Any Winning Double or Nothing Players with Strategy Advice?

Hi Guys,

I'm in the bankroll building phase and have been trying double or nothing tournaments on carbon. I know some of you guys might be more experience or actually good at them....Right now I can't win enough to overcome the fee paid. Does anyone have any solid advice and pointers.

This may take long to write, so if maybe you could split it into multiple posts. It may take some time, so you might as well get as much points as you can for the benefit you will provide for me and players like me looking to learn more about double or nothing strategies that seem to be working for a winning player.

I can't say I'm a reg at those but Play very tight and don't try to steal pots at all unless you have a good read on your opponent or the blinds get high. ABC poker all the way.

well i'm not very good at long essays but i would recommend playing a more math based game and brush up on ICM. i have a 4 part sit n go blueprint in market if you're interested, its really in depth and tells you most of the things you need to know about sit n gos. but once you get the math right and start winning more than losing then you should start adding more tables, maybe add one each session till you reach the amount you can handle without compromising play. mainly though you should just play tight and not get involved in too many marginal spots and try and maintain fold equity. chips lost are a lot more valuable than chips gained in sit n gos.

Personally I do very well in double-ups. I fold fold fold until its 7 handed or so, there are alot of players that will not respect raises in the earlier levels. Really your looking to avoid ANY showdowns. Its is not important to have chips, playing for 1st is irrelevant. By the time 3 players are eliminated blinds are high enough that the 6 other players will be more likely to respect your raises, because the looser more reckless players will either be busted or on a big stack. Its of vital importance to raise in unopened pots from late position to try and take 1 round of blinds per 5-6 hands. My ultimate goal is to die slowly of attrition, I really don't care if my stack ever goes over starting size. What I want to avoid is coinflips, or even getting it all in with AA vs. 99, why take a 20% chance of busting when you do not need a double-up to win. Limit pot sizes.

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Originally Posted by matg281

well i'm not very good at long essays but i would recommend playing a more math based game and brush up on ICM. i have a 4 part sit n go blueprint in market if you're interested, its really in depth and tells you most of the things you need to know about sit n gos. but once you get the math right and start winning more than losing then you should start adding more tables, maybe add one each session till you reach the amount you can handle without compromising play. mainly though you should just play tight and not get involved in too many marginal spots and try and maintain fold equity. chips lost are a lot more valuable than chips gained in sit n gos.

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Hey Matg281, I will definitely buy your blueprint once I rack up a comfortable amount of points. Props on providing it so cheap :)

I like your advice on not multitabling too fast...I feel like sometimes I end up making decisions I shouldnt make but do anyways because my concentration is split in too many directions. I'll work my way up.

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Originally Posted by IWASLION

Personally I do very well in double-ups. I fold fold fold until its 7 handed or so, there are alot of players that will not respect raises in the earlier levels. Really your looking to avoid ANY showdowns. Its is not important to have chips, playing for 1st is irrelevant. By the time 3 players are eliminated blinds are high enough that the 6 other players will be more likely to respect your raises, because the looser more reckless players will either be busted or on a big stack. Its of vital importance to raise in unopened pots from late position to try and take 1 round of blinds per 5-6 hands. My ultimate goal is to die slowly of attrition, I really don't care if my stack ever goes over starting size. What I want to avoid is coinflips, or even getting it all in with AA vs. 99, why take a 20% chance of busting when you do not need a double-up to win. Limit pot sizes.

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I think you hit the nail on the head. I find myself in a comfortable position but then I feel obligated to call people's all in's with my queens, Kings, aces, Ace kings...and a good percent of the time my stack gets crippled on the coin flip.

Ill play more tight and avoid these coinflips late in the game.

Something to think about is ICM. Lion covered this pretty well.

Here's a hypothetic I want you to think about: You are 6-handed and everyone has an equal stack size with fairly small blinds still. You are dealt KK. The small blind shoves your big blind. Should you call?

The answer surprisingly is no. While stack sizes and blinds may dictate otherwise in cases where blinds are bigger, think about ICM. For an example, in a $10 double or nothing, there is $100 in the prize pool. This means with equal stacks 6-handed, each of your tournament lives is worth $16.33 ($100 in pool / 6 people). By calling will KK you are risking $16.33 to win $3.67. KK doesn't have those odds against a random hand even.

Really dig down and think about is calling an all in worth it? You'll be surprised how often it isn't. If you acquire a big stack, best to just fold your way to the money. Chip accumulating past the amount needed to cash is pointless.

Just steal blinds to keep yourself afloat and avoid anything that requires cards to roll off, unless you absolutely have to.



