Don is my Friend: Beginner's perspective from a Beginner

[ghem67]

I know a lot of you despise these tourneys with a passion but Don is a really cool guy if you get to know him. As an average poker player who is just starting to figure things out, I have found these to be profitable. I know a lot of you in this forum are badass poker players with nice bankrolls but I am far from that. I lost my inital BR and redeposited twice doing the initial stupid shit and my graph looked like a downhill ski run. In the past few weeks I have focused mainly on $10 and $5 Dons and now I am almost back to even. If any other beginners who are in the hole are reading this please keep in mind it is imperative to read/reread every single SNG Strategy guide, hundreds of these hand review posts, and I am using the 30 day free trial of SngWizard to review my mistakes which I highly recommend too. Nakamura seems to be the Don Master in here those posts are Dongold.

Thoughts on Don:

1.) I think the single most important fact to remember about playing these is that you only need to worry about surviving. Do not concern yourself with trying to build your stack to a dominating position because you are not making anymore money than the 4 other "finalists" at the table.

2.) I truly believe if your stack is >3000 you are going to be ITM. You still need to protect your blinds and maybe steal a few but no need to put half your chips at risk without a very good reason. The way I see it is half the people are going to eliminate the other half so if I have 3000 chips I have eliminated my "person" I can sit back while the others battle it out.

3.) Even if you are down to 500 chips and the blinds are 100/200 don't give up. Countless times I was sure I was a goner when sure enough the two big stacks decided to battle it out and I am ITM or the idiot in the small blind folds to me and I nearly double up. These two things happen way more often than you think in these tourneys.

4.) Don't play the Turbos.

Edit: Apparently Turbos are good!

[Kijjo]

I liked everything you said in this thread until the last line. These turbos are the only ones I actually like. I guess my take on it is turbos in general take away some of the edge good tight players have because they have less hands to work with. In DONs I think turbos favor people who understand the dynamics far more because the math and correct play will force you into uncomfortable situations that most players don't want to live with. The faster that happens, the better in my mind.

Although many of us (myself included) are down on these, if they're your thing, rock it man. Tear 'em up!

[philly and the phanatics]

great post, i agree with kijjo i love the turbos, but in those you cannot really give up when you get t0 3000, i have had the game be 9 people deep with 200/400 blinds... and you have to be making moves in position in order to stay alive....

EDIT: although i do agree on the bubble you probably can stop with that many chips, only i think with 7+ players your fight is not over


i definitely agree with the point on never giving up, these are the easiest things to recover in when you lose a good chunk of your stack...

at the 5 dollar ones i feel comfortable often times pushing when my M is under 6 with ATC when im the button and it is folded to me, yet i will fold AQ ep a lot of times and fold to almost any raise no matter what the circumstances (although i have vowed to always play aces no matter what)


edit: this is not to saythat when my m is below 6 i will fold aq ep, certainly the opposite, but hopefully you know what i mean

[Rage2100]

The way I see it is half the people are going to eliminate the other half so if I have 3000 chips I have eliminated my "person" I can sit back while the others battle it out.

I like this bit.

Don't play the Turbos.

I prefer the turbos.