I have a couple good links, pm me

Some players do this, I rarely ever. I will throw out a defensive bet on the turn or river if I float the flop and have a drawing hand/think he is on air and want to make an attempt at keeping the pot smaller then his second barrel and maybe a chance of winning the pot there.

Hi, I'm pretty much a beginner at HU NLHE. I haven't really studied much yet, but my basics were enough to beat 10NL for +25bb/100 for about 15k hands. My question is regarding to betsizing: I read somewhere that standardizing you betsizes on the first streets is the way to go, but I was wondering if I didn't lose an awful lot of value because of this. I often find myself on the river with a hand I desperately want value from combined with a potsize that doesn't allow me to vbet as large as I want to. The other way around, if I bet pot or close to it I feel I'm bleeding money in pots were I can't make a hand and have to give up. Is this standardized pf-, flop-, and turnplay anywhere near decent or should I vary my bets regarding situation and villain?

You should vary your bets/raises postflop, but preflop you can do what you feel works for you.

I'm going to post this here, nobody replied to my thread. I feel like I might be walking around with a massive hole in my game based on this number, but I'm not sure. And I''m not sure what to do about it.

According to Poker tracker the 643 times I've had one pair I've I've folded on the flop 7.6 percent, folded the turn 12.6, and folded the river 14.1. Went to showdown 37 percent, won money showdown percent 40, win percent 55.

And the most shocking thing to me, a winning player, is that my 'amount won'[amount lost it should say] for one pair is -24,372.

What does this mean? Am I massively overvaluing one pair? Is this a huge leak I've identified? It says my win percentage is 55 percent, but my money won at showdown is 40, does this mean I'm making it to the river correctly more often than not but I'm just not building the pots correctly when I'm ahead, or is this an incorrect interpretation of the numbers?

I finally decided to get PT, so the sample isn't that large, like 5,000 hands from almost exclusively heads up.

What are your ideal stats/style be against someone that's like 45/5/.75? Loose passive but also pretty stationish; time to cinch down PF??

Yep, depends on villain. If villain is incompetent, you can do all sorts of wacky stuff. Vs. a good player though, unless you're ready to play the rock-paper-scissor game and can balance all of your ranges, a good way to not get soulread is to standardize your preflop raise size and continuation bet size. This means you make them independent of hand-strength, NOT independent of board texture. On dry boards that no one hits, like Q74r, a smaller 1/2 pot to 2/3 pot cbet suffices. On boards like QT9 with a 2-flush, you might want to raise 2/3 to 3/4 or even full pot. The idea behind this is that on the "wet" boards, each player's respective range is stronger, so in order to force errors in pot equity, betsizes much be larger. On the other hand, on dry boards, respective ranges are weaker, so a small bet is all that is necessary.

For HUCash, most people raise the pot, which is to 3BB. Then they fire 4BB as a standard into 6BB, but some people advocate betting 5BB as a standard.

i have found that most opponents fall into a category and its very rare i will find a player that has a unique style. most of the bad players are either loose passive, tight passive, or loose aggressive. I am trying to create a cheat sheet for strategies to use against each of these players and i am having a hard time finding any info. anyone know where i can find this info or some general tips on how to play each of these opponents?

anyone have specific tips on using HUD or PT2 for HU SNG matches?

what about info on HU shootouts on stars? are they more profitable than normal HU matches? positives or negatives of playing these?

i see a lot of players who have good overall stats, but bad HU stats and vice versa. what can i extrapolate from this info?

May as well ask in here..

Is there any way to get sharkscope to show just HUsngs?

if your a subscriber yes....

do advanced search and 2 to 2 entrants

Assuming equal skills at HU SNGs and HU CASH and no bankroll-issues, is it more profitable to play HU SNGs on Full Tilt than HU CASH on a soft European site?

I think this is a pretty meaningless question because they are basically two different games, you can be losing in one of them and winning in the other imo. Also what stakes are you talking about?

