Oh god, I think I'd rather slit my wrists than play that many SNGs ... but yeah, rake is a killer.

I've played some NL25 on Merge and it looks like $3/100 hands played which doesn't sound too bad until you figure it's -6pt/100. Anyone have stats on what rake looks like at NL50 on Merge?

$0.25/$0.5 NLH HU 19,256 hands $-845 $651 Rake

Just lost 5.5 complete stacks (50$) all from beat and coolers, but one stack ( the last ) Cause I went ****in frustrated and called an all in on the river..tilting

before this downswing I was -600$ BUT I would have been even if it wasnt of the huge rake..

all this to say.. yeah thats what the rake looks like on nl50 HU.. you cant be an okay player HU in cash game.. you cant be a "break even" player in there, cause you will get pwned by the rake.. seems like you have to be pretty decent OR have a huge bankroll, not care about losing money (up 200$ one day, down 300$ the day after.. ) and be bumhunting only ( looking for fishes )

Thanks, great info. Seems like your rake has been about 3pt/100 which seems pretty low compared to NL25. On one hand, that gives me some motivation to move up a stake earlier than I might otherwise. On the other hand, while I don't know which stats you were quoting in the prior post I am guessing you're a bit nittier than me and my rake might be a bit higher.

As to the rest of it, for sure there's no point in playing <NL100 HU unless you can own that level or have a big BR and are just playing low for learning experience. Anyone playing NL25-50 to grind rakeback needs a sanity check.

Hi Guys, I'm new here and this is my first post. Nice to see so many enthusiasts around. I'm a HU beginner and would like some advice for good HUSNG guides or videos.

Hello and welcome to the community.This is the hu cash forum though so you might want to go here if you are interested in husngs :http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/185/heads-up-sng/.GL.


On the other hand,i would like to here some thoughts about the advantages and disadvantages of minraising in hu cash.I minraise a huge amount of the time and altough I'm doing pretty well at my nano stakes i am wondering if I'm missing a value by not 3xing my hands.Any thoughts are appreciated.

personally I only min raise when I feel vilain is too short stack for my raise or reraise

I'm still a noob but I look at BB VPIP to decide button raise sizes. If villain plays very tight OOP and 3b's most hands he'll play for instance I'll min raise like 90% of my buttons until they figure it out and adjust (if ever). And the opposite is true if someone plays too much OOP ... tighten up a bit and start 4x'ing.

Just a couple of quick questions

I'm currently grinding the DoNs on Merge to clear the Lockpoker ipad2 bonus, but to be honest they're really really boring.

Pre blackfriday I had pretty good success with husng's at the $5 and $10 level, but I was really just grinding them to get a big enough roll for nl50. Also I was not a fan of the shovefest that was lategame.

Now, Merge has nl25. I know everyone says that the rake is absolutely killer to the point where its unbeatable, but with the ipad2 bonus, I'm essentially getting another 50% rakeback on top of the 35% i'm already receiving. When you throw in the rake race bonuses or whatever it comes out to about ~90% rakeback while I'm clearing it.

Now granted, I don't get the $500 till I clear the whole bonus (which you have to rake $1k to get), but under these conditions does it seem like playing 25nl would be worth it once my bankroll hits ~$500?

I only ask because really I'd like to play 50nl eventually, but if I can actually turn a profit at 25nl I would much rather make the transition there.

Also, would 25nl be profitable at Merge even without the extra 50% effective rakeback from the bonus?

Thanks in advance

I am clearing the same bonus and have been playing HU25 on Merge. My rake has been pretty consistent so far at $3/100 or -6pt/100. There appear to be plenty of regfish and random fish to go around as well as some solid players who I imagine are rebuilding a post black friday bankroll. I have no objective analysis of my skill level but definitely qualify as a noob and I am running at 5pt/100. Still small sample size but at least half of those hands are multitable reg matches. So I'd say it's beatable, especially if you pass over the good regs.

I play 50nl.

When you sit down with an unknown, what's your calling and stacking range to their first few 3bets? I think I play too tight vs. early 3bets.

My calling range is 88-JJ, KQ, AT+, QJs, TJs.

Thoughts?

How much are u paying on the average rake on FTP by 2 -tabling 50NLHU?
Any one knows?

I pay 1$ per 19 hands, so if you get 400 hands per hour = 21$ per hour

I was wondering what a good sample size is on a player in HU?
I'm new to the HU cash games (before only played 6-max cash and hu sng's) - I usually like to have around 1k hands in 6 max before taking the slightest notice to the stats in 6-max, shouldn't it be more in hu?

At this time now, which poker site do you think is best for HU uNL and SSNL? I think pokerstars, fulltilt and merge are kind of out of the question.

