Hi guys, I just signed up here because I've been playing a lot of HUSNGs in the last month and I like the game and it's flow more and more. I only have one problem: I'm afraid that I'm not a winner at this moment. I started with a BR of $500 and there's only $418 left at this moment, after playing 125x $23 turbo. Maybe I'm a breakeven player, I win some, I loose some, never been lower than -5BI and never been higher than +5BI, but I love to get a sharkscope graph starting in the left lower corner and ending in the right upper corner :) I hope this place can help me in that direction.First thing to manage is deciding which stakes I need to play. I want to play the turbos, should I just stick to the $23 with $350 as my cutoff to move back in stakes, or should I start lower until my roll has grown a little? This is more or less what I have, it's not possible to deposit more.Secondly, where to start? I've been playing all kind of types of Hold'em, MTT, STT, 6max, 9/10max and now HUSNG. Never been a real winning player, but with low volume (25k hands/month at cash or 500 STT a month) I managed to survive. I've been reading a number of blogs of winning players and a lot of the guys I play against at the $23 also made some serious money. This is not a goal, but it would be nice to have some extra income to buy a (small) present for my children every now and then. It would be great to be a winning player some day! But, I like to play in the first place (and that's why I continued with it in the last 8 years or so). So again, where to start? Is there a kind of sequence in the vids, how did you guys start?To be honest, I have some difficulties with watching vids. When I'm back from work, I normally just open PStars and start clicking. I know I should invest more, but it's difficult to keep focus and not falling back in old habits. Any tips?Finally, as you probably can read, I'm not a native speaker. I'm from The Netherlands and I hope you can understand my English. Thanks in advance, I appreciate it!
Hello and welcome.I'll let some members go into depth on what they think you should do and how to utilize this site, but here are some tips I'd recommend:- Play a bit lower. Your $350 roll, particularly if you're a slight winner or breakeven/losing is too small and has too much risk of going broke to play the $23s. I'd move down to the $11s, and if you drop into the mid $200s with your roll move down to the $6s. It's easy to move up once you're doing well and have full confidence in your skills.- Start with basic videos. PrimordialAA's heads up sng from scratch series is often recommended by users here as a good place to start and learn the fundamentals and basics of the game. Cog Dissonance videos are often recommended, specifically for identifying player types and adjusting to them. Fydor's videos are often geared towards low to mid stakes players (specifically low stakes), so some of his more recent leakfinders that are highly rated and specifically review games from players at the $5-22 level should be your first choice from him. And finally, I'd recommend taking a look at HokieGreg's videos, probably from start to finish (he has some available to standard members), he always has a very clear explanation of his play and always had a very solid fundamental base.- You can most easily search for videos using our recently updated Master Video List and filter by coach (and easily see if a video is standard or premium membership access).- I don't mean to leave out ITRIED2WARNU, xSCWx, Croixdawg and Skates (Mersenneary has one video for standard members, you should also watch that at some point), they are some of our very best coaches here. However, some of their videos may be too advanced or require too much focus/review/time for it to be ideal to start out with. Further, the other instructors I mentioned should give you plenty of content to start off watching, and go ahead and stick with the instructors you find suit you best.- http://www.husng.com/content/mulitiaxs-beginners-video-guide That is a beginner's guide written by a member and mentions some specific videos to watch.- Play a lot. Volume is very important, especially when starting out. If you're concerned you'll lose money, it likely means you need to move down until you're not concerned with dropping 5 buyins on a bad day, or even 10 buyins on a very bad day. Play a lot, watching videos alone will not likely help you, you want to watch videos and then play a lot of games, then watch another video or two, take some concepts out of those videos and play even more!Best of luck with everything.
