SnG double or nothing

Hello everyone

First of all I want to appologise if mi posting this on a totally wrong section of the forums.
I'm a new poker player and I've played for a couple of months. At first I was loosing money until I read a couple of books and starting understanding poker in a whole different way.

But to the point, I've been playing the Double or nothing Sngs at pokerstars. I'm building my bankroll at the moment so I'm playing the lowest buyins at 1.15 and with 4 tables at a time. I've read some old posts about normal Sng pay out structure is a lot better. So for building my banroll should i stick with my double or nothing or try the normal ones?

I'm looking for any help I can get. Thanks in advance

Howdy. Check out the great strategy articles on DoN's here if you haven't already:

Poker Strategy - Sit and Gos

I don't personally play them, but from what I read they're a lot easier to multi-table, since obviously you never have fewer than 6 people playing. And while that doesn't increase ROI it would increase $/hour. Not sure if you can say one is better than the other in terms of payout. Different strategies for each. I've seen some posts suggesting that variance might be lower in DoN's though, since you're going to win more often.

Other people that actually play DoN's might have more insight for you.

I have never played Dons with this low of a buy in but if the play there resembles the low buy in Sng you can probably fold your way into the money 50% of the time.

I do not play many DoNs but I think that if you have the correct approach and patience for them they are a great way to build a roll

Thanks for the answears. I do win most of my DONs have a 75 % ROI. But my questions is could I make more money in standard SNGs because of the higher payout structure.

If you have a 75% ROI I'd stick with the DoN's. I don't think you're going to see 75% in standard 1 table SnG's. 25-30% is good even at low buy-ins.

Might have to move some money back to Stars and try the DoN thing soon.

Wait, I need more coffee. You probably mean you are winning 75% of the time, not ROI of 75%. If you are cashing 75% of the time on a $1.15 DoN, your ROI is about 30%. Say you enter 100 tourneys and win 75 of them:

ROI = profit/investment = (150-115)/115 = 30%

If you were to win 100% of your DoN's (which obviously no one does) your ROI would be 74%:

(200-115)/115 = 74%

So yeah if you're cashing 75%, your ROI is 30% which is still going to be really good at standard SnGs at this level. I don't multi-table but again from what I hear DoN's are easier for this, so even if your ROI is the same at standard SnGs your $/hr might go down if you can't do 4 tables at once.

Long-term DONs are probably a poorer choice. I played thousands and the $10 games have become fairly tough. The better players struggle to break 5% ROI and hoping for 10% ROI is way off target. The reason you are cashing in 75% at the $1 level is probably because your opponents have a very poor understanding of how the structure affects the value of their chips. This point is fairly well understood at the $10 games now.

I think the $5 DON would probably still be quite profitable, but after that you should probably look to switch to normal STT or MTTs. You have to also consider that as you move up the ranks, colluding in DONs becomes an issue, since they are easier to cheat in, I suspect collusion happens on a regular basis. Just look at the 30-40 Chinese players that were banned from pokerstars for colluding at high stakes DONs. It's much harder, but not impossible, to cheat in standard SNGs.

As for multi-tabling, it works out to much the same IMO. Generally you will run longer in DONs but the hands/hour is slower because they are always 6+ players. In normal SNGs you tend to bust out more regularly but hands/hour is more.

Originally Posted by ManicLombax

Wait, I need more coffee. You probably mean you are winning 75% of the time, not ROI of 75%. If you are cashing 75% of the time on a $1.15 DoN, your ROI is about 30%. Say you enter 100 tourneys and win 75 of them:

ROI = profit/investment = (150-115)/115 = 30%

If you were to win 100% of your DoN's (which obviously no one does) your ROI would be 74%:

(200-115)/115 = 74%

So yeah if you're cashing 75%, your ROI is 30% which is still going to be really good at standard SnGs at this level. I don't multi-table but again from what I hear DoN's are easier for this, so even if your ROI is the same at standard SnGs your $/hr might go down if you can't do 4 tables at once.

Im using a sheet for don Sng from micro rollers blog. And acording to that at the moment i have a ROI of 85.59 %. He calculates ROI = profit/starting bankroll.

Nakamura

Thank you for your answear.
My plan was/is to build a high enough bankroll for the 10 $ SNG later on.
But my question is should I keep grinding the 1.15$ Don and later on move to the 5.40 $ until my bankroll is big enough. Or should I start to play normal SNG now at the 1$ dollar limit? And that way build my bankroll for lets say 10$ normal SNG

Basicly my question is , should I play normal SNG now to get used to it or will it be hard to jump from 5 $ don to 5 $normal ?

Strictly speaking ROI normally refers to your Return On Investment. So if you earn $0.10 on average from each $1 game, then your ROI would be 10% regardless of however much you have won. Using micro roller definition, as far as I understand it, will lead to an inflated ROI and it's contrary to the popular definition.

The rake is like crazy high for $1 games e.g. $5 turbo DONs have a $0.20 rake. The smartest choice is probably to move up to something with a lower rake ASAP. I know there are $3.40 turbos (normal SNGs), not sure if there are DONs between $1 and $5. If you aren't worried about the rake, play what interests you. Playing a game you don't enjoy is a bad choice.