Heads Up SNGs...

[New Guy]

I just finished a 100 $50 sit n go heads up challange and went 58-42 . I was just wondering considering the games to be generally soft , do you think I finish in a good spot? I know up 800 minus rake to 550 is up but I feel the games are soft enough that I should go 70-30. Is that to much to expect?? LMK

Well with rakeback Im making alittle more so thats good

[melioris]

Warning-No Real Content below, just mumbo jumbo.


I think 60-40 is about the best you can hope for in HU SNGs. It seems like it should be more because they are so soft, but when you consider the nature of the variance these games present, 60-40 seems right.

[Kurn]

I think a 70% win rate is pretty close to unattainable. 110% of random is close to the long-term limit, so 60%, maybe even 62.5% would be doable, but not 70%.

I don't have any stats to back this up, just seems to make sense.

[Kurn]

Look at where your edge comes from in cash games or full-ring tourneys. #1 factor is your opponents play too many hands. Well, that's out the window in a HU SNG because the biggest mistake HU in a tourney is folding too often.

Plus you also must play more hands past the flop or you'll get run over.

3rd, the blinds keep going up, so you will regularly get forced into playing 52:48 for all your chips.

In the end, your edge is solely on your ability to bully/manipulate your opponent as opposed to that being a small part of your arsenal vs a full table.

Luck (as in who gets what cards) is a much bigger factor HU. You are much more at the mercy of the deck when HU in a tourney. HU cash games are different simply because the stack size vs the blinds remains high.

[New Guy]

Thanks alot for that! Both kurn and mel. I see both your points.And they make total sence. 70% is way crazy. So then I feel pretty good about my 58% win rate and feel I played pretty damn good with a few stupid steemer calls.If I get rid of those mabey i'd be 61-62%. This was really fun and I think everyone should try it.Its a great way to build a roll especially with rakeback on your side.Thanks for all comments!

[herschelw]

The top HU sng players at a given level tend to win about 2/3rds of the time over the long run.

[Talking Poker]

I've been experimenting with the HU SNGs fairly heavily myself recently. For me, they are the easiest way to get hands in when I'm on the road, and with that huge Full Tilt bonus to clear this month, I played quite a few of them when I was out of town a couple weeks ago. In fact, I'm the person who turned New Guy on to them.

I do think they are soft overall, but you need to avoid the regulars (at least at the higher stakes), or it's just -EV for both of you because of the juice. Of course, I'm way too impatient to pick and choose my opponents, so I just sit at an empty table and hope the regulars avoid me (which they absolutely have been doing lately - it takes me much longer to get a game going now than it used to).

I was actually going to make a post very similar to this one at the end of the month - with my results included - but the quick preview is that I think these can definitely be very profitable... probably not as much as cash games can be for the best players, but WAY more than I think MTT players could ever hope to make in the long run. WAY, WAY MORE.

Still, I think about a 60% win rate is close to the best one can hope for long term. I don't have any math to back that up either, but that's my guess.

Assuming 5% rake (let's take $100+5, for an easy example), if you play 100 and win 60, you've bought in for $10,500 and won (60 * $200 = $12,000) for a total profit of $1500 on your $10,500 investment. That's an ROI of 14%. I think that's maybe what the best players in the world could hope for long term, honestly (again, with no data to back this up), but I think good players should be able to earn 5-10% ROI without too much trouble.

100 is a fairly small sample, of course, but I would say going 58-42 is right where you should hope to be.

If anyone has researched this or read about it in detail somewhere, please share your findings.

And I'll make that more detailed post in a few days or next week sometime.

[Talking Poker]

That's pretty awesome if that's true (and I'm sure you have a source for that and aren't just guessing). Of course, you're also talking about the best of the best... I think striving for 60% is pretty reasonable for most good players.

[Talking Poker]

I'm going to be playing these for the next little while on Full Tilt (probably 2 at a time), if anyone is interested in watching.

I fully expect that to jinx me and for me to run terribly... If that's the case, this may be a very limited time offer.

[Talking Poker]

At least I resucked out with my flopped two pair into a rivered boat against the other douche I was playing after he hit his gutshot on the turn (he flopped overcards + gutshot + BD flush draw).

And now I'm sitting there waiting, and no one is playing me.