Another tip, target those who are playing hands early. They are fish and don't understand the game dynamics. Don't try to steal their blinds. They will call way too lightly. By the same token, feel free to steal blinds from regs or players who are playing tighter like they should.

And lastly, don't enter tournaments with more than 5-6 regs because the money in these is purely based on fish eliminating each other without understanding the game. Same thing goes with entering higher stakes games, like $20+, avoid it. The regs there will mix up play and play looser to take advantage of regs moving up stakes and the game dynamics change altogether.

Ya I agree..it's def harder to win if you get a table full of regs

Very Solid Advice!

This might not be knew info to SnG veterans, but...I was analyzing my history of double or nothing SnG's while I was calculating win rates and etc, and I found I tend to lose ones that had 4+ same people in them every time.

Essentially, that means that I am not as good as the reg's at these SNG's and I should be more selective in choosing which ones to play.

For other people looking to improve their SnG's win percentage, I suggest they analyze the composition of players within the SNG's they win and the ones the lose and see if there is any correlation.

I only have a small sample size, but I believe for me it is valuable info, nonetheless. It may not be useful to everyone, but check it out guys.

Most of the double or nothing tournaments I've played in involve me being the only one to play while everyone else blinds out.

Interesting advice everyone!

@Jason ~when you say "regs", are you just referring to grinders you see in the SNGs frequently?

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Originally Posted by plutogon

Very Solid Advice!

This might not be knew info to SnG veterans, but...I was analyzing my history of double or nothing SnG's while I was calculating win rates and etc, and I found I tend to lose ones that had 4+ same people in them every time.

Essentially, that means that I am not as good as the reg's at these SNG's and I should be more selective in choosing which ones to play.

For other people looking to improve their SnG's win percentage, I suggest they analyze the composition of players within the SNG's they win and the ones the lose and see if there is any correlation.

I only have a small sample size, but I believe for me it is valuable info, nonetheless. It may not be useful to everyone, but check it out guys.

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I know for certain that on some sites, players who know each other will coordinate together in the double ups to win as a group. They might even talk on IM or Skype while playing, and they won't get involved in hands against each other. That, and/or skill level could account for part of the anomaly you are noticing when playing SNG veteran groups like that.

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Originally Posted by Adamw

Interesting advice everyone!

@Jason ~when you say "regs", are you just referring to grinders you see in the SNGs frequently?

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Yeah, well specifically the grinders you frequently see at double or nothings at a particular stake. Like a grinder at $2.00+ on Carbon is meatwadgod (I think it's okay if I mention his name on here?) He is consistently playing 50+ tables of double or nothings and wins tens of thousands of dollars just grinding them out.

If there is a player like him at a table, along with a bunch of other winning players (sharkscope or officialpokerrankings are great for scouting tables), I usually won't sit down, even if I still feel I have an edge, as there are greater edges elsewhere if I am patient for them.

I owned the $1 Omaha double ups on lock before they switched over to revolution, won 17 in a row at one point. I know your playing hold em but try to see as many flops as u can as early as u can as cheap as u can with basically any connectors or suited hands. If you don't hit anything early go into all in or fold mode once u get into round 4-5 and steal in position at least once a round. Since blinds go up quick try 2.5x bb raises to unopened pots. If u get over 3500 chips don't play anything except vs small stacks to move game along or AA KK if you want. It's not really needed to even get into any pot when you get over 3500 about 80% of the time but there will be games when you stack up early and before u know it the blinds are coming to put u all in. Also depends on how your table is playing of course. The omahas had virtually the same people in them every time so I had easy reads on villains. I think the hold em $1s get a lot of regs too, so of course take note of who is in. Reading over this advice, it actually looks pretty crappy. Huge diff omaha/hold em. Eh, I tried.

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Originally Posted by Adamw

I know for certain that on some sites, players who know each other will coordinate together in the double ups to win as a group. They might even talk on IM or Skype while playing, and they won't get involved in hands against each other. That, and/or skill level could account for part of the anomaly you are noticing when playing SNG veteran groups like that.

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Oh Wow! That makes it even more scary. I did notice at two particular tables there were a set of regulars who frequently would fold against each other and not steal each others blinds, while attempting to steal other players blinds...I also noticed a strange occurance where one of the regulars called an All in of a slightly smaller stack with a better hand and got sucked out on. After losing that hand he was sitting in 6th and was bound to get out next. But low and behold, the chip leader pushes everyone out of the pot with a raise that is slightly smaller than the 6th players stack size, and then he folds the flop....DOESNT EVEN CHECK, JUST FOLDS...and he does this, given that the 6th place player had like 100 or so chips left.

just fold your way to the money. i think that should win errytime. :)

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Originally Posted by jasonv12

Yeah, well specifically the grinders you frequently see at double or nothings at a particular stake. Like a grinder at $2.00+ on Carbon is meatwadgod (I think it's okay if I mention his name on here?) He is consistently playing 50+ tables of double or nothings and wins tens of thousands of dollars just grinding them out.