Change title to "Skates answers beginner's questions thread?"

Could change title to "Thread where Skates posts when tilted and unable to play poker for himself"

Depends on if you can get games higher up on the Euro site. Also depends on if you can beat higher-up games, both SNG and cash.

It's generally stated that you make more money playing 200NL cash than 200 SNGs, but below that probably SNGs are more profitable, and after that definitely cash is.

The reason why I ask about the difference between HU SNGs on Full Tilt and HU CASH on a soft European site is that I plan to play HU SNGs on soft European sites. But when I reach higher buy-ins ($100+), I will start having difficulties finding sufficient games, so I will have a difficult decision to make:

1) Start a move to Full Tilt and/or Pokerstars.

or

2) Start a move to HU CASH on soft sites.

A) What do you think is best?

The HU SNGs on Full Tilt will naturally be more profitable in the short run because I would be used to the HU SNG format, but I care mostly about the long run. So if HU CASH on a soft site is more profitable in the long run than HU SNGs on Full Tilt, I would probably go with that.

B) Another question I have is:
Assuming HU CASH on soft sites is more profitable in the long run than HU SNGs on Full Tilt (if that´s not the case, ignore the question), how many hours playing HU CASH would you guess I would have to play before my hourly rate would be as high as if I had chosen HU SNGs on Full Tilt instead? Keep in mind that my hourly rate would also have increased if I had played HU SNGs on Full Tilt, only not as fast.

The FAQ says a very solid winrate for HU SNGs is 10%, and 15% is possible. Is that for the turbos on Full Tilt?

Fyp, i think your edge in FTP turbos is smaller than in stars turbos, because of the structure. btw on what european site are u planning to play?

Yeah, lol.

I haven´t decided yet, but I will most likely play on several sites including Hansa Poker (iPoker) and Poker Hour Network (IPN/Boss Media).

One would think this is correct, but it seems FTPers have at least as high if not a higher ROI on average than the bigger Stars winners at the 110+.

Does this mean Full Tilt is noticably softer than Pokerstars?

Could mean at least a few different things.

1) FTP regulars could be better than PS players.

2) FTP could have a higher % of fish.

3) While the sites could have similar % of fish, perhaps more regulars sit with anybody on PS.

4) FTP's structure could allow for more exploitation of bad players.

There's probably other possibilities, personally I felt FTP was a lot softer a last fall than it is now and Stars hasn't changed as much. I don't have more than 500 games at FTP though, but between that and talking to other players, that's my loose opinion on the matter.

It is interesting to see regulars hit 10%+ over long samples in turbos on FTP at the 100 level and higher, while you can't really find people with thousands of games on Stars doing the same in turbos.

SAGE

I read about it from a link in the FAQ.

Now....

I don't fully understand it, just looks like a pushing chart that needs to be leant tbh.

Anyways, does it work for push/fold situations late on in high blind HU SNG's?

Like what does all that bs about not most profitable but unexploitable and all that mean?

Does anyone use this system to any sort of effect at high blind play?

many thanks

Yes, SAGE works in the late stages of a HUSNG. From what I understand, SAGE is not exploitable because its based purely on mathematics; your opponent will have a better hand x% of the time no matter what. SAGE isn't not optimal, though, meaning it doesn't take into account your opponents deviation from equilibrium. Adjusting your play correctly will win you more money. For example, your opponent could be too tight--meaning you should push a wider range--or too aggressive--meaning you should call shoves with a wider range--etc. SAGE is basically the safe strategy to use against stronger opponents, or against opponents who are using the SAGE equilibrium strategy themselves.

What I don't understand is why they cut off all charts at the ratio of 7. I'd be especially interested in the numbers for "jam from SB" for ratios of 8-10 for when I'm playing a better opponent.

miw210, SAGE is just a method to help remember the Nash Equilibrium charts. Find them.