Why You Shouldnt Play HUSNG with 20 Buyins

[tmcdmck]

I also reached the 100 level using the 10buy in rule. just ran like crap though and am back down to the 50s, but yeah :P

[RyanJM]

Sorry maybe I should have rephrased what I consider "successfully." Someone using the 10-buyin and STAYING at that level or above. Not just running up a roll on a short heater and then going busto or cashing out and back down to the $20's. The goal is to get to a level you can comfortably beat, and make a lot of money, right? I mean, it doesn't take a ton of skill to amass a $1k bankroll and play a few $100 sngs, but it does to continue to make money at that level and increase your roll even more.

I think what ChicagoRy said has some merit--if you have a lot of money outside of poker this would be a lot easier to do. When the money actually means something to you...not so much.

[TNixon]

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Someone using the 10-buyin and STAYING at that level or above.

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I consider your definition of "successfully" a little bit skewed if you're excluding drops due to cashing out, or losing money at games other than what it was built with.

Sharkscope currently shows me with about $6400 profit from heads-up SNGs, and that includes a huge evil-nasty downswing about a month and a half ago for about $3500 of what my max was.

I have had to build up from next to nothing multiple times (and I've done that every time using a 10 buyin rule up through $100s, with the exception of the most recent one, where I had 15 buyins before I moved up to $50s, and I'll probably wait for 13 buyins before sitting first at $100s, but fully plan to table select $100s until then.

Personally, I believe that qualifies as being "successful" at HUSNGS. I've just sucked really really badly at a lot of other things.

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I guess the next step is to say that you really meant that "successfully" means building up to a bankroll of $10k?

[RyanJM]

Haha, I guess I should add a laundry list of conditions to when/if the 10 buy-in rule is ever useful. Suffice to say in my opinion it doesn't apply to the vast majority of people coming up the ranks, moving up in buy-in level for the first time, who actually value the money they earn. Using the 10 buy-in rule I would be playing at limits way above my head, and I wouldn't be psychologically ready to withstand a losing streak, not even to say anything about whether my game is ready for those stakes or not.

And I stand by my definition of successful. If you have to keep dropping levels, for whatever reason, you haven't made it yet. I guess my definition of success is a bit skewed because I have high goals. But I just think it's better to have a solid foundation that can withstand stormy weather and stay in one piece. If you have to rebuild and grind low limits where you won't make as much profit as you should/could be then it's just a waste of time.

[Dromar]

Nice article. It touches on some aspects of poker that are rarely discussed.

[TNixon]

*shrug*

Outside of normal up-n-down while on the border between two levels, I haven't had to drop limits solely because I had a bad run at the non-turbo HUSNGS I was building on, and didn't have the roll to sustain it because I was playing too shallow. I've had to drop because I switched to something else and lost big, or because I cashed out a bunch, in combination with a bad run. If I never played anything else other than regular HUSNGs, and never cashed out anything, I wouldn't have ever had to rebuild at all, and would probably be playing $100-$200s regularly, and table selecting 500s.

But based on your rather strange criteria, you're right. I guess I haven't "successfully" built a roll using a 10 buyin rule, even though as far as I'm concerned, I have done just that, multiple times, and then squandered that roll playing games other than the non-turbo HUSNGs that I built most of it on.

And that includes the *first* time, where I started with $20 and practically zero HUSNG experience, and built it up to 3.5k almost exclusively on HUSNGs, with the occasional 9 man SNG thrown in. Hell, the very fact that I was able to statistically prove to myself that I *could* play HUSNGs with only 10 buyins, while having a very low risk of ruin once I made it past the $2 tourneys, is what convinced me to focus on HUSNGs in the first place.

During that $3.5k buildup, I also played a LOT of other types of games at limits that I really had no business playing. Basically, my HU winnings were funding very expensive gambling habits, just as if I were taking my poker winnings to the craps tables, and eventually it all caught up with me. And that buildup was actually more like 8.5k, if you just go by the sharkscope graph, which should give you an idea of just *how much* money I was dumping elsewhere. I disgust myself just thinking about it.

But ending busto after that was because my management *outside* of HUSNGs was poor, not because it's not possible to "successfully" build a roll playing 10 buyins, and that's been the case every time I've basically started over from scratch.

I guess I must be special if it can work for me, but not for the "vast majority" of people.

