10:54pm: Before I start, I want to add that even though I designated today as my “off” day, I still played 3 games, and went 3-0. That makes 6 games in a row I’ve won on Pokerstars, and 9 games in a row overall, including Cake. With that being said, amazing things can happen when hands hold up, as they have been in the last 36 hours. On to my rant:
Well, if you’ve ever looked at my graph and wondered how I’ve achieved such a steady, upward slope then you must know that days like today and the last half of yesterday are what I’m traditionally used to. It’s amazing how hands can go from NEVER holding up to seemingly impenetrable. This is a classic example to support my theory that heads up sit n gos are ultimately among the lowest variance of all the poker forms available. To be honest with you, I’ve been running TERRIBLE over the last week and a half or so, but because of solid play, it was never a down swing. It just was a break even swing. That’s because you play more hands heads up than any other form of poker. The more hands you play, the more experience you earn. I’ve had guys twice as old as me look at me and be like, “son, I’ve been playing poker longer than you’ve been alive.” Well, that may be true, but to that I say: “It doesn’t matter how LONG you’ve been playing poker, it matters how MUCH you’ve been playing poker.” What he didn’t know was that I’ve played probably 3 times more hands in 5 years than he’s played in the three decades. In addition to the benefit of the experience you gain is also the fact that the more hands you play, the sooner the variance evens out (from a time perspective). If a skilled player who normally wins only plays once a week for a whole year, theoretically he could run bad for a whole year. However, with heads up sit n gos, you come out of the bad runs quicker than you might playing 9-10 handed, because you see more hands.
If we put 99 against AKoff, and run it once a week for a year, then it’s entirely possible that AKoff would win 75-80% of the races for the year. However, over the course of a year, playing close to half a million hands in a heads up sngs this situation probably comes up 1,000-2,000 times. The same two hands ran 1,000 times will yield results closer to the true statistics that you’re accustomed to expecting. Like I said, having the benefit of playing more hands gives you more chances for situations like this to arise, therefore giving your skill edge a fighting chance at evening out because of the volume of hands you play.
I will admit that at times, it feels like every single time someone is on a flush draw, they hit it. If I were playing in a 5-10 NL game with proper bankroll management, there are still times when I’d be all in for more than 5% of my bankroll. If you run bad in these crucial moments, you could go busto much quicker than you actually think. However, with heads up sit n gos, you are protected from these situations, because the results are either (a) Win or (b) Loss. There’s no “Win Big” or “Lose Big.” All you have to do to be a winning player is win 51% or more of your games to turn a profit (not including the rake). To me, I’ll take that edge any day of the week over the risk of ruin you incur by playing cash games. If you’ve never heard the term “risk of ruin” before, google it. The more you know about it, the better off you’ll be in deciding which form of poker you’d like to pursue if you want to do this for a living or a strong secondary income.
Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process
