Heads Up Profitibility With Rake?

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DonkeyFish

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Hey Everybody, I'm a new member that just registered today. I started playing poker back in 2010 and I'm just now starting to get the really subtle aspects of the game. I started learning tournaments, then cash games, and I'm working on my heads up skills now. I've made a lot of final tables in tournaments and did really bad at heads up for a long time when it came down to just two. I've learned a lot about how to play properly but I haven't played heads up for straight cash since bodog before black friday hit. The way I'm thinking about it, if you are close to an even match playing heads up the rake is going to kill you over time.

How do you decide if your opponent is going to be profitable for you or not after factoring in the rake? Obviously you have to play them for at least a few hands to get some idea but I find it harder to read opponents heads up. In a ring game or tournament I can watch them play with other players and see some showdowns to get an idea of what their tendencies are. I'm also wondering whether a heads up SNG would be more profitable than sitting down at a straight cash table HU. I wanna get as many perspectives on this from experienced HU players as possible before I sit down for a game of HU cash.
 
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MaDaMan

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I have no idea what to tell you about this since i have no experience at all.
What i do know is a thing i remember from Daniel Negreanu's book.

You should play heads up because you will learn a huge amount of poker from it. After you learn how to take an opponent 1 on 1, it will be much easier in a full ring. Consider it like playing basketball. If you practice putting a small ball in a tiny hoop,when you advance to the normal basketball and hoop it will be like throwing coins in a well.

Also a direct quote:

"In my opinion, heads-up poker is the wave of the future.
More and more people are playing it today than ever before.
You can even qualify for the National Heads-Up Poker
Championship by playing online. That's exacdy what Josh
Lochner did. He beat out 30,000 other hopefuls to win his spot
in the 2006 Championship's exclusive 64-player field."

Hope that will help you :)
 
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DonkeyFish

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Thanks for the quote :). And yea, i've definitely noticed the rest of my game has improved since I started focusing on heads up. Hand values change drastically when heads up and I'm pretty sure that practicing regularly will increase your chances of finishing in a tourney from 2nd to 1st 50% or so. I know there are people that play HU for cash all the time but I've never got a chance to pick their brain.
 
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MaDaMan

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I don't know your playing style but if you play TAG, you should see this article

http://www.heads-up-poker.org/johnny-chans-heads-up-strategy.htm

If you play loose i would recommend the book

Negreanu's : Holdem Wisdom

In general he explains a more Loose Agressive sort of playing. It is REALLY hard to hit that off though, in low limit games,i don't know if you can(by that i mean ring games of 6 people or more). Heads up if you are able to abuse the player enough and know when to fold,you can get pretty good success.
 
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Zin

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Donkeyfish at what stakes are you playing?
 
Bubbles

Bubbles

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In mtts its often a crap shoot due to high blinds. I rarely play mtts so cant comment on this much.

As for cash games, anything under 25nl is almost not worth playing HU imo.

For some good reading on HU check this theory out.
Nash

And this one. Theres a link in the article to a chart as well. I actually wrote this a year or so back. Not the best of my work, but it explains how it applies to poker.

Disclaimer
Not my site FTR. I was employed by them at one point, but am no longer affiliated with them as is evident by my lost article being over 4-5 months ago.
 
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MaDaMan

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In mtts its often a crap shoot due to high blinds. I rarely play mtts so cant comment on this much.

As for cash games, anything under 25nl is almost not worth playing HU imo.

For some good reading on HU check this theory out.
Nash

And this one. Theres a link in the article to a chart as well. I actually wrote this a year or so back. Not the best of my work, but it explains how it applies to poker.

Disclaimer
Not my site FTR. I was employed by them at one point, but am no longer affiliated with them as is evident by my lost article being over 4-5 months ago.

I read the article and it was pretty good. I also registered to the website to get that ebook for SNG and i learned one or two things from it, EV was pretty well explained.
 
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