players do not understand it. Imagine that there are 6 players left again in a 10 player DON Tournament, five of them have a stack of around 2500 chips, while other one has only 50 chips. You are on the big blind and a big stack with equal stack size to yours goes all-in from the small blind. What's your move? You should always fold here, because the chance of that 50 chip guy busting is very high. Aces are not guaranteed to win, in fact they often hold around 85% chances to win against some speculative hands. Simply make this laydown and you are on your way to becoming a profitable Double Or Nothing player and taking part in our Online Poker World Championship Main Event.
Money Management for DON's
We always advise to be careful when it comes to bankroll management, nonetheless DON's are a bit of a different story. Don't get us wrong, we are still being careful, but we will advise you to use a more aggressive management of money in these. The main reason is you will make it into the money with a higher frequency compared to regular SNG's, which will also account for less variance. However, you should always have at least 30 buy-ins for the tournaments you want to play. If you claim our Poker Sponsorship, and don’t have any other resource you can go straight to the 50 cent DON's that are available at Winner Poker.
