Way back in the year two thousand nine, I wrote an article laying out basic strategy for Double or Nothing (DoN) Sit-and-Go tournaments. I had taken a break from them for a little while, just to mix up my game, but this month, I have gotten back into them full force. While it does seem that the competition in these tourneys has gotten tougher, there are still people who routinely make the dumbest mistakes imaginable. Thankfully, this has not only allowed me to make a few bucks, but it also gave me a topic for this article: common mistakes in Double or Nothing Sit-and-Go’s.
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Playing Too Many Hands Early
Anyone who has studied Sit-and-Go strategy knows that it is generally a good idea to play fairly tight in the early stages of the tournament. So, when I say that the most common mistake I see Double or Nothing players make is playing too many hands early, it sounds rather obvious. But I’m not talking about playing suited connectors or one-gappers too frequently. I’m talking about playing anything but the most premium of hands during the first couple levels.
To give an example, it makes perfect sense to play any pair early on in a regular Sit-and-Go, as long as you’re not calling gigantic raises or anything with, say, deuces. You could flop a set and potentially win a significant pot. But it’s different in a Double or Nothing. Most players are not going to stack off to you if you flop a monster. While there will always be a couple donks at the table, most of the players will have at least some idea that tighter is better. It is less likely that someone with top pair is going to get all their chips in post-flop in a Double or Nothing than it is in a standard tournament.
Even strong hands like A-Q, A-J, and Tens are suspect in the first couple rounds. When you start tossing chips around with those hands, you are getting yourself in too deep when it is likely that only those with better hands are going to tangle with you.
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Calling too Much
Double or Nothings are interesting in that at first glance, the value of chips seems counterintuitive. Players who are new to these games will think that since it’s easier to cash when half the table makes the money, chips are not valuable. After all, you can have one ante left and still win. But in reality, chips are more valuable in a DoN than they are in a regular Sit-and-Go.
Why? Because DoNs are all about survival. They aren’t about chip accumulation. In a regular Sit-and-Go, it can be well worth it to make some speculative calls in the hopes of scooping a gigantic pot, as the goal is to build a large chip stack and outlast every single one of your opponents. There is an extra reward for coming in first place rather than second and second rather than third. In a DoN, while accumulating chips definitely helps (I won’t turn down an easy chip stack double-up), you don’t need to collect all the chips to win. All you need to do is to survive.
I often see players ignoring this fact and making loose calls in DoNs, particularly in the middle stages. What this does is whittle your stack down very quickly when the reward for hitting your hand isn’t necessarily that great. Say you’re down to 1,200 chips from the starting 1,500 and at the 50/100 blind level, you decide to call a pre-flop raise to 300. You flop a solid draw and decide to call another 300 chip bet on the flop. Here’s the problem. What if the turn is a brick? You’re down to 600 chips and pretty much have to bail on the hand. And typically at this stage, there are still eight players left in a ten player DoN, so you don’t have much chance to get past three more players.
Remember, you need to leave yourself some fold equity. 600 chips might give you that, but at that point, you will need to find a hand worth pushing, and find it fast. In those middle stages, you really should not be entering a pot without raising. The blinds and antes are very much worth stealing and you aren’t going to be able to get them by calling. All you need to do is survive. Blind stealing can help you do this, but you can’t go losing your fold equity by making iffy calls all over the place.
Feeling Obligated to Call an All-in
I see this one a lot. We’re down to six players, with five getting paid, and there’s one very big stack who keeps calling the all-ins of the short stacks, no matter what his hole cards are. He does it because he feels that he is obligated, not only as the big stack, but often as the last player left to act, to knock that final player out of the game. To me, that’s silly. If you have a significant chip advantage on the bubble, just sit back and watch the others sweat out the all-ins. You’re going to be safe for several orbits. There is no extra prize for knocking out the last person. If you have a monster, sure, try to end the game right there, but there’s no need to call with any two cards.
What really tilts me is when middle stacks call off most of their chips with garbage or marginal hands just to try to eliminate that sixth place player. In a regular Sit-and-Go, you might take a chance on what you think may be a coin flip in order to put yourself in a position to win, but in a DoN, I try not to call an all-in unless I feel good about my chances of being way ahead. It’s not worth it. Let someone else take the chance.