Hi rjwg. I started playing HU SNGs seriously about two months ago after I joined this site. I've been playing poker for over half my income for most years since 1996. I've honestly never gotten as good as should have, because I spent much of the last six to seven years mass tabling full ring SNGs and cash games. Before that time, I devoured every poker book in print, but books are NOTHING compared to what you can learn from these videos.As Ryan says, it's best to start at lower stakes. Though my bankroll was very large, I actually started down at $2.20s,which others don't recommend because the rake is so high. But I just felt like going through all the stakes levels. I progressed to $5.25s, then $10.50s, and have recently converted to turbos at the $11.50 stake level. My current bankroll is effectively $6000, but a portion of that is living expenses.Part of the reason I started so low (in $2.20s) was to give myself a challenge of requiring myself to earn enough of a bankroll before advancing to the next level. So really, I'm not depending on my previously built bankroll.The videos are extremely important, and I have learned more about poker during these last two months than the ENTIRE previous seven years. Whatever you learn about HU SNGs will transfer well to every other holdem game you play.Here are my current video recommendations, and I will be refining this list soon:PrimordialA1HU sng from Scratch Pt.1 A2HU sng from Scratch Pt.2 A5Heads Up SNG From Scratch (Int.) Pt.1 A6Heads Up SNG From Scratch (Int.) Pt.2 A7Reinforcing Fundamentals Fydor Fydor_8 Leakfinder 10/16/10 Cog17Adjusting to tight players 41Postflop play: adjusting your cbetting according to opponent types. Rypac9Introduction to the Endgame Fydor11End Game Video mjw20061Beating the Midstakes Heads Up SNGs Pt. 1: Fundamentals Sorry about the formatting...I believe these Primordial videos are still the best to start with.Fydor has the most straightforward style. Nearly all his videos are very easy to watch and teach very solid ABC poker, which is a necessary foundation.These two Cog Dissonance videos are jam packed with information and can be difficult to watch and understand, but the material is solid gold. Be SURE to pause, rewind, and take notes or you'll never remember it all!Rypac and Fydor combine to form an excellent introduction to the endgames.Finally, mjw's video is among the best on the site for newer players.****When watching these videos, TAKE NOTES! The casual viewer will not possibly remember all of this stuff. Take notes, rewind, rewind again, take more notes, until you have detailed notes on everything that you did not know before watching the videos. It's by far the best way to learn.
I know you want to make bank, so starting off at the lower stakes seems less appealing. But you will be playing against worse opponents, which will help your confidence, and allow you to gain valuable experience establishing the fundamentals while limiting the affects of variance (worse players, variance won't be as bad in relation to your bankroll). So like Qattack said, starting off at the 5's or 10's (they play the same really) would be my suggestion. Also, mix in some reg speeds as well - they are less variance and you get more hands in to develop reads and get a feel for the game.One last thing - don't just watch the video's, take advantage of the access you have to the coaches - replying to videos, posting HH's, and asking general questions.GL!
Hi guys, thanks for your answers. Appreciate it very much. Following your recommendations, I will move down and start playing at the 11.50s for now. I'm in doubt about playing the regulars instead of turbos as suggested. With an avarage duration of less than 10mins I can play 10-15 turbos in a night, while with the regulars this will only be 3-4 or so. Isn't it true that playing against more different players with their own unique styles is better than playing more hands vs. the same player?For now, I will start watching the Primordial vids, and continue with the rest of the lists. I hope to see some eye openers soon, don't know what's realistic when it comes to seeing an effect in gameplay and winrate? For instance @qattack, are you a solid winner now after 2 months of focussing?Do you guys like to read some daily/weekly updates with results in this topic, or isn't this community that result-oriented?
Updates are fine, you can update in this thread or even start your own blog.The community has been growing and I expect it will continue to grow into 2011.As for regular vs turbo: Regular speeds probably have the advantage of being able to develop more precise reads on your opponent since the matches take longer, therefore allowing you a larger potential edge. The drawback, as you mention, is less games per hour.We have members here that start in both the turbo and regular speeds on FTP, I don't think choosing one over the other will be a major hurdle to your overall growth. I personally switched between two structures often when I started and I don't think it really negatively impacted me in any realistic way.
I played regulars up until about a week ago. Unfortunately, I got somewhat impatient, and that is the big reason I switched to turbos. LOL.I don't think it's as important to play so many different styles of opponents as is it to really pay attention to those you do play. I mean if you play 7 regular speeds against various opponents, it's roughly the same as playing 10 turbos as far as getting experience with various styles.I think the primary difference is that in regular speeds, until you get to higher stakes (higher being maybe $20s or $30s...), the games are unlikely to go past the 25/50 blind levels. In my opinion, this is best: you can focus on deeper-stacked play more until you develop an extremely solid deeper-stacked game. I think it's best to concentrate on the early game first.I would not yet consider myself a "solid" player, but I am extremely happy with how much I've learned over the last two months.One thing I will warn you about: when you are adopting a different style, your winrate will go down for a while. Before this, I played a weak-tight strategy. I actually did pretty well with it in HU SNGs, but there was no room for improvement. Playing this more aggressive style put me into a ton of situations where I was very lost, and it's taken a lot of learning to get used to some of those situations. Because I get into many trickier situations, I can learn about them and stomp my opponents who know less about them, whereas I never put them into tricky situations before.
Hi, I hope you don't mind me "hijacking" this threat but I didn't want to clutter the website up with "I'm new" posts.I'm also new"ish" player to the HU SNGS. To be fair, I'm dreadful (and I suffer from awful tilting.), but there's always room to improve and I hope I can do so using this site.Thank for Qattack for assembling a list of videos for people such as myself.