How much luck is involved in hu nlc?

[pocketjesuits]

The answer depends on the format of the match. If we are talking infinitely deep stacks for an infinite number of hands, obviously there is no luck involved and the best player will always win. If we're talking about stacks of 10BB, then obviously it is almost entirely luck.

[Sarahanj]

My question was obviously not very well written. I have a limited experience of hu nlc (less than 48 hours total). In some games ive been crushing my opponents and in other they have been crushing me. The thing is, what conclusions can i make after this? How big is the variance? The key hands are often draws that makes straights and so on. I´ve been playing nl poker for years and hu tourneys som i am not totally green.

[ORTOM]

[ QUOTE ]
How much luck is involved in hu nlc?

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally, I think the concept behind this question is important, so I'm going to give you a serious reply.

I believe a better way of approaching this question is to ask what probability distribution describes the how many games you win per n matches. (Sorry if you don't know enough prob and stat to understand this reply. check out any intro text if you need a reference). It turns out for reasons I am too lazy to describe that it is binomial(n,p), where p is your winning percentage and n is the number of games you play. On average, you will win n*p games. Your variance will be n*p*(1-p). http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~stark/...ml/BinHist.htm is a good place to get a feel for what the distirbution looks like.

p will vary depending on who your opponent is and if you are on tilt. (duh). Anyway, hope this helps.

[Sarahanj]

Ty for the good answers. My follow up question must be: If you are a good hu player, will you lose a lot of games anyway? Is it normal to lose 3 buy ins to an opponent that are slightly worse than you (but not a total donk)?

[cwar]

Sorry I ragged on you but this forum does not need general questions, especially very broad ones although this has been a quite hotly debated topic as of late I dont think anyone really knows the answer.

I do know this, HU NL cg variance is going to depend A LOT on the skill of your opponent. If you have a large edge your swings will be much smaller and if you edge is small I think 10 buy in swings would be pretty normal. So to answer your question, I think a 3 buy in swing will happen regardless of your edge and should be considered very normal.

[Sarahanj]

Ty. thats the answer i hoped to get

[riverspecialist]

I won 65 of my last 100 matches according to poker tracker and i lost 7 in a row at one point. I wont go too into detail but i think being more aggressive is giving me more of an edge, but more variance. I used to never lose more than a few in a row. To be specific, i used to win by getting money in while i have the best of it. Now i win by just taking too many pots. Im getting better results so far, but more of my wins/losses depend on hitting/missing draws now when i get caught bluffing.

[ORTOM]

I calculated the probability of loosing X matches or less in a row if one is .65 to win each match (regardless of opponent, mental state, etc) in a 100 game stretch.

7- .006
8-.04
9-.12
10-.25
11-.41
12-.56
13-.69
14-.78
15-.85
16-.90

Having some opponents be better and some worse would increase these numbers, which explains how riverspecialist hit such a low end of the distribution.

[Psy_Mike]

Does that mean that there's a very small chance of a 65% winner losing 7 or LESS games in a row? In other words, it's likely for a 65% winner to lose 7+ games in a row at some point during a 100 stretch? I'm probably reading it wrong!

[TomBrooks]

Theoretically, I think the amount of luck playing HU is the same as with any number of players. Maybe the varience changes though. This question might be better addressed in the Theory Forum however.