Realtime Walkthrough of a Double Or Nothing Turbo STT
Video Description
This video is a double-or-nothing single-table tournament narrated in real-time.
Included are general strategies for how to approach double-or-nothing STTs, identifying different player styles & utilizing that information to one's advantage, how to modify your play based on blind sizes & situational constraints, and a hand-by-hand analysis of the playing decisions made by the instructor and his opponents. In addition, the real-time nature of the video provides a direct view into the instructor's psyche as he negotiates his way through the tournament.
The instructor's hope is that this video will provide players with a good framework of play for consistently making money in double-or-nothing tournaments.
Comments
Hey there Jingle, nice to hear from you. Regarding limping in d or n games, when the blinds are low, it can be well worth a call with a pp or suited connectors in an attempt to strike it rich with trips, straights or flushes--the cost of investment is small, and the payoff can be huge. The trick is not to overplay those hands when you "partially" hit something, because then a "limping hand" becomes an invested situation with a sketchy hand against someone playing back at you. However, in position and if you have the right reads, you can often take these pots, again with very little risk. (Of course, those pots you pick up in the early game by bluffing will almost always be small...)
The raise or fold style that you're talking about is certainly the way to go when the blinds get to 50/100 or greater in a 9-seater, 1500-startingchip game. And incidentally it probably works better in general in the 6-seaters you're talking about, because you need less of a good starting hand to compete against the hands of 5 other players than against 8. But always keep in mind, of course, the the D or N style is the ultimate game where survivability counts most--because even with only a few chips there is opportunity to sneak into a place. You _have_ to take some chances when the blinds are high, but calculate them well based on the preflop looseness & aggressiveness of other players; in the early game there's very little incentive to have an aggressive preflop style, in my opinion.
Don't know if this helps, but I hope it does, and thanks again for the comments!
Keep us posted on this thread if you run into any interesting situations or have further insight about how things go for you in D or N tourneys. 
Best of luck,
Alkazar99
Great vid...not enough DoN instruction out there. Thank You.
I like the point about isolating the multi-tabling regs because they won't get too tricky. I felt like it was real representation of the current state of those games also....a lot of the DoN info out there talks about how soft/loose they are, but it's common to get to 125/250 with 6,7,8 players still in at that level....and it's tighter than that at the $100 level.
Unfortunate for hon to get called by 44. Thoughts on that? or calling/pushing ranges in general? SNG wiz pretty much indicates to only call with AA/KK...and fold AK in a lot of situations.
JingleMa,
I prefer the Stars DoNs, but that's just because it's easier to multi-table due to traffic. Cake is running a lot of these...even some $200 and $500 DoNs if there are enough players for them to run.
Thanks again, Alkazar, for the current Don content...much appreciated.
I enjoyed your video very much Alkazar, thanks!
But I have two questions for you regarding the same type of game as in your video.
When, in your opinion, is it time to go all in?
And would you do so with for eg AQo and AJo if there were 3 or more players to speak after you? I mean generally, of course. I find these decisions very tricky...
There is a number of situations, of course, but would you push with AJo UTG with 7 players left and you have 1300 chips, and only one really shortstacked player (450) on the button, with blinds 200/100 + ante 20.
Best regards,
EmpireState
Hey there Hannibal, sorry it's taken me so long to reply--it's been a busy week. Clearly calling ranges are different from pushing ranges in DoN, as you know, and in general they should be much tighter than that for a standard tournament simply due to the facts that (1) you only need to sneak into 5th to get the money and (2) there's no incentive for accumulating a lot of chips to "win" the thing. Survival is prime. However, you may have noticed in some of your DoNs that there is a "point of no return" (or minimal return, at least) such that when a player's chipstack drains down to close to that of the big stack, he'll face _many_ callers all colluding against him--thus, one has to find situations to push (if you're shortstacked) where other players will be "at risk" of getting dangerously shortstacked by calling. Once the blinds get, for example, to 125/250 or so, a shortstacker is going to need to push about once per round to stay afloat.
So strategy-wise it's the classic poker scenario of when other players get tighter (like at the end of a d-or-n, you can take advantage (generally) by getting more aggressive...so many times a shortstacker can come back at the end of the game if he can avoid running into a monster, a loose player willing to gamble, or a huge-stacked player who calls you on a lark.
Generally, calling ranges are hyper-tight, but varies HUGELY based on the stacksize and the betting patterns of the pusher. If someone's pushing a LOT or forced to push based on stacksize, you can generally feel comfortable calling with things like AT (or much less if it's a shortstacker and a loss won't cripple you). But the bottom line is if a situation is borderline, passing is the best option. On the other extreme, if I'm huge-stacked, I'm more than happy to bully the rest of the table with a lot of preflop raises--nobody will stand in your way most of the time, and when they do you're often not a huge dog, but I'm NEVER really willing to butt heads with another huge stack. If I have AA against another huge stack who puts me all-in, I may just fold it, since my bigstack almost assures me of placing--why risk a 20% chance of receiving a bad beat?
