BB/100 attainable for headsup expert?

[Roswell]

My impression is that higher win rates are sustainable in shorthanded games. Theoretically, is an even higher win rate sustainable for an excellent headsup player?

[ohead]

a very high shortterm one could be easily achieved although the fluctuations of HU is extreme so it would be very hard to get an accurant BB/100

[stigmata]

1) The rake is a killer until you reach high stakes -- remember you are putting into the pot every hand. Look at how much you have between you after 100 hands, a lot of the money will be gone.

2) Your theoritical winrate varies dramatically between opponents. If you play many really bad, predictable calling stations with a low rake, I'm sure a huge winrate is atainable. These are hard conditions to meet, however.

I was wondering about this the other day, and if you intended on playing heads-up poker for a living, I couldn't reasonably expect your edge as a heads-up player to be so great so as to overcome the rake, due to variance. Noe that I've done no math.

[pzhon]

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I couldn't reasonably expect your edge as a heads-up player to be so great so as to overcome the rake, due to variance.

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Variance has nothing to do with whether your edge exceeds the rake.

[eisanm]

I thought of the fact that even as a HU expert it must be very hard to play more than one table at once.

I do not play HU so I won't say it's not doable, but my intuitive impression is that you'd only be playing 1 table.

Thus I believe that even if you had a much larger win rate playing HU, it would not compensate the many tables you could play as a full ring / 6max high stakes player, and also the much lower variance of ring games which is preferrable.

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I couldn't reasonably expect your edge as a heads-up player to be so great so as to overcome the rake, due to variance.

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Variance has nothing to do with whether your edge exceeds the rake.

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Fair enough. I meant to point out that the variance of heads-up play will cause you to lose a lot of chips to the house. When heads-up, your "fair share" of winning hands is 50%. The house owns 5-10% of every pot. ... where am I going with this?

[The_Bends]

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I couldn't reasonably expect your edge as a heads-up player to be so great so as to overcome the rake, due to variance.

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Variance has nothing to do with whether your edge exceeds the rake.

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Surely it does. Lets say you play a game in which you are 100% to win over your less skilled opponent. You both have $100 and each game you stake 90c each and each give 10c to the house. At the end of game one you would take $1.80 (90c+90c) while the house takes 20c (10+10) in rake In this game you would break your opponent in 100 games taking $80 and leavng the house with $20.

Now say you are only 75% favourate to win. Every four games you play you win three taking back $5.40 and paying 60c in rake. In the other game your opponent wins and takes $1.80 and the house takes 20c. Since you both invested $4 each in the four games you have made a profit of $1.40 and your opponent has lost $2.20.

So in order to break your opponent now you now play him 181 times before he runs out of money [(100/2.2)*4]. Because you have to play him 81 times more the house gets $8.10 more rank from both you and your opponent meaning you lose $16.20 compared to when you had a 100% edge.

The conclusion, the few games it take to beat your opponent the more money you keep and the less that the house takes from the game. Varience increases the number of hands you must play to enforce your edge so greater varience = more hands = more rake = less profit.

[marv]

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I couldn't reasonably expect your edge as a heads-up player to be so great so as to overcome the rake, due to variance.

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Variance has nothing to do with whether your edge exceeds the rake.

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Surely it does. Lets say you play a game in which you are 100% to win over your less skilled opponent.
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This isn't a very good way of measuring skill HU.

Better is to estimate your EV advantage against him over one hand. Playing HU, unless you want to be eaten up by the rake *very* quickly, you'll find yourself playing at level at which the rake gets capped on almost every hand the SB doesn't fold immediately.

Then you can adjust your win rate for the rake just just lowering your EV per hand.

Marv

[pzhon]

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Variance has nothing to do with whether your edge exceeds the rake.

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Surely it does.

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No, it doesn't.

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Lets say you play a game in which you are 100% to win over your less skilled opponent...

Now say you are only 75% favourate to win.

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Then you have replaced the game with one in which your edge is significantly smaller.

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greater varience = more hands = more rake = less profit.

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No. Lower edge => more hands => more rake => less profit.

Variance doesn't have much of an effect on the number of hands it takes to break someone. A greater variance per hand very slightly decreases the expected length of a freezeout, but only because it increases the chance that the stronger player busts out. If you play a freezeout (with or without rake) with an infinite bankroll against a weaker player, the average length of the freezeout depends on the edge (and rake), not on the variance per hand. In fact, the length is

Weaker player's starting chips / (edge+rake).

Note the absence of any term in that formula resembling variance.

[The_Bends]

Yup true. My mistake

[pzhon]

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I couldn't reasonably expect your edge as a heads-up player to be so great so as to overcome the rake, due to variance.

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Variance has nothing to do with whether your edge exceeds the rake.

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When heads-up, your "fair share" of winning hands is 50%. The house owns 5-10% of every pot. ... where am I going with this?

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I'm not sure where you think you are going with it. What you seem to be saying is that you think the stronger player's edge can't be large enough to overcome the rake. That is not a logical argument. It is simply a declaration, one which contradicts my experience and the experience of many people who play heads up frequently, e.g., props.

This has nothing to do with variance. Do not get variance confused with EV.