Sup guys I would like to start with No-Limit Holdem Heads Up I have a $175,88 Bankroll.
A friend told me that the rake on the $1,50 Heads Up on Pokerstars is not beat able and for the $3,50 SnGs there is my Bankroll to small.
So I was looking around where I could play maybe I have found the $2,25 HU SnGs on Full Tilt. The buy-in is: $2,12 + $0,13
So I must pay ( 0,13 / 2,12 ) *100 = 6,13% rake.
On Pokerstars the rake is: $3,32 + $0,18 (0,18 / 3,32) * 100 = 5,42%
6,13% - 5,42% = 0,71% So I have a difference of 0,71%.
Does it makes sense to play the $2,25 HU SnGs or is it money burning?
And are my 78 buy-ins okay for the Turbos?
hi frog.
if the rake is beatable is highly dependant on your skills. even if you are a complete beginner, i wouldn´t suggest playing 1,50$, because it´s nothing but a donkfest and you won´t learn all that much, because your general opposition is just incredibly bad, which can lead to bad habits on your own part as well.
concerning your roll for 3,50$:
i woulnd´t worry that much about bankrollmanagement while in the micros. first of all, you don´t even know if you are a winning player (no offense intended). a bankrollmanagement only makes sense if you have a positive ROI. if you don´t, you don´t need a bankroll, but a budget.
you have 50 buyins for 3,50, that should be enough under normal circumstances. the important thing in any case though is to be honest with yourself concerning your skills and if they are good enough for the level you are playing.
cheers
s.
Thx, for your reply im still a HU beginner but there was a time where I was playing HU Turbos already.
That was on $0,25 and $0,50 with 20% rake .... My winrate was not so bad but I had no chance vs. the rake.
Would you say its better to start with Reg speed HU or with turbos?
it´s hard to say. i can only speculate on reg speed vs rubos. maybe it´s best you play a couple each and find out what suits you best.
cheers
s.
I'm also a pretty new player message me if you want to study together!
Hi there Frog123
I can testify that the $1.50 HUSNG games on Pokerstars are highly beatable. The rake is just $0.10, or 6.6%, these days which is pretty low. I'd recommend playing a few thousand of these before assessing whether you are ready to move up.
An easy strategy is to play only AJo+ 88+ out of position, but to play all hands for a minraise preflop in position. Avoid "hero calls".
Below is a guide from my first coach on what he called "defensive mode". I think coaching would be a waste of money for you right now, but once you have established a winning pattern at the $1.50 games, you should give it consideration.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defensive Mode
What is defensive mode?
Defensive mode is a style of playing when our opponent holds the momentum and initiative. It is a system of calculating and analysing the important factors in the situation in order to make the highest value EV plays. By following a set system and process it allows us to become more comfortable when faced with tough decisions.
Why is it important?
In almost every poker game you will ever play there will be countless examples where your opponents are betting at you and have you on the back foot. Some of the time you will be trapping with a very big hand, but more often than not you will be faced with some tough decisions. Do you call and run the risk of losing a big pot to a better hand? Or do you fold what might be the best hand and run the risk of being run over?
Having a solid defensive strategy will allow you to learn to make those decisions easier and ultimately feel more comfortable when put under pressure.
There will be times when you will choose to trap or induce bets from your opponent through playing a soft game. Elements of the defensive mode strategy can be applied there as well. Sometimes you may decide your hand is almost certainly good, but still remain in defensive mode for pot control.
Although defensive mode should form a core part of general poker play, this lesson will focus primarily on the defensive decision-making options.
Five Key Questions
We always ask the questions in this order. The reason we do this is that the questions nearer the top of the list are simpler questions with concrete answers. The further down the list we go the more we move into the realms of guesswork and estimation.
Against a weaker opponent we spend less time focussing on the questions at the bottom of the list and use strong positive answers nearer the top of the list to guide our play.
The pot odds should almost always be precisely calculated or estimated. This is because the pot odds are a concrete fact that can be calculated and does not require any guesswork. Therefore it is always important to make this calculation before we make our decision to call/raise/fold. The more times that we calculate the exact pot odds, the better we become at estimating this.
