Heads up riches?

Well I decided to go ahead and play a heads up tourney today and I beat the guy in about 15 minutes. Granted these are the lowest levels but this seems highly profitable against these fish. To profit I only have to win 2 out of every three and I think that is easily attainable. I strongly suggest that you try it out but if you don't play heads up very much then read the strategy article about heads up. Anyways just wanted to let you know how easy it is. Good Luck!

the 4 player ones are a lot more profitable than the single ones.

Proof follows

To make a profit in single you have to win 2/3. Therefore, taking 5.50 matches as an example, you spend $16.50 to enter 3 matches, and win 2 of them, netting $20. Therefore a $3.50 profit from 3 matches

Playing the 4 person heads up one, by winning 2/3 matches, you spend $11 and win $20. Therefore a $9 profit.

Same principles + more than double profit = single matches should rarely be played

A few thoughts on these - I've been playing the $2 ones a lot on Full Tilt lately (mostly NLHE, with a bit of PLO thrown in).

The biggest advantage these games offer, IMO, is the $/hr rates that can be achieved compared to a full table game of the same buyin. Unless you're playing a turbo, it's rare for a HU match to go past the third level, so you can play four or more an hour without multitabling.

Re: single tables vs shootouts, assuming we win two out of every three matches we play (a shootout involves two matches - round one and round two), and working with a $5.50 buy-in, winner takes $10 in the single table and $20 in the shootout, I make it the following:

Single-table:

Game 1: Win, $4.5 profit
Game 2: Win, $4.5 profit
Game 3: Lose, -$5.5
Game 4: Win, $4.5 profit
Game 5: Win, $4.5 profit
Game 6: Lose, -$5.5
Game 7: Win, $4.5 profit
Game 8: Win, $4.5 profit
Game 9: Lose, -$5.5

Total: $11.5 profit

Four-player shootout:

Game 1: Win round one, win round two, $13.5 profit
Game 2: Win round one, win round two, $13.5 profit
Game 3: Lose round one, -$5.5
Game 4: Win round one, lose round two, -$5.5
Game 5: Win round one, win round two, $13.5 profit
Game 6: Lose round one, -$5.5
Game 7: Win round one, win round two, $13.5 profit
Game 8: Win round one, lose round two, -$5.5
Game 9: Lose round one, -$5.5

Total: $26.5 profit

Keep in mind though, you've played an extra six matches in the shootout format, so it's taken you two thirds as long again to make that $26.50.

$11.5 * 1.66 = $19.09 you would've made playing single table games.

The shootout still comes out ahead, but maybe not by quite as much as was suggested above.

I've been tossing up writing a longer piece on low-stakes HU SnGs as I've been playing a lot of them lately (with about 11% ROI), would people be interested?

Certainly people (I) will be interested.