If there is a player like him at a table, along with a bunch of other winning players (sharkscope or officialpokerrankings are great for scouting tables), I usually won't sit down, even if I still feel I have an edge, as there are greater edges elsewhere if I am patient for them.

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Right now, my bankroll is about 100 dollars. It increases but then falls back down due to poor cash game play. I figured I would increase it to a more comfortable level and then use my winnings to invest in sites like pokertableratings or sharkscope or officialpokerrankings (which do you prefer). Should I wait for my bankroll to be higher, or am I just wasting my time. Should I invest in stuff like that early so my bankroll will build faster?

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Originally Posted by vtriclone

just fold your way to the money. i think that should win errytime. :)

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Well to profit you need to win a god deal more than half...you'll find an exact percentage if you do the math...can't remember off the top of my head but it varies depending on the tournament fee (the reason why you have to win more than half to even break even). Lets say you are going 50% at 5.50 SNG's. You invest 11 to play two and you win one at 10.20....thats losing 80 c per 2 you play....thats a 7.2 percent loss on your investment. If you multitable hundreds of these, your bankroll will pretty much be gone in a day...so yeah folding will work a little bit, but its definitely not enough for you to have a high enough win rate to profit

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Originally Posted by pr41

I owned the $1 Omaha double ups on lock before they switched over to revolution, won 17 in a row at one point. I know your playing hold em but try to see as many flops as u can as early as u can as cheap as u can with basically any connectors or suited hands. If you don't hit anything early go into all in or fold mode once u get into round 4-5 and steal in position at least once a round. Since blinds go up quick try 2.5x bb raises to unopened pots. If u get over 3500 chips don't play anything except vs small stacks to move game along or AA KK if you want. It's not really needed to even get into any pot when you get over 3500 about 80% of the time but there will be games when you stack up early and before u know it the blinds are coming to put u all in. Also depends on how your table is playing of course. The omahas had virtually the same people in them every time so I had easy reads on villains. I think the hold em $1s get a lot of regs too, so of course take note of who is in. Reading over this advice, it actually looks pretty crappy. Huge diff omaha/hold em. Eh, I tried.

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Wow sounds amazing! You were crushing it there! I hope you are still doing well and profiting. Thanks for the advice, some of that stuff is still good to have in mind, even if its a different game. The more opinions the better. And I will definitely thank you if I get into omaha double up's one day...as for right now, i'm having enough trouble with just texas holdem to branch off into other variants of the game.

Is lock not as great since they switched over? How are you managing now?

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Originally Posted by jasonv12

Something to think about is ICM. Lion covered this pretty well.

Here's a hypothetic I want you to think about: You are 6-handed and everyone has an equal stack size with fairly small blinds still. You are dealt KK. The small blind shoves your big blind. Should you call?

The answer surprisingly is no. While stack sizes and blinds may dictate otherwise in cases where blinds are bigger, think about ICM. For an example, in a $10 double or nothing, there is $100 in the prize pool. This means with equal stacks 6-handed, each of your tournament lives is worth $16.33 ($100 in pool / 6 people). By calling will KK you are risking $16.33 to win $3.67. KK doesn't have those odds against a random hand even.

Really dig down and think about is calling an all in worth it? You'll be surprised how often it isn't. If you acquire a big stack, best to just fold your way to the money. Chip accumulating past the amount needed to cash is pointless.

Just steal blinds to keep yourself afloat and avoid anything that requires cards to roll off, unless you absolutely have to.



Another tip, target those who are playing hands early. They are fish and don't understand the game dynamics. Don't try to steal their blinds. They will call way too lightly. By the same token, feel free to steal blinds from regs or players who are playing tighter like they should.

And lastly, don't enter tournaments with more than 5-6 regs because the money in these is purely based on fish eliminating each other without understanding the game. Same thing goes with entering higher stakes games, like $20+, avoid it. The regs there will mix up play and play looser to take advantage of regs moving up stakes and the game dynamics change altogether.

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I don't even know where to start with this 1. I really hope some1 else weighs in so my inebriated ass doesn't have to weigh in further. #IcmExplanationGoneWrong

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Originally Posted by sickread23

I don't even know where to start with this 1. I really hope some1 else weighs in so my inebriated ass doesn't have to weigh in further. #IcmExplanationGoneWrong

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I didn't actually attempt to explain ICM, I just presented a hypothetic.