At low-stakes poker, often the pot odds alone (coupled with a basic read of whether our hand is good if we have a pair, or a basic estimation of our percentage to win if we have a draw) will provide enough information to make our decision.
The implied odds will be discussed in more detail later. However, after conducting a calculation of the pot odds it is important to make a rough estimate of the possible implied odds before proceeding. At this stage we are not using any estimation of the opponent’s hand strength or calculating what we expect to get paid.
All we are doing at this stage is a quick review of the blinds/pot/raise size compared to the stack size of ourselves and our opponent.
Generally this review will quickly conclude one of three outcomes:
- Huge implied odds potential
EXAMPLE: Start of 1500 chip heads-up with blinds 10/20 and even stacks and normal pre-flop raise (up to 4/5x)
- Medium implied odds potential
EXAMPLE: Start of 1500 chip heads-up with blinds 10/20 and even stacks. 4x raised pot pre-flop (160 total) and pot-bet on flop (160)
- Small implied odds potential
EXAMPLE: 1500 chip heads-up even stacks, pot 600, flop bet 600.
OR ANY ALL-IN.
WE DO A ROUGH ESTIMATE OF THIS VERY EARLY ON IN OUR CALCULATIONS AS THIS GIVES CONTEXT TO THE HAND – IF THERE IS ONLY A SMALL IMPLIED ODDS POTENTIAL THEN WE MUST RELY MUCH MORE HEAVILY ON THE POT ODDS AND WHETHER OUR HAND IS GOOD NOW.
This is the first question that relies heavily upon our reading ability. This is the first time where we really have to estimate and guess based upon our overall feel for the situation. Sometimes the answer to this question is clear-cut (if we have a draw or the nuts) but far more frequently we are put in a position where we will estimate somewhere between 10 – 90%.
Every player will have their own process for reading their opponent’s hand, and often just as important as this is the feel for the context of the hand in the game we are playing. The opponent’s style and the contextual considerations (such as whether he has just lost a big pot, or folded the previous 5 times etc…) play a big part in our ability to estimate this accurately.
However, we must not forget that although we may deviate from the standard play due to these other considerations and our “feel” for the hand, we must always consider the mathematical probabilities involved – e.g. if we have middle pair the odds our opponent has the top pair are approximately 1 in 9.
So when answering question 3, the two considerations we make are:
EXAMPLE: The board: A 9 6 (rainbow)
Stacks even 1500
We 2x raise on the button pre-flop to 100.
He calls.
On the flop he bets 100 into a 200 pot. We hold K 9.
In this example, following the suggested process, one way of assessing the situation would be:
Any ace, any pocket pair bigger than my 9, 9-6, any set.
The odds my opponent has the top pair are around 10-15%.
The odds my opponent has any pocket pair bigger than a 9 are less than 5%
The odds my opponent has either 9-6 or a set are significantly less than 5%.
Mathematically my hand is good around 75% of the time.
- The opponent called a raise pre-flop, AND he has only done this around 25% of the time.
- The opponent has bet out on the flop, AND based on my read he would not do this without having hit the flop in some way. Since there is only 1 straight draw and the board is rainbow it is likely my opponent has a made hand.
- IF my opponent has a made hand then the chance that my hand is good drops significantly.
- IF my opponent has a made hand, it is very likely to be the ace or a pocket pair bigger than 9, given the first two observations.
OVERALL CALCULATION:
Mathematically my hand is very good, but given the context of the situation I estimate my hand to be good only 25% of the time, possibly less.
Nevertheless, even if my hand is good only 25% of the time now, with 25% pot odds and a reasonably high pot odds potential, I will have already decided to call, even without calculating my outs if my hand is beaten.
***PLEASE NOTE: THIS WOULD BE VERY DIFFERENT HAD MY OPPONENT CALLED MY PRE-FLOP RAISE 100% OF THE TIME AND BET MOST FLOPS: I WOULD THEN RELY MUCH MORE HEAVILY ON THE MATHEMATICAL ADVANTAGE OF MY HAND***
4. If my hand is not good now, how many outs do I have to win, and what percentage do I have to win?
The fourth consideration requires us to delve even deeper into the depths of guesswork. What we are now estimating is our chance to win the pot, even if we may not necessarily have the best hand now. Sometimes this is very easy to calculate (for instance if we have 2 undercards to the board and a flush-draw), but often in order to calculate our overall answer we need to consider our outs dependant on several possibilities for our opponent’s hand.
