HU (1 on 1 SnG) Profitable?

[Nato76]

Do you think playing these heads up SnGs are worth it? I never played any until yesterday and I won 10-12 yesterday after winning 8 in a row. I don't know if I was on a big luck streak or maybe these games are worth giving a try. Regarless I increased my BR by 25%. Profitable or not in the long run?

[citanul]

what kind of question is this?

if you play better than your opponents by enough to beat the rake, then yes.

if not, no.

citanul

[Nicholasp27]

what's the rake?

55% winning is needed to break even with 10% rake...if it's 5%, u only need to win 52.5% of the time to break even

if u have a solid hu game, it seems that u should be able to outplay your opps by >2.5%, so it should be profitable

how much u can make per hour and how much variance it has compared to sngs, i dunno

[Irieguy]

I just started playing these things regularly a few weeks ago, trying to figure out whether it's worth it or not. I've played everything from the $50's to the $1000's on Stars.

The main problem is that you can really only play one at a time. I thought I was retarded or something for not being able to multi-table them... but then I talked to Gigabet about it and he says he can only play one at a time, too. So, if i'm as retarded as Gigabet I can live with that.

Preliminarily, I think a 60% win rate is possible as high as the $200 level. You can play 2-4 per hour, one at a time. So, I think it's possible to earn $100/hr or so.

BUT, I have some opinions about HU play that probably aren't popular, ie, that you have to know how to play other games (besides holdem) and have to have a LOT of experience with shorthanded play to be any good.

So, if you only just recently started playing shorthanded and you only play holdem... you're on a heater and your win rate will be in the 50's at best until you develop some game. HU play requires more skill and experience than any other form of poker because you see so many flops.

There's not much data reported on these things, so please let us know once you've played a few hundred. I would be interested.

Irieguy

[Nato76]

Irieguy thank you for responding. I am going to give it a try. I played some just because I wanted a little change. Maybe I just got on a super lucky streak but I increased my BR by +$875 in less than 3 hours of play. I don't expect to make that everytime but if I can make 1/3 of that a day then it will be worth it for me. I was mostly playing the $50 and $100 HU.

[citanul]

why do you think that you need to be good at other games to play hu holdem?

citanul

[Irieguy]

HU Hold'em is significantly different from 6+ handed holdem... and I mean from a game theory standpoint, not just in the obvious ways.

So, you make more decisions without knowing anything at all. In a full game, you get a lot of information preflop based on bet sizes and position. But HU, a preflop raise from the SB-Button doesn't mean anything. I think that you need to understand game theory concepts from draw and low-draw... when you don't see any of your opponents' cards, to be really good at these types of decisions.

Then, after the flop, you will frequently be in a position where you have to call with absolutely nothing. A part of this will be because of your chances to bluff later... but some of it has to do with the value of drawing to your nothing. This is similar in many ways to playing 4th and 5th street in stud when you rate to have an underpair to the bettor.

So, if I know that somebody only plays holdem... I'll play them HU for any stakes. I don't mean that as some goofy Negreanuesque challenge- it's just meant to clarify how confident I am that you can't be all that good HU without experience thinking along these other lines.

Irieguy

[citanul]

with all due respect, i think that this reasoning is totally malarky.

while many of these concepts to which you refer are more glaringly obvious in other games, a player who plays and actually studies heads up holdem would be quite well equipped.

i'd be more inclined to accept a rational like "i don't think that a player who has specialized in shorthanded and ring holdem would be able to play very well the first time they sat down to a heads up game." however, clearly that same player could start playing heads up and/or reading about heads up and become quite expert in it without playing a game like tripledraw and become an expert heads up player.

it is akin to the recent people saying that the best way to learn to play post flop, and thus master party poker sngs is to play on stars since they have deeper stacks and thus more opportunities for postflop play. just because the interesting cases for post flop play occur more rarely in the party games does not mean that you couldn't practice them there. they do afterall still occur there.

so basically what i'm saying is that while learning other games is one path to learning tp play excellent heads up holdem, i believe that a good grasp of the theory and the ability to practice it is all that is really necessary. a person only really needs to know what they are supposed to do and do it, it doesn't matter where they learned it. for instance, if they learned it by sitting in front of poki for 40 hours a week for 3 months, they'd probably become pretty facile if intelligent.

similarly, a very good shorthanded player with a good background in theory will most likely be able to play very well heads up, since they will be both familiar with the situations that arise with post flop heads up play and be able to understand the importance of position, the flipflopped button, etc.

citanul

[johnnybeef]

[ QUOTE ]
HU Hold'em is significantly different from 6+ handed holdem... and I mean from a game theory standpoint, not just in the obvious ways.

So, you make more decisions without knowing anything at all. In a full game, you get a lot of information preflop based on bet sizes and position. But HU, a preflop raise from the SB-Button doesn't mean anything. I think that you need to understand game theory concepts from draw and low-draw... when you don't see any of your opponents' cards, to be really good at these types of decisions.

Then, after the flop, you will frequently be in a position where you have to call with absolutely nothing. A part of this will be because of your chances to bluff later... but some of it has to do with the value of drawing to your nothing. This is similar in many ways to playing 4th and 5th street in stud when you rate to have an underpair to the bettor.

So, if I know that somebody only plays holdem... I'll play them HU for any stakes. I don't mean that as some goofy Negreanuesque challenge- it's just meant to clarify how confident I am that you can't be all that good HU without experience thinking along these other lines.

Irieguy

[/ QUOTE ]

So along those lines, I propose that we change the format of the STTF-HU challenge to that of mixed games.

[Unarmed]

F*ck that. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
I've never even played limit holdem, let alone any other type of poker.