Just wanted to provide an update, that I think these strategies have really been helping. I'm studying up on ICM and theory, but it seems my biggest leak was pushing early and not correctly playing the game when there were 6-7 people left. I will continue grinding and post in a month or so on my success or what I've learned. Thanks guys.

First post on these boards, but i, too, love these double or nothing SnGs. I think everyone is on the right path....fold early and pick your spots, there's really no need to double up early or at all, just stay ahead of the curve. Let the dumb players kill each other and just play smart. You'll likely make some big laydowns you woulnd't otherwise make because of the format but tournaments, you don't have to be first....just don't be last.

Fish

I win in double or nothings a lot the only problem is it is not worth the time and investment for the payout,I was playing twenty or thirty $10 d or n's and each one would take an hour but I would have like 3 going the only problem was I would win two then lose one or something like that with means if I was playing one at a time it would be 3 hours just to make 10 dollars and I was risking thirty,They are just not worth it imo,But the strat is to play really nitty and tight and get one all in hand that you win :)

I dont know how people can play these, they seem pretty boring to me. But shove/fold is probably the best way when you have an avg stack. Once you have a big stack, you should tighten up even more unless no one else can really hurt your stack.

They aren't as profitable as some other tourneys, but they are great practice for single table tourneys. Also a good place if you want to try a different style for a little bit and see if it suits you. Great way to kill a little time before another tourney or keep your mind from getting bored in your main table.

be smart be patient and dont be heroic they can take a long time to fill and even longer to play but offer up for a good reliable br builder

yea I never liked the double ups! Id rather play mtts or sit no gos!

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Originally Posted by jasonv12

Yeah, well specifically the grinders you frequently see at double or nothings at a particular stake. Like a grinder at $2.00+ on Carbon is meatwadgod (I think it's okay if I mention his name on here?) He is consistently playing 50+ tables of double or nothings and wins tens of thousands of dollars just grinding them out.

If there is a player like him at a table, along with a bunch of other winning players (sharkscope or officialpokerrankings are great for scouting tables), I usually won't sit down, even if I still feel I have an edge, as there are greater edges elsewhere if I am patient for them.

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That's a really good idea. For some reason I just scope the players once I'm in the SNG or Tourney. I should probably do so ahead of time from now on. Thanks!

...and seriously? a guy winning thousands playing double or nothing? ug, I'd rather hang myself, lol.

tight and easy.
50% get paided.....
And with the lower buy ins its more easier

Good point. I feel like its easier to take advantage of an opponent, only when you know their tendencies.

Its all about folding and hanging on as long as possible.

try n double up and thn tightin up but not totally

play heads up sit n gos to build your roll and single tables. double or nothings arent that good

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Originally Posted by WhoreBot

I'd rather play with this guy than a nobody in which I have never seen before...easier to steal his blinds & I know how he plays. A noob calls too loose & tends to get you kicked out of a sng easier & double ups are all about survival.
Meatwadgod has some mad volume in, but I think 50 tabling is a bit of a exaggeration, since I've seen him talking shit to other regs once in awhile LOL. & he also averages 85 games a day according to sharkscope. :)

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I agree with you somewhat. I think all but one, maybe two, of the fish would be out by the time to steal blinds comes around -- and the fish will have an unnecessarily big stack as well. I feel like that's the dead weight in these that makes them profitable. I mean, I *won't* steal that fish's blind without a premium, and if they are right to my left it's extremely frustrating, however a table of all regs who understand the game, would result in no one having much of an edge and just everyone donating to rake. That's why I play all the stakes through $11, because I'm not looking for the fastest filling or even best buy in tournaments for my bankroll with these, but rather, the right balance between dead money and players who understand the dynamics/regs. That's just me. Your playing style in these is slightly different than mine, so maybe my style needs to overshoot the fish goal a little, I'm not sure.

i like the double ups also, easy way to start the bankroll!! its not hard to finish in top 5!! patience is a virtue!! good luck to you!!

all you need is luck and timing on your calls.nothing else

just play very tight end play plenty sng

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Originally Posted by WhoreBot

The $5 games & above are all usually REG infested. It does get hard to play these & still profit above the $10 level, but it's doable. I don't really play $1 games any differently than $10+ games tho. Making the right decesions always pay off in the long run & I try not to register in games with more than 5 REGs, but sometimes its not possible. (which sux)

shove - never call allins.& shoving ranges are the most important things to remember when grinding double ups.

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I agree with the post much more than the one before it.

I never liked the double or nothin sit n gos! I always thought mtts would be much better!