I always got in trouble playing hands like 107 in 6max the the natural thing to do was go play a game where it is okay to play those kinds of hands. I also believe it has helped my overall poker game, obviously the dynamics are different than in 6max but you have to make a ton more decisions which has really helped. I also like to mix in some HU cash and while the deepest I ever play in sngs is 75bb and you get 200bb deep in cash pretty quickly some of the skills I have learned from playing and vids on this site have helped my HU cash game.

Why play>Less variance than 9man sngs...so you can do it with a small bankroll.  HU cash's smallest games are 50nl.Great learning tool to learn poker in general.  Played online for years without really being able to identify player types and their ranges and how to play/manipulate them.Very interesting form of poker.  Fan of Rounders and that was a HUSNG.  Same for Cincinnati Kid.HUSNG is a great site.  Great teachers and formats.  Right up there with DC and Cardrunners.HUSNGs are a fast format of poker that you can play session of less than an hour or for hours on end.  Easier to get game than HU cash.  Look at how many people are sitting at a table bum hunting.Great potential for a profitable hobby/small business level hourly rate.  I define that as ~$20/hour.Don't have to be able to mass multitable it like ring cash games.  Also if you have to play on a laptop it is best game on that.Did I mention it is really fun?  I come from a chess background  and it is the most like that. 

- It's generally correct to play more hands in heads up poker than any other form of poker.- Playing more hands postflop allows you to build postflop skills at a faster pace, especially aggression oriented skills which in most forms of no limit are the most valuable to learn.- You learn a lot about exploiting a single opponent and the adjustments that go into that.Now cash and sng heads up poker both qualify for the three above comments, but here are some advantages to husng play that cash doesn't have:- More action.  You can get a game going in husng any time, day or night on most sites.  You often have to wait in cash, particularly at the mid and high stakes.- Lower starting point.  Ever play 10NL heads up cash?  I'm not sure it exists, and even if it did it's likely highly raked.  You can play a $5 husng with 5% rake, the same percentage of rake that you pay in the $50 games.  This allows players to build from the ground up and make their major mistakes at a lower level, losing less money to stronger opponents initially.- Cross playing.  If you get good at husng you can play hu cash profitably.  No, maybe not 200bb deep necessarily (though for the best players they can), but if you're really good at husngs you can play 100bb or less relatively seemlessly.  A lot of the spots are the same and you actually have an added advantage if you're good in the short to mid stacks, as hu cash players are notoriously poor 20-40bb players.  On the other hand, while hu cash players often do extremely well in the deeper blinds when transitioning to husng, you often hear things such as "why am I not winning?  These players are horrible" shortly after they enter husngs.  This is because they have not developed strong end games.  Usually a few hours with a competent hu cash player focusing on end game strategies with a coach is all they need to turn into solid regular type winners in the game.  However, most people don't get this coaching because they feel they are outplaying their opponents.  It leads to poor results in husngs or the quitting of husngs in general due to "horrible variance luckbox opponents."In the end, while I point out all these positives to playing husng, by no means do I believe it is the best form of poker for everybody.  Your talents may lie more naturally in other areas, or your weaknesses may align poorly for playing heads up poker.

because HU is the funnest form of poker and finding a HU cash game is an infuriating process

No, before I played husngs I had little poker experience. After watching a few videos from husng players, I started at the $2 level and began winning almost immediately. I think husngs are the most profitable form for building a roll at the low stakes (<$50 buyin) by far.

I lost a good portion of my roll moving up to 100NL 6-max and figured that my postflop skills (as well as tilt issues) needed more work. Since most 6-max pots are HU and I didn't want to jump into HU cash at 50NL, HUSNGs were a natural starting place. I slowly moved up from the $5.25 games to my current stake of $105. My ability and mental tolerance for variance increased significantly.I still play 100NL 6-max occasionally but HUSNGs are my preferred format because they're more convenient. Going to college and having little time makes it tough for me to sit down for the long sessions that cash games usually require to exploit your edge and develop reads. I also didn't fancy having to buy hands from PTR or data mine a long time with HEM or PT. For HUSNGs, games are self-contained and are never really going to take more than half an hour.Lastly, they're more fun and creative (at least most of the time... Button vs Blind wars are pretty interesting in 6-max too) since ranges are wider and the structure evolves. Unlike in 6-max cash where a bunch of slightly winning regs just played like total nits, you have to mix things up in HUSNGs or the blinds will eat you.BTW: I also thought it would help me deal with the increasingly common short-stacks infecting cash games.

If someone asked me the best way to become a good poker player I would have to say start with HUSNG above anyother.  You just able to concentrate and learn all the aspects of holdem so much faster here.  Besides like someone said above when you get right down to it all poker is headsup.

I moved from 6-max NL to HU Cash to HU SnG's.  Two years ago, I used to be a good winning 6-max player at 100NL / 200NL but blew my entire bankroll with crazy 400NL shots, downswings and tilt, so I looked for a new beginning.First, I tried HU Cash because I've watched a lot of these videos at Deucescracked and it's just so increadibly cool to see what people like Krantz are doing.  However, I soon realized that what you see in these videos is not the reality at small stakes.  Over the next couple of months, HU Cash just frustrated me more and more.There were basically two main player types at the lower stakes (20NL and 50NL): the callingstation who quits you immediately after taking a buy-in off you, and the super nit who keeps playing but is just very frustrating to deal with.  And it was very hard to get action.  Whenever I played, there were way more regs than fish and with the regs, it was always the same: it happened to me many time that someone played me for some 25-30 hands then sat out and typed something like "sorry, looked you up on TR and thought you were a fish" into the chat and left.  In many sessions, I spent more time trying to find an opponent than actually playing.I've also experienced the same problem with fish, they othen thought they could quickly double up against me, and when they didn't like my style they just quit.This is what I like so much about HU SnG's - whenever some fish sits me at a $50, thinking he can quickly double up, he's stuck with me throughout that match whether he likes it or not - and it's me who controls the match, not him.Another aspekt of HU SnG's is that you can also play against some stronger players for an entire match, which is a very important concept of learning.  I'm currently playing the $55's on Stars and about once a week, I intentionally sit a very strong player and fully concentrate on how to beat him.Regarding the learning curve, IMO the most important thing is discipline and focusing on your opponent.  I did so much tilting and auto-piloting in the past, and my result got decent just recently when I started to play much shorter sessions and paying much more attention on my opponents.

I think browsing through the sharkscope leaderboard demonstrates why HUSNGs are worth playing; consistently they have always outperformed other SNGs in terms of profit potential.  I enjoy MTTs the most but in terms of getting a stable extra income HUSNGs are hard to beat; not to mention how useful the skills are when you do hit a final table.