PokerStars came out with a new game type, the Fifty50 Sit & Go. They're a bit similar to the Double or Nothing (DoN) Sit & Gos where the 5 players left standing of the initial 10 get double their buy in and the game ends after half the field is gone. These games are available in Turbo and normal speed.

I played some to get a feel for the games and wanted to share info on the games and my thoughts.

There are a few key differences for Fifty50's vs DoNs.

Payout Structure

Unlike the traditional DoN SnGs where the remaining 5 players all get paid the same amount, in a Fifty50 SnG half of the prize is distributed evenly (winners get their buy-in, not including rake, back) and the other half is distributed based on chip counts.

The formula for payout is buy-in + (end chips/total chips) * (0.5 * total prize pool)

The different payout structure gives players incentive to accumulate chips otherwise they'll barely make a profit for the game if they finish in last place.

It can also reduce the incentive to implicitly collude. If a short stack pushes all in on the bubble and two players call they might fight over the pot to accumulate more chips and win more money.

Blind Structure

The blind structure of these tournaments is very different from DoN SnGs or even the regular full ring SnGs on PokerStars.

Blind levels go up in smaller increments but each level is 6 minutes compared to 10 minutes for DoNs and regular SnGs. Turbo Fifty50 games have 3 minute blind levels.

As a result the blinds go up faster. After 30 minutes in a Fifty50 SnG you'll be playing 40/80 with a 5 chip ante compared to 25/50 with a 5 chip ante.

Are Fifty50 SnGs Worth Playing?

I played a few of these to test them out. At first it seems like it might not be worth the effort if you're a regular DoN player. You'll have to cash in significantly more than 50% of the tournaments or end with a big chip lead enough times to make the games worth it.

The good news is that these games seem to be really soft right now so it's not hard to have a high ITM rate and a good ROI. These games also have 25% less rake than DoN SnGs. With a DoN you're paying 8% in rake, with these you're paying only 6%.

When they first came out I saw a few don regs playing them but they didn't seem to stick with them so the fields aren't all that tough. I usually play around 10 DoNs at a time so I tried doing the same with these and out of all my tables there was only one player that I had come across before.

I'm going to try and play a few more sets and get a better feel for them but they're not as horrible as I thought they might be. The problem for me is because it's less rake you're also earning less VPPs/FPPs and right now I'm on a bit of an FPP kick.

It's been a couple of months since my last Double or Nothing Sit and Go Bankroll Challenge Update. I've been busy with a few things that didn't leave me much time to play a lot of poker or post updates.

By the way, I'm posting this update using a Google CR-48 Notebook running Google Chrome OS. I haven't had a chance to put it through it's paces yet but I have been using it to update and review my bankroll management spreadsheets. I'll likely post more about it at a later date.

I started this challenge with $150 and the challenge bankroll is now up to $2,804 only about $220 up from the last update. Win rate was pretty pathetic at around 55% with a buy-in ROI of just over 1%.

I'm running around $300 below EV for the period but I think the main problem has been adjusting to the $10 DoN games as well as getting used to playing again after having to take a number of long breaks from the games.

I've also been trying some new things. Some of them worked a lot of them didn't but I feel more comfortable with my game at these stakes now compared to when I first moved up in this challenge.

When I first moved up to the $10 games I played fewer tables than I was playing at $5 so I could focus more and have the time to take notes on the regulars. Playing fewer tables I was able to make a lot of moves I couldn't normally make, pick off more bluffs, trap more, bluff more, etc. The games were less boring but eventually I started over-thinking things more than I should and it cost me.

Eventually I felt more confident at these stakes and started moving from few tables in a tiled configuration to more tables in a stacked configuration like I used to with the $5 DoNs. I've been playing as many as 20 at a time but that was just to make sure I cleared another Stellar Rewards Bonus and achieved Platinum Star before the end of last year.

When I started this challenge about a year ago I had hopes that things would be progressing much faster than they have been. I was hoping to be at least one or two levels higher than I actually am now.  Part of the problem is I spent too time than I should have at the $5 DoNs to acculate FPPs to replace the TV in my office. Very happy with the TV from the VIP Store so I guess I can't complain too much.

