You gotta play more than AA or KK. I've gone as far as sixth without ever getting even QQ.
It depends on situations and of course, luck. You can play perfect but still lose. Sometimes, it's worthwhile to shove on a likely coin flip if you are guaranteed heads up.
It would be a shame if you fold everything until you have 10BBs left, then get AA and shove, only to get two callers and lose to a flush or some crap, which does happen, A LOT.
Actually in a DoN that stuff ^, doesn't happen alot.
OP is referring to DoN's.. "Double Or Nothing" sng's. Most of the responses on here aren't addressing DoN's at all.
blueskies... you've gone as far as 6th w/o even getting QQ? Do you mean you went out in 6th (on the bubble) of a DoN?.. or went as far as 6th level w/o even getting QQ?
I've played for 4.5hrs. in an MTT, only getting a single pr (55) in that time. I only dream of seeing big prs.
OP, DoN's for sure are played differently than your typical payout structure of a STT SNG (50/30/20) and as you obviously seem to be aware, they should be played differently. You can find some decent DoN stuff on here.... I'd look up WurlyQ's profile and look through their posts... I'm sure you'll get a decent idea of ranges, etc. Basically you want to be picking your spots & calling tight/shoving a bit wider... but of course 'it depends'.
As far as 'playing the player' goes.... I believe DoN's are more situational (especially during bubble play or closing in on bubble).... any reads might be who's calling wider than they should be... who's shoving tighter than they probably should be, etc.