Not Checking Down
I really didn’t believe I would ever see this in a Double or Nothing, but I have. The best part is that about ten minutes before I wrote this, it happened at my table. And it wasn’t the first time for me. I have actually been in a tournament that, when it was down to six players (again, five got paid), a short stack went all-in, two players called, and one of them bet at some point post-flop. Did I facepalm? Yes. Was I mad because I was also a short stack? Definitely.
Come on people, this isn’t a difficult concept to master. Places one through five all pay the same. In fact, there’s not really a first through fifth place, as nobody ever gets knocked out after sixth. When that sixth place finisher is eliminated, the player with 5,000 chips wins the exact same amount of money as the player with one chip. If you ever find yourself calling an all-in with another opponent, check it down. Check it down, check it down, check it down. It does you no good at all to steal the pot from the other caller. If you win the pot, you double your buy-in. If the other caller wins the pot, you double your buy-in. The match ends in both scenarios. Those extra chips you might win by forcing the other guy off his hand are meaningless. The way you don’t double your buy-in is if the short stack wins the pot and the more players he has to go to showdown against the worse chance he has to do so.
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Day one of the $10,000 buy-in World Poker Tour event at Aria went well enough. I was fortunate to find A-A against K-K to double up my 40,000-starting stack to 80,000, and then chipped up a bit from there to finish the day with a healthy 87,000. I returned to day two to find a fun table, but proceeded to lose every hand.
Early in the day at 500-1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante, a loose, aggressive player raised to 2,200 from middle position and I defended the big blind with K 9. K-9 is a perfectly fine hand to defend from the big blind, especially given the amazing pot odds.
The flop came 10 9 4, giving me middle pair. I checked, he bet 4,000, and I called. There is no point in raising because he will never fold a better hand and will be getting the correct price to continue with his reasonable draws. When you have a clear, marginal, made hand, check-calling is almost always the right play.
The turn was the 7, giving me a flush draw. I checked, he bet 9,000, and I called. At this point, my middle pair is starting to look quite marginal, but it is still too strong to fold, especially with the king-high flush draw. My opponent is known to be quite capable of betting with a wide range including many draws, so I would likely continue even without the flush draw.
The river was the K, improving me to two pair. I checked (due to still having a marginal made hand), he bet 20,000 and I called. There is no merit to leading the river because the king should be quite good for my opponent’s range and getting raised would be a disaster, especially given my opponent is capable of bluff-raising the river. Even facing his sizable bet, folding would be much too weak. Check-raising the river would be terrible because when he calls my raise, I will almost always be crushed.
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He had Q J for a flush, awarding him the pot and leaving me with 52,000. From there, I lost a few more pots, once with top pair against a set where I again check-called down. Maybe I should stop calling down with one-pair hands!
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I eventually dwindled down to 20,000 at 600-1,200 when the player on the button raised to 3,000, the small blind three-bet to 10,500, and I found 9-9 in the big blind. This is an easy all-in against all but the tightest opponents, so I pushed. The small blind called with A-J and I lost the flip.
So, I played for about two hours and lost essentially every hand. When this happens to you realize that there is nothing you can do about it. If you resolve to play incredibly tight, you will blind out, giving you almost no chance of making a deep run. And if you play maniacally, you will get your money in poorly.
All you can do is continue playing your best. Realize that when you play your best and lose, there is nothing to be sad or depressed about. Instead of heading to the nearest bar or gambling your money away at other games, study your hands to ensure you did nothing wrong and move on happily with your life. If you find that you made a mistake, make a point to understand why and resolve to not let it happen again.
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It is important to realize that in poker (and many other activities) you will often lose and there is nothing you can do about it. As soon as you accept that and focus on what is under your control you will have a much happier life.
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Good luck in your games! ♠
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Jonathan Little is a two-time WPT champion with more than $6 million in tournament winnings. Each week, he posts an educational blog and podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com, where you can get a FREE poker training video that details five things you must master if you want to win at tournament poker. You can also sign up for his FREE Excelling at No Limit Hold’em webinars by clicking here.
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