Hopefully this year I can do much better. Now that I'm playing the $10 DoNs (and soon the $20's with any luck) it might be possible for me to reach SuperNova status this year but I'm not going to make that one of my goals.

My goals for this challenge are to continue to improve my game, keep moving up in stakes and keep that chart moving up :)

Some of you have been using my Double or Nothing SnG Bankroll Management Spreadsheet to track your own progress in these games. How have things been going for you?

A few weeks ago a reader, Rishan, sent me an email with some questions about Double or Nothing Sit-N-Go's.

He had some good questions pertaining to variance, bankroll management and some strategy. With his permission I'm posting his email along with my answers in case others find it helpful.

It took a while to find the time to reply but hopefully it's worth the wait.

Here's the email:

Last month PokerStars announced a new type of Sit-n-Go tournament, the Knockout SnG.

I didn't notice them until recently. They seem pretty cool. They are structured like normal 9-man single table tournaments with 10 minute blind levels and 1500 starting chips.

Buy-ins match their non knockout counterparts but their is an added 25% fee that counts as your bounty. Whenever a player knocks you out of the tournament, they get your bounty. Whenever you knock someone else out you get theirs.

It's been a while since I've posted an update on my Double or Nothing Sit-n-Go Challenge.

I had a bit of a down turn. My last two updates were me reporting I was break even. It was a bit demoralizing and I wasn't putting in the volume I needed to meet my goal.

Instead I was taking a look at my stats and hand histories in working on figuring out what adjustments I need to make. It seems to have helped.

Since my last update my win rate has been ~ 58% and my ROI around 8% with a $120 profit bringing my challenge bankroll up to $627.

Time for another update on my Double or Nothing Sit and Go Challenge. The sessions since my last update are around 340-530. My current challenge bankroll is $501.60.

As you can see from the chart, things haven't been going very well in this challenge.  February was a brutal month.

The only impressive thing about the chart is that I figured out a way  to color it so that I can indicate where different blog updates were. The first set of sessions is covered in the first update, second set in red in the second update, 3rd set in blue 3rd update etc.

When I posted my last update my bankroll was up to $514.60. My low point for February was when my bankroll sunk to $371, a loss of $143.60 or around 26 buy-ins!

I received an email from PokerStars today that confirmed my suspicions of collusion at a Double or Nothing Sit-n-Go. Both players were banned from the site. Thankfully they played fewer than 100 games before they were caught and now their profits have been returned to players that were cheated.

By the way, in all the times I've spotted cheaters at the DoN SnGs I always won the game. So if you were playing the $5.40 DoNs in the last 2-3 months and got an email from stars about a refund due to being cheated feel free to leave a thank you in the comments. :) At least that way I get something out of it.

In this case I suspected there might be something fishy going on before the game even started. I joined this particular game to have a close look at the action. It turns out my hunch was right.

Here's a look at some of their plays that I reported to PokerStars.  Maybe it'll help you spot cheaters at your table. (By the way, PokerStars chooses not to reveal the identity of the cheats to other players so I have changed the names of all players at the table.)

What is it about AJ that's so appealing as a starting hand in no-limit Texas Hold'em? I'm convinced it must be like some sort of donkey nip or something.

This should be an easy hand to fold in many situations but time after time people must look down at AJ and think they struck gold and do incredibly stupid things.

In the Double or Nothing SnGs, I am absolutely amazed by how many times I see the following scenario occur in the first level when blinds are only 10/20 and all 10 players pretty much have a full stack (75BB).

UTG raises to 80, UTG+1 folds, UTG+2 calls 80, UTG+3 folds, UTG+4 reraises to 270, HJ folds, CO Calls 270, BTN reraises to 1500 and is all in.

Then one of two things happens. Everybody folds, or there are one or two callers. BTN of course has AJo or AJs. Even when everyone folds, they're kind enough to flash their cards so that everybody can be relieved that they folded to such a powerful hand.

When this happens, I check their stats and it's what I expect, a very negative ROI player. The sad thing (for them, good for us) is that they really think they had the best hand. They're not showing off AJ as a bluff.

This is the type of Level 1 thinking you see frequently at microstakes games. They have no clue what all the action before them might mean. They just look at AJ and must think "Wow, how lucky am I!!?!?!? All this money in the pot and I have the good fortune of being dealt AJ!".

