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bryce and gw,
what do you think of this quote from DD?
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The key to achieving a high hourly winrate with low risk of ruin at HU limit hold'em is 98% game selection and 2% skill at poker.
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http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...age=0&vc=1
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That's sort of a silly statement. The best way to reduce variance in any form of poker is to jam your winrate through the roof. Your winrate is always going to describe a relationship between yourself and your opponents, so you can increase it by being extremely picky about who you play or by improving your own play to the point that it's that much better than your oppositions', or both.
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Notice I never said the word "variance" intentionally, so as not to sidetrack my point. We seem to be saying the same thing but only disagree on one point, you seem to say a winrate is something you control ("jam it through the roof"), and I'm saying winrate is something that
occurs when you do other things right.
How is someone who isn't good at HU LHE supposed to "jam their winrate through the roof". Let's take a hypothetical player, Bob. Bob is a mediocre HU player, he knows to be aggressive preflop and postflop, perhaps he follows the very simple strategic outlined in the thread my quotation comes from. Now, if Bob's ambition is to have "a high hourly winrate with a low risk of ruin" as I put it, or "jam his winrate through the roof to reduce his variance" as you put it, what is the most efficient way he can do that?
You say he can be picky about who he plays or he can improve his own play, but the former option is a thousand times easier to do, and will have a bigger overall result than the latter option
if his goal is to "achieve a high hourly winrate with a low risk of ruin" . I guess you can argue with me about what a high hourly truly is, and clearly Bob isn't going to just jump to your levels, but he can easily make over 100 an hour in low stakes HU games by following my simple advice.
I believe my edge over the big fish in HU LHE is probably 10 bb/100, maybe a bit more. When you're playing these sick 1k/2k games, what do you think your winrate is against the guys you play? You are a great HU player but in my opinion if you played any winning regular at 5/10 HU or above on Full Tilt you wouldn't beat them for 10 bb/100 long term. That's not a criticism of you at all, its just a statement about the luck involved in HU when two players of a decent level of competency play. Bob should clearly work to be a better HU player and improve his skill, but if he wants to do well, all he really needs to do is play people way worse than him. That's all I was trying to say and I hope I've expanded enough to remove any doubt that my statement was "silly" in the context it was given.
-DeathDonkey