Whatever. I'm where I'm at now in the most recent rebuilding run because I was willing to play my bankroll aggressively. If I had waited for 20 (or, god forbid, 30!) buyins, I'd almost certainly have quite a bit less than half of what my current bankroll is, and be just barely thinking about maybe moving up to $30s, rather than being solidly in $50s (with slightly over 20 buyins), and thinking of taking shots at $100s very soon. Which is my whole point in the first place. You just pass up SOOO MUCH potential value by waiting too long to move up. And yes, if you get to a level outside your comfort zone, then you pull back, because playing outside your comfort zone or confidence level is a sure recipe for disaster. The first couple times, I pulled back pretty significantly when I could have been playing $100s, and played mostly $50s while table selecting $100s. This last time, I pulled back a little bit at $50s, partially because the past month and a half have shown me just how utterly cruel the poker gods can really be, and partially because I won so many in a row in one session while 3-tabling, that I overshot my target.

But you should be pulling back for those psychological reasons, not because building on 10 buyins can't work, and playing outside of your actual skill level is a self-correcting problem, as long as you don't try to "fudge" the rules, and move down when you're supposed to. (and come to think of it, a couple of my larger drops were due to a bit of fudging the rules against people who I *knew* were easy money, and I ended up feeling like a complete moron every time they beat me anyway)

It definitely can work, though. And although you seem to disagree with my "proof", I have proved it, at least to myself, multiple times. No, it's not for everybody, but other than above-average intelligence (which is something *every* winning poker player has, and that a lot of losing players have as well), there just really isn't anything special about me. I'm not an excellent player (I'm at least decent, obviously, but not that great), I'm not obscenely lucky (in fact, friends that watch me play are quite often disgusted about how often I get insanely *unlucky*), nor am I exceptionally stable or un-tiltable (hell, just look at how many times I've tilted at jay_shark in this forum, and there's not even any money involved there).

And if somebody had enough common sense to not make the monster mistakes that I've made, causing me to start over from scratch 4 or 5 times, it could work *really well*.

I guess the horse is long dead though. G'night. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[LordMushroom2]

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The probability you are down exactly 7 buy-ins in 100 hands is 0 . You cannot be down an odd number of buy-ins after playing an even number of matches .

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Yes, you can if the fee is just right.

[jay_shark]

[ QUOTE ]
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The probability you are down exactly 7 buy-ins in 100 hands is 0 . You cannot be down an odd number of buy-ins after playing an even number of matches .

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Yes, you can if the fee is just right.

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True , but I was neglecting the rake . It's significantly more complicated to calculate the exact risk of busting when you include the rake .

If you play in the $105 games but now you find yourself with less than $105 , are you considered broke ?

[TNixon]

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True , but I was neglecting the rake . It's significantly more complicated to calculate the exact risk of busting when you include the rake .

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Well, there were 3 intermingling scenarios being talked about, only one of which actually involved specifically 100 games. For that scenario, 100 was a perfectly valid number, but even that 100 was a number plucked out of thin air, very easily changed to 99 or 101, which would actually have given a much closer result to the original intent than changing the length of the streak from 7 to 6 did.

If you're going to pick nits, it's only fair to be nitpicked back.

I didn't actually think it was worth the effort to point out how pedantic you were being, but now that somebody else has, I find myself completely incapable of resisting the chance to throw out a little extra supporting needle.

[snorer]

i know i have a reputation on this board for being an a-hole and all, and i don't really want to further that opinion anymore, but i need to say this...

the amount of bad advice being spouted off on this forum is pretty crazy. and normally that's good for the game but it's kind of sad when people that are having trouble beating $50 hu sng's and lower get suckered into paying money for coaching to people that don't even know what they're talking about.

being over-rolled is nice and all because with that comes a comfortability as far as making plays, not letting short term variance affect your mood, etc. but on the flipside you're giving up massive amounts of equity by staying at lower stakes if you can a) beat a higher level and b) are realistically properly rolled for it. 50 buy-ins and higher is just absolutely ridiculous if you have aspirations to play higher stakes hu sng's.

eventually you will reach a peak where you can no longer beat the average competition at a certain stake, and from then on it doesn't really matter how big your bankroll is because you've reached your plateau. but this idea that you should be overly rolled to play $10 $20 $50 even $100 hu sng's just comes from the notion that with the higher the stake, the better the players... which is just complete foolishness when it comes to hu sng's. there really isn't much difference in skill along the lines regardless of what some would have you believe. a lot of you are probably way better than plenty of the people i play regularly, and this is coming from someone who plays $500's.

if you're going to be a "pro" or otherwise take this game seriously you should already be capable of keeping your composure when you lose. that's a no brainer. you can't justify refusing to make what is a mathematically and realistically correct decision with your bankroll management by telling yourself "that will hurt me emotionally too much if i lose" or "i won't be able to play right after that". if you are that psychologically vulnerable i can tell you right now, go into another form of poker because you're never going to be able to deal with what comes with playing hu sng's steadily. truth be told most people in these play extremely bad and the #1 key component to success is discipline. if you can't keep control of yourself right from the get-go, how many buy-ins you have should be the least of your worries.