If in the first level of a SnG or tournament, you see all that action in front of you and still want to get involved with AJ, you're probably a horrible poker player. Especially in the early stages of a DoN. AK should usually be a fold there too.

The times when there are one or more callers, AJ is usually in pretty bad shape. Most of the times, AJ loses but once in a while it will suck out to win a big pot.

Lets look at why AJ is such a terrible hand in a raised pot.

With that much action, it's likely someone has a big pair. Against aces, AJ has 9% equity. Against KK, QQ or JJ it only has about 30% equity. You're basically drawing to 3 outs or a miracle straight or flush.

Against hands like AK and AQ, it's dominated, giving AJ only 27% equity against those two possibilities. Shoving into either AK or AQ will mean you'll lose 7 out of 3 times on average if called.

Against any pocket pair TT or less, AJ is still an underdog with about 46% equity. Your classic coin flip situation. This would be one of the better scenarios, but AJ is still behind here.

The best AJ can hope fore is that there was someone other idiot that decided to get it all in with KQ. In that case, AJ has 60% equity. Still not much better than flipping coins.

AJ is a hand I open fold frequently, even out of position in full ring cash games where I play looser, so I'm constantly amazed to see people willing to put their whole buy-in at stake with AJ within the first few hands of a tournament.

AJ is not a hand you should generally 3-bet with, definitely not 4 bet, and usually never call a raise with (especially out of position). But people do it over and over. Which I think is awesome! :) Except for those 3 times out of 10.

In my last Double or Nothing Sit-N-Go Challenge update I mentioned that my bankroll was almost $400 and I would be increasing the number of tables I play at a time to 6, up from 4.

Things were going really well with 6 tables and I managed to get my challenge bankroll up to $439.

Then things got a little rocky as you can see from the chart. I went on a bit of a losing streak all the way down to around $350 where I switched back to 4 tables until I could re-evaluate what was going on.

I have an idea. I was playing bad. A combination of bad decisions, bad luck and stupid mistakes. I mean really stupid. A lot of misclicks.

As you can see from the chart, around session 120 I went on a tear. It felt like any time I threw chips in the pot, I got back 2-3x as many without any effort. This type of over confidence coupled with playing more tables really did me in. Once I wasn't winning every pot I played I had to play better, but I didn't.

There were also some bad beats along the way which didn't help.

I also give some players too much credit. At these micro limits, a lot of players don't think of anything other than what their cards are. They don't think of what your range might be. It's nearly impossible at times to steal and re-steal. I can fold for 6 orbits in a row, not even completing my small blind and the only hands they've seen me show are group I hands then they keep stealing my blind, I finally take a stand and they decide K2o, AJo, Arag or some other garbage is a good enough hand to call off 75% of their stack. If I'm restealing, I don't get lucky, if I have a hand they get lucky. At least that's how it's felt lately. Or whenever I'm shortstacked and find a hand I can push, someone wakes up with aces.

I have different strategies for different table types and players but I'm probably not using the right one at the right time.

Right now the challenge bankroll is at $386 and I've been getting my game back. It sucks to see almost 20% of your bankroll disappear, but these things happen, which is why it's important to follow good bankroll management practices.

Since my last update I also received my second Stellar Rewards Bonus, which is not being added to the bankroll. 

Time to continue making up the losses. I'll move back up to 6 tables at around $425-450. That will give me enough time to review those games and see how I might improve.

You're pretty far into a no limit hold'em tournament and at a critical point. Maybe right on or near the money/final table bubble or at one of Dan Harrington's inflection points. The short stack pushes the last of his chips into the pot and it gets folded around to you in the big blind. Eliminating this player and winning this pot would really benefit you. You peek at your hole cards hoping for aces but all you see are two rags. Do you still make the call?

The official definition of a hero call is calling a big bet with a marginal hand when you think your opponent might be bluffing with a weaker hand than yours. So maybe this should be referred to as a fearless call, where you make a call with a possibly weaker hand hoping to suck out on your opponent. You know your opponent could have a monster hand pre-flop but you say "screw you, I have plenty of chips and at least a 10% chance of winning. You want the pot you have to fight for it!"

This situation comes up a lot and sometimes you have to find the guts to make the fearless call.