DoN Bubble Strategy
11-04-2009
, 06:52 PM
11-04-2009
, 07:20 PM
Welcome to STTF.
You are right about as long as you make top five it doesn't matter. I once cashed in a DoN with literally 1 chip remaining. But it's not a recommended strategy
However, bubble play in DoNs (or all poker tourneys for that matter) is simply too complex to be summed up in a single sentence or paragraph, or with reference to a single theoretical hand situation. Your situation above is simply too vague; we would want to know size of blinds, location of shorties, reads on active players and more. Much of the decision is dependent on relative stacks, position at table wrt shorties, stack/blind ratios and reads on oppos, as well as your actual hand, which is merely part of the calculation. Believe it or not, there are sometimes situations where you should be folding AA preflop in a DoN, something you would almost never do in any other format.
The difference is that in a standard STT you want to accumulate all of the chips, whereas in a DoN you just want to avoid losing all your chips before half the field are eliminated. Thus strategy is very different because of the different goals.
I suggest you read the Official DoN thread, which is now locked and stickied at the top of STTF. It's 67 pages or so, but well worth the time if you're going to take these seriously. Most of it revolves around bubble play, but the early levels are important too, and there is also some good stuff about that. Most of the advice in that thread is good, some of it is complete garbage, and just like the rest of us did, you'll have to work out who is who, and what is what.
Users posting DoN hands start their own individual threads just like other STTs now, so read some of those and join in the debate.
Also, post some of your own hands from tricky spots and get feedback.
Keep doing more of the the reading, debating and posting.
Good luck
You are right about as long as you make top five it doesn't matter. I once cashed in a DoN with literally 1 chip remaining. But it's not a recommended strategy
However, bubble play in DoNs (or all poker tourneys for that matter) is simply too complex to be summed up in a single sentence or paragraph, or with reference to a single theoretical hand situation. Your situation above is simply too vague; we would want to know size of blinds, location of shorties, reads on active players and more. Much of the decision is dependent on relative stacks, position at table wrt shorties, stack/blind ratios and reads on oppos, as well as your actual hand, which is merely part of the calculation. Believe it or not, there are sometimes situations where you should be folding AA preflop in a DoN, something you would almost never do in any other format.
The difference is that in a standard STT you want to accumulate all of the chips, whereas in a DoN you just want to avoid losing all your chips before half the field are eliminated. Thus strategy is very different because of the different goals.
I suggest you read the Official DoN thread, which is now locked and stickied at the top of STTF. It's 67 pages or so, but well worth the time if you're going to take these seriously. Most of it revolves around bubble play, but the early levels are important too, and there is also some good stuff about that. Most of the advice in that thread is good, some of it is complete garbage, and just like the rest of us did, you'll have to work out who is who, and what is what.
Users posting DoN hands start their own individual threads just like other STTs now, so read some of those and join in the debate.
Also, post some of your own hands from tricky spots and get feedback.
Keep doing more of the the reading, debating and posting.
Good luck