Pay attention to what the villain is doing as opposed to their stats tbh. They may have a 15% 3bet from BB over whatever, 1k hands, at HUNL, but if they're in any way decent the contents of that 15% will vary depending on how you're playing, so it kind of renders it useless.

They're not even a good general indicator anymore given that even the biggest fish know to be opening most buttons and 3betting from the bb a lot. I suppose if you want something to really focus on then watch how often their opening the button and flat calling from the bb. VPIP shouldn't take too long to converge.

Where are you located? If US, I understand why PS and FT are out, but why do you say Merge is out of the question? If you are non-US, I can understand that you might be worried about future legal action but if that's the case, it seems like PS is still a valid choice.

Okay, so I know this is a really, really broad topic ... and just like Doyle's underwear, the answer is "depends." But anyone want to take a stab at outlining some basic observations on check-raising and facing a c/r? I know it is impossible to simply say "do this and it will work" but it would be helpful to hear how people analyze their opponents to identify profitable opportunities or how to react when c/r'd.

In my experience (at the lowest stakes), most villains seem to do one of two things:
- C/r completely randomly
- Always c/r in the exact same spot (c/r dry boards, c/r FD's, c/r scary looking boards like AKT)

Ditto when facing a c/r. E.g., if they see you raise a FD board, they are going to reraise or call you anytime they have value. In other words, uNL HU players suck at this ... even more than we do at everything else.

Also play HU25 on Merge and agree with this overview. Screen name Lusty?

I would go ahead and 4bet JJ as a standard at the start of a match. I guess your range for 3bet calling is somewhat like range of most regulars at these stakes looks like. And thats fine. Maybe flatting 3b with KTo, maybe even stretch it a little bit in the start with QTo to get a grip of your opponent in the 3bet pots (case at the low stakes is that everybody cbets and the play most likely faceup) - remember information = power. And do not forget to integrate those info into your game, because just applied knowledge counts.

Personally what i love to do vs. habitual 3bettors is that i tighten up on the BTN and keep my raises at the same size (3x the bb). That way im raising for example 70% on the btn which is also pretty good. our range is tighter and when we flat the 3bet we go to the flop with a fairly strong range. However most people that i talk poker with would have started minraising almost a 100% on the button which is also an ok counterstrategy vs such players.

At the lower stakes a bunch of these 3bet crazy guys will flat almost every 4bet, so just keep in mind to do it for value. No need to mix in any 4bet bluff if the guy is just total station preflop. 4bet with a completely unbalanced range is fine here, on lower limits the opponents wont figure it out.

Hands that you have mentioned; A8o/K7s/J8s/Q3s are not a good candidate for flatting a 3bet even vs a super aggro guy. Just think about the raneg you are going to exploit him and thats it. You can fold q3s preflop, you can minraise j8s - and fold it to a 3bet. There is nothing wrong with that. So dont worry about having to check-fold on some flops. Be patient and the money is going to flow your way.

are there any situations in heads up where it is correct to fold small pocket pairs to a single raise? like if the btn is only 4-betting strong hands and doesn't fold to 3-bet enough, or stack sizes mean we can't 5-bet shove as a bluff.

I'm a full ring player, and the general consensus in fullring is when facing a btn steal to fold your small pairs and only 3-bet if the button is folding a lot to 3-bets or you plan on 5-bet shoving. When i watch heads up videos i never see this happening, but it seems to me that there could be some stack size or player dependent spots where this might be true. Can somebody correct my thinking or explain the difference, because i'm pretty sure if it was correct to fold pf i'd have seen someone good do it by now

never fold to a single raise. 3 betting is fine sometimes. calling is fine. just whatever; mix it up. if he's 4betting to much, 3 bet/ 5bet jam small and mid pairs.

it's correct at HU and not FR because we're in the bb 1/2 the time, and if we just fold like we would from the bb in FR (1/9 times) we're clearly just gunna bleed lots of $$$.

Value of sets HU goes way up too.

the second paragraph doesn't sound right to me, i mean if its +ev its +ev whether we can make money from other positions or not.

lets say you were in the bb heads up against a player that reacted to 3-bets by calling, and didn't 4-bet all that much. lets say he/she is aggressive enough to put you in some tricky spots just holding 1 pair and will barrel appropriate scare cards etc. If you were going to play the hand you'd have to call pf, he isnt folding enough to make 3-betting profitable, nor is he 4-betting enough to 5-bet shove. then it seems to me on a lot of flops that aren't dry we're going to be folding a tonne unless we hit, and when we do he may not even have much of a hand to pay us off with.

are there any good vids on playing small pairs heads up?

anybody?