DoN - Am I playing too tightly?

Have been playing a lot of Double or Nothing tournaments on Carbon with decent results and I think I have a pretty decent understanding of how to deal with the later portion of the game. My issue is that I am playing squeaky tight early and often folding some hands that might be +EV.

Basically keeping my range to AA-JJ, AKs AKo + AQs. Often just pushing with most of these if there has been a raise or making a 3.5x raise otherwise in the first few hands when the blinds are tiny.

Is that too tight or am I playing it okay? My results have been decent, cashing about 2 out of 3 times I play.

There has been a significant amount of posting on this and very similar topics of late. To that effect I want to write and share some opinions of this matter
and open a more directed conversation about this general topic with a focus on expounding upon it's facets in a more specific and intentional delineation.

Input on this conversation and it's evolution are tantamount to it's intended purpose and success.

General Topic - Tournament MetaGame -

First area of specificish approach - Tightness - in general - in and around the bubble - playing to cash - taking risks to setup stronger edge FTW scenarios in PO IO skewed +EV situations with a lower ranged hand.

Sounds like too tight too me because if you do make a move, most ppl will fold knowing you only play premium hands. Depends on type of opponents too and tbale size... are you playing 6 handed of full ring (9 or 10)?

think thats too tight and too loose, sng wiz usually doesnt like ak, aq in early play however small pairs for sets value with blinds <40 is usually worth a early position limp or a late position raise

TeUnit said:

think thats too tight and too loose, sng wiz usually doesnt like ak, aq in early play however small pairs for sets value with blinds <40 is usually worth a early position limp or a late position raise

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^ this

and, as all games, it's table- and player- and stakes-dependent.

In higher stakes, I'm even less inclined to open AQ+ in early blinds, and often I am shoving QQ+. It depends.

The result tells you are doing it fine.

2 out of 3 is already an excellent result.

I play quite a few of Carbon's DoN's too and I think the table dynamics should have a huge influence on your range. There are almost always at least a couple of players at any of these tables who have no idea how to play DoN's and want to gamble, along with a couple of tight regs who make money and you have to pay attention to where they're seated for sure. If you're cashing 2 out of 3 of these then you're doing great.

What might be +EV in a standard SNG might be -EV in a DoN because you don't need to accumulate all the chips to win.

I'm still laughing about the last one I played last night, this dude who got a huge stack together by winning a 3-way all in on the second hand with 87o against 55 and AKs starting shoving 4 out of 5 hands on the bubble with around 3500 chips. There was another player on the verge of busting out, he had almost nothing left. This guy shoved 75s from the cutoff and got called by AA in the BB with a bigger stack.....see ya.

Well said above several times, focus being on the field size in particular. As well as the available max equity in the format.

I think your range and thus also your ITM/ROI % for this game seem good (as an mtt I really havent the faintest clue)

As Goat said - "What might be +EV in a standard SNG might be -EV in a DoN because you don't need to accumulate all the chips to win. "

As such almost exclusive strait EV matters more than many formats likely especially the deeper you get.
In these games, such being said I think your attempt to over defend your hand defeats EV in any forum.

So, get a HUD and look at your hand aggregates, I havent used a HUD in long time so forgive me... something like toggle by level and maybe by BB opening value and look at your drawn equity pre flop turn river and see what ranges are coming along where and how you are winning those hands. Obviously then you would need to try a different approach should they be your weaker levels. Likely they are positive yet mild low BBs drawn within pots you were initial raiser.

Maybe treat AKcc like a drawing hand in these levels? Something that adds back at least a degree of the equity you maybe sacrificing if you are eliciting only plays back by a larger % of dominating hands vs said range and bleeding which seems quite unlikely.

There are infinite approaches to the pokerZ. Countless are profitable... countless x like a lot are not.

I have and still do over adapt to circumstances and lose net Equity over sets by too abruptly oscillating my game approach.

When in an MTT of course your range needs to player per circumstances as once again stated above.

GL and let us know

Thanks for the input guys. I think I will keep tracking it for a couple more weeks and then update.

Played one last night which was wacky, lost nearly all of my chips early with KK then managed to win enough pushes to end up in the money when the two biggest stacks ended up all in against each other with the biggest stack winning.

The number of participates in your MTT if the pool is large then you can play real tight and will get rewords when you make a good hand.
If your table is really tight then you can open up a lot more with premium to good starting hands.
In turbo and hyper turbos you cant wait for aces or kings you have to widen up your range but in normal tournaments you can wait for good hands.
Mixing up your game is important otherwise it will be hard to get action on your premium hands.

revskip said:

Have been playing a lot of Double or Nothing tournaments on Carbon with decent results and I think I have a pretty decent understanding of how to deal with the later portion of the game. My issue is that I am playing squeaky tight early and often folding some hands that might be +EV.

Basically keeping my range to AA-JJ, AKs AKo + AQs. Often just pushing with most of these if there has been a raise or making a 3.5x raise otherwise in the first few hands when the blinds are tiny.