CONTINUING THE SAME EXAMPLE (with different hold cards):
The board: A 8 9 (rainbow)
The pot on the flop is 100 and our opponent has raised 100 chips into us.
We hold 10 J this time and our stacks are even at 1500 each.
In this example we cannot simply assume we have 8 outs for our open ended straight draw. The reason is that we have varied outs depending upon the strength of our opponent’s hand.
If our opponent has an ace, then we have 8 outs for our straight, which equates to around 32% to win.
If our opponent has an 8 or a 9, then we have 14 outs (assuming the 10 and jack are both live), which equates to over 50% to win.
WE CAN ONLY DISREGARD THE SECOND FIGURE IF WE ARE CERTAIN OUR OPPONENT HAS AN ACE OR BETTER.
Usually we come to a balance somewhere in between – for example, one conclusion we may draw would be:
If our opponent has an ace, we have 32% to win, if he has an 8 or 9, we have 50% to win. However, it is much more likely our opponent has an ace than an 8 or 9 based upon the context of the hand and our knowledge of the opponent, so we would lean more towards the conservative figure of around 35% to win.
N.B. – if this opponent was loose aggressive we would not only lean more towards the 50% figure, but we would also estimate our chances of having the best hand right now to be significant (above 10%) as there are 2 other straight draws we can beat and there is also the possibility that our opponent is bluffing entirely.
5. What implied odds are likely?
This is the final question we ask when assessing our options whilst on the defensive. This question is posed last as it is the most inaccurate and complicated question to answer with any certainty.
By this stage of the decision making process we have already estimated the rough implied odds. By doing this we have a rough idea of the potential to get paid if we hit our draw, or the potential to lose more money if our made hand is not good. We should also have considered the possible hands our opponent could have and our chance to win against each one.
In this stage we need to apply the implied odds to the most likely hands our opponent could have.
CONTINUING THE SAME EXAMPLE:
The board: A 8 9 (rainbow)
The pot on the flop is 100 and our opponent has raised 100 chips into us.
We hold 10 J this time and our stacks are even at 1500 each.
In this example the key analysis would revolve around the fact that the implied odds are superb if my opponent holds an ace. The pot is only small and any low stakes opponent will have difficulty letting go of the top pair if I make my straight. The other consideration at this point is the type and level of our opponent – when playing a calling station the implied odds are always much better than against a tight opponent.
This section will not delve too deep into the implied odds. The reason for this is that this is high-level poker which has only a small place in a winning low-stakes strategy. By being aware of the general implied odds and by examining the possibilities for what our opponent could hold we automatically acquire a general overview of our ability to get paid off if we hit one of our outs.
Final Word
Beginners will be unable to do any kind of calculations like this during play, and some veterans will still only be able to process the most basic of odds in the scenario given. Whilst it is relatively simple to work out the odds of hitting the straight draw, it is much harder to work out the variable odds depending upon what cards our opponent holds.
Once this has been done an overall estimate of the strength of the hand can be calculated. The pot odds, context of the hand, implied odds and read of our opponent will also need to be factored in. There is a lot of information to process in a short period of time, and this is not easy. The only solution is to practice. Even if you already know you what decision you are going to make – practice working out the pot odds, or the outs and percentage to win if your opponent has different hands.
Through a process of active learning and repetition, you will eventually be able to process and collate all the pieces of the puzzle subconsciously, allowing you to focus more on observing your opponent’s patterns and behaviour, and raising your game to a higher level. For low stakes games though, simply operating to these general rules when you are on the defensive will give you a big edge.
6.6% rake in a husng is pretty awful.
AJ+, 88+ is 6.8% of hands => this is an incredibly exploitable strategy OOP range.
Yes, the rake is high, but the opponents are terrible. With regards your second point, few players will be clued-up enough to exploit this at the $1.50 stakes, and will spew chips liberally OOP.