Interesting poker question

[Paluka]

You have 2 players. One of them is a near-expert long time winning player. He has extensive experience at different forms of poker and both full games and short-handed. The other player is has strong math/analytical skills but is fairly new to poker. He has played 10-20 hours of online poker at limits between 5-10 and 15-30 for the past 6 months and has been a winning player (but this is in very soft games). He has very little short-handed experience. Now these 2 players are going to play 300 hands headsup. At the end of the 300 hands, if player B is down money he gets 50% of his losses back.
Who is getting a better deal here?

[scotnt73]

b is not going to be more than a 2-1 dog if he is a winning player. ill take b all day long(especially for just 300 hands).

[M.B.E.]

If they're playing NLHE, this is very similar to a discussion in "Tournament Poker for Advanced Players". Player B can go all in preflop every single hand and have something like a 40% chance of breaking Player A (assuming they started with identical stacks).

If they're playing limit holdem, it is not very likely that Player B will be ahead after 300 hands. Therefore it seems this deal favours Player A.

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
He has played 10-20 hours of online poker at limits between 5-10 and 15-30 for the past 6 months

[/ QUOTE ]
I may have misunderstood this. Do you mean 10-20 hours total over six months? Or 10-20 hours a week? Or what?

In any event, heads-up holdem is so different from playing at a full table that Player A's advantage will be huge (again assuming the game is limit holdem, not NLHE).

[Paluka]

[ QUOTE ]
He has played 10-20 hours of online poker at limits between 5-10 and 15-30 for the past 6 months

[/ QUOTE ]

I did mean 10-20 hours a week.

[Paluka]

I think 2 other bits of info might help:

1) Player B is clearly smart enough to understand the concepts of how headsup poker might be different.

2) Player B tends to be a tad too loose and overaggressive in his ring game play.

[DrSavage]

Hm,
It looks to me that dependent on a number of hands played (N), A would be getting a better deal with N being high (we can safely assume that A is going to be up money after N=100K hands for instance) and B would be getting a better deal with N being low (N=1 as a perfect example). It's hard to say who would have an edge at 300 hands, I'd assume it's B, it looks like it would be a fair proposition at around 1500 hands to me and I'm basing this number on absolutely nothing.
The real question is who do you mean by player B. I vote Dave.

[bigpooch]

Depends on the game, the limits, the actual individuals
involved (can I take David Ross as B?). In games like NLHE
(or NL/PL just about anything), or limit draw, I would take
B as long as he knew the game. Also, 300 hands isn't that
much and even if someone has slightly the worst of it, he
may not lose that much. Of course, if A (the expert) knows
B very well: how he thinks, how he plays certain hands,
which situations make B uncomfortable, what makes B go on
tilt and A is utterly ruthless at making B totally unhappy
and using any and every method conceivable to bust B, then I
would most likely take A.

[Wake up CALL]

Even if B was a rhesus monkey he would have the best of it. I have no idea what MBE is thinking with his reply.

[artman]

Very interesting question. Player A is a near expert, so if i understand it right he isn't an epert as such yet. Player B understands the differences between a full and a heads up game and he tends to play fairly loose and overly aggressive in a full ring game? And to top it off he get's 50% of his losses back? Well in that case i have to think that his disadvantage wouldn't be that great. So i'd pick player B. I'd like to know the correct answer though, if there is one.

Laterzzzzz
ARTMAN