[Wes]

The HU sng pro i lived with in vegas said 8-10% ROI is sustainable if you are good. Think anyone good at poker though would play cash games since winrates are a lot more, more games run, skill edge is a lot greater.

[Kurn]

I also can't grasp how someone can play enough HU tables at a time to duplicate the same hourly rate they'd get playing at full table SNGs. ROI for the best players at the higher buy-ins is the same.

Maybe you can do it playing continuous rather than sets, I dunno.

[Talking Poker]

I have trouble comparing cash game win rates to SNG ROIs... I guess it just comes down to the hourly rate, which really depends on how many tables you are playing simultaneously.

I can't disagree with anything you said, but I do believe that you could turn that 8-10% ROI into a ton of money if you play enough.

Take this guy (livb112 on Full Tilt), for example, who I found yesterday... He's up almost $120k YTD (yes, 30 days) in HU SNGs exclusively. That's not too shabby. His lifetime ROI is mere 6%, but he's turned that into a $700k profit (yes, PROFIT - not total winnings like the MTT guys like to report) through about 16k matches. I have no idea how much he plays, but I would think a full time grinder could get in 100 per day easily enough, meaning this is well under one year's worth of work.

Yes, he's playing at very high levels now, but he hasn't been the whole time, of course. And those figures aren't including RB (or other bonuses), which by my math adds almost 1.5% to your ROI (27% of 5%).

[Talking Poker]

Don't forget that HU SNGs are generally much faster than full table SNGs, so while you may not play as many at a time, you can play more per hour.

I haven't even dabbled with Turbos yet (well, I did a very little bit in the beginning but hated them).

[Zybomb]

My friend adrian plays exclusively HU SNGs at the highest levels on stars ($1100, $2200, $5500) and finished 2nd on the leaderboard last year -- I'll ask him what his % is and let you guys know

[New Guy]

Cool zy that would be awsome.Tp that graph is sick!!!!

[Zybomb]

His overall ROI is 9% -- although it is lower at the $5500 levels (closer to 6%) and higher at the $1100 level (closer to 12%) As far as win % I dunno.

He's currently 3rd on the leaderboard for this year

[Talking Poker]

That's sweet.

I hope we are all in Vegas at the same time this year. I'd really like to chat with him sometime.

Does he play cash games? I assume he's decided HU SNGs are more profitable for him, and I wonder why.

[Zybomb]

He plays cash games live (although a lot less often now that he's been crushing it online) but not much online -- he says he has a tough time adjusting to cash games because he plays too aggressively against too many stations... hes also paranoid about collusion

[Talking Poker]

No collusion in HU!

[Zybomb]

right -- i was referring to full ring/6 max cash games not HU cash games

[Talking Poker]

I was going to make a new thread about this, but since we've already got a good discussion going here (or had one going, I should say) and I already said most of what I wanted to say anyway, I'll just post my results (and edit the thread title a bit).

I played 163 $200+10 HU SNGs on Full Tilt this month. I went 98-65.

That's a 60% win rate, which happens to exactly match what we were talking about earlier in this thread (and I hadn't run the numbers until right now - I was just guessing).

Total Buys Ins: $34,230
Total Profit: $4970
ROI: 14.5%

That's straight earnings. I won't add in the $925 in bonus money I cleared while playing these (and some cash games too), but I will add in the rakeback, since I can count on that every month.

Total Rake: $1630
27% Rakeback: $440

Add that to the total profit and we're now looking at $5410, which is a 15.8% ROI.

I know we said a 60% win rate was reasonable, but I personally still don't think that a 16% ROI is sustainable in the long run. I think 163 is an ok sample size (if one of you math guys wants to do a standard deviation or something on that, please do), but I don't think it's nearly big enough to determine an expected ROI.

I do think it's safe to say a 10% ROI would be sustainable for me at this level (including RB and everything). So applying that to $200+10 SNGs, I think I can expect to earn $21 for each one that I play. I'm not sure how many I can play in an hour, but I'm pretty sure it's more than the 5 required to earn $100 an hour.

Not bad.

Feel free to rip this apart and tell me where my math is wrong, etc.

[Wes]

livb plays HORSE i think. At least some other game, not NLHE.

[Talking Poker]

According to the sharkscope leaderboard, he's up $112k in 2008 from HU NLHE SNGs. I can't verify its accuracy, of course, but that's what it says.

[Wes]

i mean he's made most of his money from some other game.