Sometimes it's fun in these games watching aggressive bigstacks play chicken with their betting as each one assumes the other will realize the folly of the risk and folds. Usually leads to an amusing disaster for one or the other... 
Greetings, EmpireState!
You know, decisions for decent starting hands vary _so much_ in DorN tournaments based on how many players are left, what the blinds are, and whether there are, say, one or two shortstackers or a situation where a bunch of players all have the same amt of chips. When other players are at risk (ie, shortstacked), the idea is to be super-tight against other players, but to be a bit _more_ aggressive against the shortstack (if you can afford it). Typically in DorN tournaments _everyone_ is rooting hard for shortstackers to fail, so if, say you raise just before the button when a shortstacker is in the big blind, other players will happily fold to you in the hope that you'll knock out the shorty, OR if they have a good hand they'll be tempted to just call you rather than go over the top (although that's certainly no guarantee--a clever bigstack will know you don't want to put yourself at risk & might go over the top, for example).
But to answer your questions as specifically as I can, it's time to go all-in when you can't afford to not call somebody who goes over the top of your standard (maybe 3x?) preflop raise. If the blinds are 100/200 and you have 800 chips, that's an all-in situation (if you have a hand you're willing to ride), as you wouldn't raise to 600 and then fold unless the endgame situation is bizarre. I've seen some shortish-stacks make small preflop raises (like to 400 in the above situation and then fold if someone puts 'em allin) and be surprisingly successful taking blinds that way, but I wouldn't recommend it.
If you're to the left of the button in an unraised pot with AQ or AJ, yes, I'd play that. Go all in if you're shortstacked or raise 3x if you're reasonably stacked. I'd also be willing to fold both hands if a tight player plays back at me.
To answer your last question (which is nicely specific), it again depends on the texture of the other players at the table, but I'd much rather put in a raise with any two cards at or close to the button than go allin under the gun there with AJ, unless my stack size were smaller than 1300 or the blinds were larger. You ask a nice question, as you've hit a borderline decision point. The problem under the gun there is that if your allin gets called, you'll _probably_ be dominated, which means you're only raising there hoping to steal the blinds or get called by someone who's playing a flawed game. If your true hope is to steal the blinds, I'd prioritize position over hand quality unless you're carrying a premium hand. (And in this case by "position" I mean "fewer people to push out".) But the decision's tricky as the blinds will chew you up soon...but I'd wait a little longer before pushing with AJ under the gun like that when you can afford another round of losing blinds.
Great video Alkazar -
There was what could have been a critical point when you picked up pocket 9s. BB=200 7 players left; CS=1295; pos=UTG+2; 4 players with <1900 Chips but all >900 chips
You went allin after the first two players folded. My question is what action would you have chosen if MikeDie, the chip leader (CS=4725) had raised to 700 instead of folding?
Hey there, FlyingSafe. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to read this & reply. You ask a great question--with blinds high (and climbing), 99 is a great hand to make your stand on. However, had the big stack MikeDie gone all-in before me, I likely would have folded, since MikeDie wasn't all that loose in his play, particularly at the end when he seemed to be just waiting things out. I figure that if a non-maniacal bigstack makes a raise there, I'll most likely have a coinflip situation. A coinflip isn't so bad at the end when one has an eroding stack, but I had at least another round of waiting before my situation became desperate, so I'd be willing to drop a 99 there & take my chances on the future.
However, had Korbmand (the maniacal shortstacker in this drama) gone all-in, I'd have reraised all-in, thinking Korbmand was desperate & giving me a good chance at better than a coinflip. (Plus, I'd still be alive, albeit barely, should Korbmand beat me.)
Hi Alkazar, just watched ur vid and found it very interesting as a double or nothing player myself. I'm looking to join pokerstars and play on there aswell so further videos from there would be great, maybe for a non turbo format aswell.
So far I have only played on Sky poker and am a winning player there and want to take my game to the next level,however I hate limping in these games and usually always raise or fold, found it interesting that u do call with certain pairs or suited connecters etc. even in a turbo format, is it bad to just play raise/fold poker like I do in these double or nothing stt's? I only play six handed at the moment so I guess ten handed will also slightly change things, what would you say I should change in strategy playing ten handed if anything?
Oh also how did you get the HUD on pokerstars? In the sharkscope FAQ's it says it is prohibited by pokerstars?
Anyway, good luck in your future play and I hope to see more posts/vids from you in the future!
Jingle.