Moving on from freerolls: Double or Nothing

How many FPPs do you get for playing in a $1 double-or-nothing tournament at PokerStars?

It's taking me forever to accumulate points at .02/.05 NL 6-max, even playing 14 tables at once. I don't see how I can make Silver Star until I move to .05/.10 NL.

Congrats on 1k posts and good luck with your quest!

Nice post NWF. Congrats on the milestone.

Nice post NWF

Having played a lot of these recently i cant see anything you have missed out

Although i haven't tried the turbo games i must say that the 'normal' timed games can get very boring at times with people constantly timing out, it seems to happen a lot for some reason on these games.

They are a good way of building your BR (1 FPP per $1 game) and i find it best to play at least two at a time just to kill the waiting between hands if you have a slow table

Congrats on 3k
I tried playing some of these DoN's and had a pretty similar experience. I just couldn't handle it after a few days, it hardly feels like poker when you are always playing the bubble :P

The rake on pokerstars has to be .40 to earn a FPP. Which means the pot has to be almost $8.00. Which means even at 10nl you wont earn that many points. 25nl is where you start earning points on a regular bases.

very nice 1K post NWF.

im making a deposit on pokerstars next week so i'll have to give these a shot

Keep in mind you have to cash in these tournaments more than 50% of the time to make playing in them profitable. You're only making 0.90$ per cash, and you're losing 1.10 (or 1.15) per loss. meaning if you play 10 games, you'll need to win 56 out of every 100 to see an profit in the turbo game, and you'll have to win 59 out of 100 to see a profit in the non-turbo games.

Keeping this in mind, i think its pretty safe to say that the 1+.20 SNG that pay first second and third places are a better investment for the money.

Good article though, i just think that the money made on free rolls can be better spent in other tournaments.

I was trying to clear my bonus so didn't actually need to make a profit, and I was able to multitable the DONs - at one point I had 15 of them running simultaneously! If I had 15 of the $1.20 tournaments running I would probably not have done so well, DONs don't need much concentration as long as you use a HUD. Also I received 1 FPP for each tournament played, regardless of how much rake I paid. I prefer to pay 10c rather than 20c in rake.Thanks - but it's quite a while since I reached 1k!

ooooooo my bad sir.

very very nice 3K + post lol

I can't wait to be done with freerolls. Need to make like 1 more dollar. LOL. I've decided my game isn't improving at all, the only thing growing is my frustration level. I think I'll use every dollar beyond the initial 10 that I've made, to take a shot at the $1+ .25 sit and go's.

Hey NWF, I have played quite alot of the DoN games on ipoker.

They had a promo going where you had to try finish top of the leaderboard.

I found it quite hard to profit out of them but mostly broke even and earned alot of points as i was 4 tablin for about 5 hours a day.

I wouldn't like to see alot of callers if a short stack is all in however, as they are right back in the game if they win.

I prefer to get a healthy stack and put pressure on the other players from good positions to steal blinds.

ah, ok. Makes sense now.

So if these tournaments take about an hour, you earn 1 FPP each, and you can play up to 24 at a time, reaching Silver Star might actually be possible with only playing 2 - 3 hours per day. Cool. I might give that a try. Probably couldn't make any money, but like you said, I could clear bonuses faster and earn FPPs at a better clip with less money at risk at a time (14 tables x $5 at 5nl vs. say 15 tables x $1).

Are there usually lots of these going and starting up at all times of day?

Congrats on passing the 3K post mark -- impressive! Very helpful post, too. Thanks.

Sometimes there are about 15 available, sometimes only 3 or 4, but either way they always fill up quickly.

the best advice i can give you on double or nothings is....play only the elite hands AA QQ KK AK and AQ....and play them very aggressively...if you are not getting these hands at all, its obvious you are gonna have to steal a few blinds in position, especially in the turbo format...another piece of advice...if you really want to make a little money playing this game, make a deposit...far too much of a luck factor in the micro levels...it is my opinion you need to play 10 dollar buyin MTTs and SnGs to eliminate the "its only a dollar" factor...meaning people will call and chase anything when its only a dollar buyin....as for ring tables you can find decent play at the .10 .20 cent blind level but your best bet is .25 .50 cent blinds...stick a jar by your bed and throw some spare change in it each day...at the end of the month you will have plenty in there to make a deposit...wash rinse repeat...

gl to you
wooter

Congrats on the 3k posts!
I like the DON tournaments. I have never played them at PokerStars but do play regularly at PlayersOnly. Same concept, buy-in 2.20, 5 players win $4.00. They have these in $5.50 buy-ins, $11 , $25, and even $100. I have had great success playing the $2.20 buy-in,about 80%. I will join a MTT and then while I wait for it to begin, I get into a double up game, and hopefully win that to pay for the buy in of the MTT.
I will definately check out the DONs at PokerStars now.

I think sit and gos may be the way to go for me. I've found the 1-5K guaranteed tournaments with the small buy ins of roughly 1-2 dollars to be a complete waste of time and money. It's fun to play in something with the potential to win quite a bit of money with a very low input, but as a means to make money I find this to be pretty terrible. At such low stakes it just takes one donk to knock you out with nothing to show for it. With thousands of players this is fairly probable. Thoughts?

I still don't understand how people do this AND maintain a "good" level of play. =O

I just need more experience, clearly.

I've played the don's at pokerstars I do enjoy playing them I win more then I lose just takes a little patiences just seems easy to cash in them for me I'm trying to work my way up to the 10.00 ones

or a HUD...

I dunno....as a beginner I'm wary of getting something that "helps" me make decisions before I'm fully aware of the why's and how's behind those decisions. =/

Yes, I agree with you 100% on that one. Don't forget that I played freerolls for about a year before moving on. The point that I'm trying to make is that without me having a HUD I wouldn't have been able to release my bonus this way, because I would have lost too much money doing so.

Also check out post 19 in this thread, by WurlyQ, it contains a lot of good advice:

http://www.cardschat.com/f11/stars-d...9/#post1226921

Nice post OP, and congrats on 3K

This is definitely the correct mindset to have as a poker player at all level of play (not just as a beginner) so keep it up!

The way multi-tabling works is that after you understand a concept and see it in the works over and over and over, it becomes ingrained in the subconscious mind meaning that you don't have to think about it every time it comes up. That means that you can make decisions faster because you've already gone through the reasoning many times and can accept it as true.

This is even more true in double or nothings where "fold" is the clearly correct option about 85% of the time, "push" is the clearly correct option about 10% of the time, and only about 5% of the remaining options are remotely close enough to warrant thinking about.