HU SnG's

[Hoop Addict]

I've recently started playing HU SnG's semi-regularly. I've played a mix of $10, $20 & $30 SnG's. Obv, I have a particularly small sample size at the moment (~100), so I have no idea where I really stand in these.

Anyhow, I had a pretty mad rush last night & won 11 straight. Of course, I promptly lost my next 3.

Which got me to thinking, has anyone had a ridiculously long streak of winning HU SnG's? So I thought I'd throw a poll together to see everyone's responses.

[ChicagoRy]

Out of last 100 games I've had winning streaks of 6 and 8 and 3 losing streaks of 5, ouch. Was running pretty bad early on and I'm slightly up in my last 100.

The losing streaks seem to come when I lose a lot of big hands where I'm at a slight advantage, and the winning streaks seem to come when I haven't gotten sucked out on in a longer than usual amount of time.

I don't feel my effort changes all that much or all that often to where it is really causing either of these types of streaks.

Edit: Make that 2 streaks of 5 losses and one of 4 losses, miscounted.

[APXG]

I would think its purely a factor of your ROI, and perhaps if you tend to play poorly a lot(which would be reflected in ROI). Lately I've been playing against way too many good players, and barely broke even for the past 20 games or so, which is pretty bad. Normally, I don't see myself losing more than 3-4 games in a row unless I'm exclusively playing pros, against whom you could easily lose 10 if you're edge is capped at 55-45 and at times negative w/o A-game

[WutRUTryin2Hit]

I think it can be counter-productive to worry too much about streaks. Worry more about everything else: how you are playing, and what goes into that. Streaks could be useful if it makes you look at how you are playing because you go "hm, I never lost 10 in a row before but now I have" or "wow I'm winning a lot, is there a reason?". Otherwise as APXG said, they're going to be a function of your ROI: The better you are, the less losing streaks you will have. They are also related to how many games you play, I'm sure I've played so many HUs that I've had much worse/better streaks than someone who has only played a few hundred, a lot of streaks are just variance.

My advice: don't start playing bad cause you noticed a bad streak.

[Dromar]

[ QUOTE ]
I think it can be counter-productive to worry too much about streaks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agree. The toughest part of improving as a HU player for me was not to get steamed if I lost three in a row or something. Big deal. It's very easy to lose three in a row, just like it's very easy to win 3 in a row, etc.

Anyway, here's my info:

In 2006 I played ~730 $10.5 NL HU matches.
My longest win streak was 9
My longest lose streak was 8
(Though I could have sworn they were both longer).
Most wins of 20 consecutive games: 17
Most losses of 20 consecutive games: 14 (bad times).

I'll throw in my excel graph to show how bumpy a ride it is:

[Hoop Addict]

Cheers for the advice guys. As I said, my sample size is so small it'd be stupid to draw any conclusion as to wheere I'm at as a HU player, but winning 11 straight just made me think of whether others had even more crazy winning/losing streaks.

I don't know how many of these you'd need to play to determine whether you're a real winner or loser in this game, but I'm thinking roughly 1000 (maybe 500?).

To beat the 5% rake you need to run at 53/100, and to make it decently profitable, you'd need to be at more like 58-60/100. I'm not sure if that win rate is possible?

I'm ahead at the moment, and my $/hour is ~$16, per table. And since I generally play two at a time, that's not too bad at the stakes I'm playing! As mentioned, I'll have to wait & see if that's sustainable, though I think it's likely not to be.

[Dromar]

[ QUOTE ]

To beat the 5% rake you need to run at 53/100, and to make it decently profitable, you'd need to be at more like 58-60/100. I'm not sure if that win rate is possible?


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, it's sustainable. Toward the end of last year I was at around 64% over the last few hundred. Even that out with my first few hundred at 55% (since I got way better after playing for a while), and I averaged somewhere around 60%. It's doable if you study and practice. And whatever you do, don't move up in stakes after a losing streak to "get even." I did that three times before I realized all I was doing was risking more money when I'm not thinking clearly.

[Hoop Addict]

Good advice. I generally work in reverse (IE - if I've won a few in a row, I might take a stab or two at a higher level). Even though I'm probably rolled for more, I'm most comfortable with the $10 & $20's with the occasional shot at a $30. I'm fairly inexperienced HU, but feel like I've improved even since I started playing these just a couple of weeks back.

The main motive was so that I can improve my late game close-outs since the pay difference from, say, 4th to 1st is always steep.

[Dromar]

[ QUOTE ]

The main motive was so that I can improve my late game close-outs since the pay difference from, say, 4th to 1st is always steep.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's actually why I started as well. I noticed lots of 2nds and 3rds, etc. in my records, and not many 1sts, so I started playing some HU to get more comfortable with the endgame. Then I realized that I enjoyed HU more than any other games, so I stuck with it for quite a while.

[FeNeF]

[ QUOTE ]
Cheers for the advice guys. As I said, my sample size is so small it'd be stupid to draw any conclusion as to wheere I'm at as a HU player, but winning 11 straight just made me think of whether others had even more crazy winning/losing streaks.

I don't know how many of these you'd need to play to determine whether you're a real winner or loser in this game, but I'm thinking roughly 1000 (maybe 500?).

To beat the 5% rake you need to run at 53/100, and to make it decently profitable, you'd need to be at more like 58-60/100. I'm not sure if that win rate is possible?

I'm ahead at the moment, and my $/hour is ~$16, per table. And since I generally play two at a time, that's not too bad at the stakes I'm playing! As mentioned, I'll have to wait & see if that's sustainable, though I think it's likely not to be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, 100 HU SNGs is getting to be the sort of sample size that you can trust somewhat. They are very low variance compared to 9-man SNGs, and indeed just about every other type of poker [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Certainly 60% and more is sustainable. You seem to be doing pretty well, keep it up!