New Beginning

Hello everyone,


After about a year away from poker I recently came back and I decided to grind Double or Nothing Sit'n'Go. I had been successful in this game before but I never had the discipline to practice bankroll management and keep grinding.

I deposited a 20 and started playing 1$ DoN''s. I am playing 6 tables at the same time.

My results after 116 tables are:
- http://prntscr.com/qk5kfh
- Profit : 26,77$
- ROI : 23,08%
- Win % : 65,52%

I've been doing great so far (I read some strategies in here that really helped me improve) and I hope I can keep this going.

Anyway, I was wondering:
1. When should I get to the next level(2$). I am thinking 60buy-ins(120$) and go back to 1$ games if I go down to 50 buy-ins.
2. What is a good number of tables to play before you can say you have a good sample.

If you have any other comments or can point me in interesting posts about DoN's please do so.

Thanks in advance.

Welcome and congrats on the early results. As you note, the sample size is still way to small to make any meaningful observations. I think you need at least a few thousand games to begin assessing how you're doing objectively. I would wait until $200 to make the move up to the next level. Definitely consider purchasing the ICMIZER software to help improve!

When planning your bankroll management it is important to understand, that variance in tournaments is directly related to the field size. If you play very large MTTs with say 10.000 players, an average player is only going to win 1 out of 10.000 and final table in less than 1 out of 1.000. This mean, that downswing can last a very long time and become extremely large, so if this is the only tournament, you play, you need at least 1.000 buyins to decrease the risk of going bust.

DONs however are the exact opposite. An average player will cash in 1 out of 2, and each cash is equally large. So for this kind of tournament 20 buyins, which you started with, is completely reasonable, and there is no need to increase it, as you move up. You are already well bankrolled for 2$ DONs but should consider moving down again somewhere between 20$ and 40$ depending on, how sensitive you are to swings and losses.

Your sample of 116 is enough to say with almost 100% certainty, that you are a winning player, which is a further reason to not keep hanging on at the very lowest limit any longer. Your hourly winrate will almost certainly be higher, if you start moving up now.

https://www.primedope.com/tournament-variance-calculator/

fundiver199 said:

DONs however are the exact opposite. An average player will cash in 1 out of 2, and each cash is equally large. So for this kind of tournament 20 buyins, which you started with, is completely reasonable, and there is no need to increase it, as you move up.

Click to expand...

This is perhaps a bit to broad statement. What I really meant was, that aggressive bankroll management is ok, as long as you play very low stakes like 1-2$ tournaments. The reason is, these are very soft, so a high ROI is possible, which decrease the magnitude of downswings.

Also even large swings to your bankroll should be acceptable to most people, as long as the monetary amount is this insignificant. It is actually a little bit silly to even consider 20$ or 40$ a bankroll. For the vast majority of poker players this is less than their weekly grozery bill, so topping up the account if needed is a realistic option for most.

As we move up, most of us will get more sensitive to swings, the money will matter more, and winrates will be lower. And for all these reasons it can be reasonable to change to a more conservative bankroll management scheme, which for DONs could be maybe 30-40 buyins.

But for OP, who have been crushing the 1$ DONs over a sample of more than 100, even though it was probably a bit of a sunshine run, there is really no reason to not move up already. He can either just play 2$ DONs with the money, which is already in his account, or pop another 20$ into the account, if that makes him feel more comfortable.

Thanks for the responses guys.
What is important to me right now is not to lose my bankroll as I used to do after losing a few bad hands in both cash and MTT games.
If you add these 20$ deposits that I lost before it adds up.

More important from my hourly rate right now is that I am improving my game. A big adjustment I made to my game after the first few days is that I started being more aggressive in the bubble and this has made me win a lot more games.
So, I am not really in a hurry to go up the stakes. However I agree that maybe 60 buy-ins are a lot for 2$ games considering I was profitable even when I played 5$.

I am thinking I will move up with 40 buy-ins (80$) and move down at 30.
Maybe I will tighten up before I get to 5$ games but I will be back here for more insights.

If you have anything to add please do.

Remember this is risky
First you keep playing and then increase the capacity as the skill builds

tsiab said:

Hello everyone,


After about a year away from poker I recently came back and I decided to grind Double or Nothing Sit'n'Go. I had been successful in this game before but I never had the discipline to practice bankroll management and keep grinding.

I deposited a 20 and started playing 1$ DoN''s. I am playing 6 tables at the same time.

My results after 116 tables are:
- http://prntscr.com/qk5kfh
- Profit : 26,77$
- ROI : 23,08%
- Win % : 65,52%

I've been doing great so far (I read some strategies in here that really helped me improve) and I hope I can keep this going.

Anyway, I was wondering:
1. When should I get to the next level(2$). I am thinking 60buy-ins(120$) and go back to 1$ games if I go down to 50 buy-ins.
2. What is a good number of tables to play before you can say you have a good sample.

If you have any other comments or can point me in interesting posts about DoN's please do so.

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

Yes, DoN is really profitable if you approach it punctually and with all the severity. But I would not recommend playing more than one table! This applies to all types of games and online tournaments! It is better to play 1 table, but play well, and move up the limits, than play 5 tables and the game will be equal to 0 due to the fact that the quality of the game drops sharply

Nice to see good results from beginning .
Keep it up and try to study and play.
Good luck

I use Chris Ferguson's bankroll management rules when deciding to raise the limits. It is also necessary to pay attention to the pace of the opponents' play. After all, with an increase in the limit, the pace will grow significantly.

tsiab said:

Hello everyone,


After about a year away from poker I recently came back and I decided to grind Double or Nothing Sit'n'Go. I had been successful in this game before but I never had the discipline to practice bankroll management and keep grinding.

I deposited a 20 and started playing 1$ DoN''s. I am playing 6 tables at the same time.

My results after 116 tables are:
- http://prntscr.com/qk5kfh
- Profit : 26,77$
- ROI : 23,08%
- Win % : 65,52%

I've been doing great so far (I read some strategies in here that really helped me improve) and I hope I can keep this going.

Anyway, I was wondering:
1. When should I get to the next level(2$). I am thinking 60buy-ins(120$) and go back to 1$ games if I go down to 50 buy-ins.
2. What is a good number of tables to play before you can say you have a good sample.

If you have any other comments or can point me in interesting posts about DoN's please do so.

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

Welcome to CardsChat and welcome back to poker.

Playing DON means you do not need the same sort of bankroll as MTT's because the variance is so much lower. That being said, I like to play with a larger BR to avoid going bust. 60 buy-ins might be a little conservative, but it does mean that you should never need to reload.
Judging by your early results, it looks like you can comfortably beat the $1, so I would say get to $100/$120 (wherever you feel comfortable) and then move up. When you do move up, I would suggest reducing tables for a period of time, maybe down to 3 or 4 to allow you to concentrate more on each table, but then move back up to 6 so that you can maximise your $ per hour.

Good luck and make sure to let us know how you're getting on from time to time.