Is that too tight or am I playing it okay? My results have been decent, cashing about 2 out of 3 times I play.

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Sounds like a good strategy to me.Many times when i played there regularly 1800 - 2400 chips got me the double up.
Play fifty/50 on Stars now. Much more subtle. You have to be prepared to play poker and have a Pushing Strategy when your stack is 10BBs and below.
Look for players, playing multiple tables and raise them to take their blinds to build your stack.Should they kick back, believe and leave the hand

2 out of 3, is probably not sustainable at higher stakes

some of the very good don players have single digit roi

TeUnit said:

2 out of 3, is probably not sustainable at higher stakes

some of the very good don players have single digit roi

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I am playing very small stakes. $2 or $5 with a heavy leaning towards the $2. I don't doubt that at the higher stakes the play is much more sophisticated and requires a much more varied approach.

Out of 6 played tonight I cashed 4 times so right at the 2 out of 3 ratio. Still playing very tight although I have started to flat call early with small pocket pairs looking to set mine and have started just 3x raising with AQ + AJ. Then when the blinds go up I mostly look to isolate the tighter stacks with all-ins. I've noticed many of the regulars who are also in these games with me are also playing a very similar approach so it can't be too far off.

Playing two at a time to relieve some of the boredom of folding so much.

I will say that your kind of play is acceptable, especially having in mind that you are making money doing this.

To talk about wich opening hands you shold play and how is what I will call basic poker and it is very important.

But if you want to take your play to a higher level you must taking other players in to you play.

Watch the other players moves be agressive to tight players try not to get in a fight with a big stack bullie and so on.

You are on the way to learn poker is more then just cards keep up the good work!!!

i would caution you about looking to the "regs" as models for solid play

when carbon removed the sng leaderboard most of the regs quit playing and even some of them were rakeback heros

most regs want to play more than 2 or 4 tables or whatever carbon caps them at now, a lot of the old regs were playing like 16 tables

it is very easy to sharkscope a player and see if they have greater than 5% roi, i would guess that very few of the "regs" are longterm don winners at the $2 level

and remember in dons, superturbos, and seinfield - nobody beats the wiz

Himanshu said:

The number of participates in your MTT if the pool is large then you can play real tight and will get rewords when you make a good hand.
If your table is really tight then you can open up a lot more with premium to good starting hands.
In turbo and hyper turbos you cant wait for aces or kings you have to widen up your range but in normal tournaments you can wait for good hands.
Mixing up your game is important otherwise it will be hard to get action on your premium hands.

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Waiting for a tight PFR can get you a frequent ITM % in MTTs but will yield a lower ROI long term than opening your range and figuring out where you can create equitable situations.
These are the scenarios that I would like us to start addressing more often, just nit TAG is straight forward play, its not bad play but it's not how you ship tours.

It's very obvious but I think many of the players that I see playing DoN's miss this: If you're at a table with a bunch of maniacs that keep spewing chips at each other, then tighten up your range to mainly premiums and wait for them to knock each other out. These types of games won't take very long to finish; I've cashed on tables like these without playing a single hand.

If you're at a table with a bunch of nits who never re-raise, never call all-ins, and fold almost everything, you must open up your range and start raising in position to steal blinds so that you don't get short, if you don't stay ahead of the blinds they will eat you up because nitty tables tend take much longer to finish.

Propane Goat said:

It's very obvious but I think many of the players that I see playing DoN's miss this: If you're at a table with a bunch of maniacs that keep spewing chips at each other, then tighten up your range to mainly premiums and wait for them to knock each other out. These types of games won't take very long to finish; I've cashed on tables like these without playing a single hand.

If you're at a table with a bunch of nits who never re-raise, never call all-ins, and fold almost everything, you must open up your range and start raising in position to steal blinds so that you don't get short, if you don't stay ahead of the blinds they will eat you up because nitty tables tend take much longer to finish.

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Definitely a viable general approach to all formats of poker, play the opposite of the table. I can imagine that in a DoN it is much more prevalent.

You play a very small range of hands for DoNs. You shouldnt be so tight and try to shove sometimes with cards like k8 q9 from late position when you want to attack a shortstack or mediumstack opponent (when there are 1 or 2 players more than places paid; example 6 players left, 4 are cashing out). If BB have less than 3 blinds there are big chance that he will call your bet so take care in these situations.

Lekoo said:

You play a very small range of hands for DoNs. You shouldnt be so tight and try to shove sometimes with cards like k8 q9 from late position when you want to attack a shortstack or mediumstack opponent (when there are 1 or 2 players more than places paid; example 6 players left, 4 are cashing out). If BB have less than 3 blinds there are big chance that he will call your bet so take care in these situations.

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The ranges I listed in the OP were for the earlier part of the tournament. I loosen up substantially once the blinds move up and stacks start to differentiate.

Still running really well in these, trying to play 4-6 a day and have kept up the 66% win rate.