Early Stage (9-10 players left)
During the first couple of levels when everyone is deep, there's little cause to invite much risk. I played my pocket eights hand with reasonable caution, although things obviously worked out well for me with an especially cooperative set of community cards. Meanwhile my opponent made several unnecessarily chancy moves, calling raises from out of position, then getting aggressive on the river with less than the nuts.
In fact, you'll often encounter one or two (or more) such types in these DoNs -- players who aren't going to be patient and wait for big
hands and thus will be apt to donate their stacks to those who are. Double-or-Nothing SNGs actually attract a lot of novices who see a payout schedule in which 50% of players cash as a low-risk event, yet nonetheless bring what amounts to a high-risk style to the tournament.
No need for such craziness early on, though. Tight really is right during the first few levels in DoNs. Unless, that is, you've turned eights full.
Middle Stage (7-8 players left)
Once two players have busted, most of those remaining will likely still be hovering around the starting stack while a couple will have around twice that. Avoiding tangling with the big stacks is generally a good idea, although pay attention to the player type -- he may well have gone into folding mode after winning his chips and thus may not be such a threat if you challenge him.
Everyone is now looking to survive three more eliminations. This is essentially like the bubble in an multi-table tournament, where blinds/antes can (and should) be readily stolen. By now you should have at least some idea about which players are tighter and more likely to give up to preflop raises, so target accordingly. Also use position, raising from the hijack, cutoff, or button when given the opportunity to do so.
Meanwhile, calling others' preflop raises with speculative hands is a big no-no. That's true from the start of the DoN, actually, but here in the middle stage it is especially bad to do as even just one such call followed by a fold to a continuation-bet can sink you into short-stacked status, relatively speaking.
Late Stage (6 players left)
When six are left -- the true bubble -- everyone knows one more elimination equals a cash. Often one or two players will have significantly more chips than the rest at this stage, meaning most are likely sitting on stacks of 10-12 big blinds or less (depending on the structure). That is to say, there probably isn't a lot of room for post-flop maneuvering from this point forward.
If you're one of the big stacks (i.e., if you have 3x the starting stack or more), you are now in a spot where folding to the money is not a bad course of action. However, if you are part of the group still battling with 1-2x the starting stack (or less), you have to play poker.
You can still steal blinds/antes here, although the likely method for doing so will be with an all-in opening raise. The risk of ruin means most will tighten up to all but the toppermost of their calling ranges (pairs and big aces). Thus will a late-position shove often work against players sitting in the blinds with stacks comparable to yours.
Looking at it from the other side, you should probably never call another player's all-in shove here except with the biggest hands. Even though your opponent's raising range can be wide -- and thus you might well be ahead with, say, your K-J-suited or the like -- the reward for doubling up at this stage is actually not as great as the risk of busting.
In fact that idea essentially holds true for the entire sit-n-go. Doubling up is nice, but often doesn't assure anything. To go back to my DoN from yesterday, doubling my stack on the first hand was great, but there was still work to do. Meanwhile, as my poor opponent experienced, busting definitely assures something -- you've lost your buy-in.
Fifth is as Good as First
Of course, this is poker -- we can't avoid risk entirely. For example, what if my opponent had reraised me all-in following that 8s-7s-4s flop? I'm likely ahead with my set of eights, though it's possible I could be as much as a 2-to-1 dog (against a flopped flush or straight). In any case, I'm not going away.
But for the most part, situations where it is clear you are "flipping" are largely to be avoided in DoNs, especially in the middle and late stages. Remember, you win as much for finishing fifth as you do for finishing first. Why should you take a 50-50 flip with six players left when you can still fold and let two other players take such a chance?
To put it another way, a "double-or-nothing" strategy isn't really what you want to have when playing a double-or-nothing tournament. If that's how you want to play, stay away from DoNs, head over to the
roulette wheel, and put your chips on red or black.
