I think you have to be versatile myself...
Cash MTT SNG most skills are transferable.
 
I think volume wise there pretty good and theres always going to be new players jumping up stakes trying to win cash back etc, and theres no saying you cant be better than the top level regs so its just a case of give it your best.
BUT i still think if you use correct BRM and can handle the volume MTT's give you many different skill levels and many edges you can push etc.

Hey there, replying to your points below:
Cliffs on my reply:
- Edges are great, showing no signs of becoming worse.
- The game is far more complex than a lot of the fear type posts (not just in hypers, but about all poker games) make it out to be.
- HUSNG Hypers (along with PLO, MTTs and to a lesser extent 6 max hypers) are great games to start up today.
- It's not really about looking at the per game edge, it's about your hourly rate... and if edges are not going down than hourly rate should remain similar and hourly rate is very high currently.
"But, here is my question. Do you really think that its worth starting the HU-Hypers, still in the early 2014s? Dont you think that because of the small and margin skill edges this game might be solved soon? I read an interesting article from a guy playing the 60s http://triplemerge.com/?p=98"
I really do think hypers are still a great game to learn. In fact, one of the best (along with PLO, MTT and the most popular Rush formats perhaps). There's nothing in that article about the games being solved in in danger of being solved. In fact, ROIs have been mostly 2-3% for good regs ever since these games came out several years ago. And profit from winners as a whole has gone up each year in them. It can be easy to get paranoid because per game edges are so low. But per game edges mean very little compared to hourly profit, and the hourly profit in hypers far surpasses most games at the same stakes. If we were seeing edges go down from 3% to 1.5% then I would start to get worried, but evidence suggests edges are not going down.
"He made some reasonable examples why its not a game for the future to learn, as all the regs already sitting in the lobby, avoiding almost every other player, only filtering fish with sharky. Of course, table selection is key to every game, but if players become beter and better in a game, where 2-3% ROI is already a good achievement, how can it be still profitable? Everybody studying this game, watching your videos will most likely playing the same ways and styles."
All the regs do this in every game really. In HUSNG they make more money because they are able to target the fish a little bit more currently. The fact that no regs play each other is really a point towards how good the games are. If there weren't enough fish, the better regs would really have to work to beat the weaker regs for 1-2% ROI (which is still $25-50 per hour at the $100 level before FPP value AND you get the bonus of chasing a weaker player out of the buyin level you're playing).
People also are not playing the same way. It's easy to find a few easy examples where people are playing similarly. Yes, most players jam 22 vs a minraise at 20bb and most players open jam A2 at 12bb. But for a vast majority of situations players are playing different from each other. Otherwise, we would not see so many actual edges from the regs that do decide to face regs (at the highest stakes this is most visible, you can see some great regs with clear edges over good regs). When everyone is studying, it means regs will get better, some more than others, just like fish will get better. Everyone always gets better. But that has nothing to do with profit. Players were always getting better in turbos too, and I believe it was 2009-2010 that was the best time for turbo speeds. Edges were lower too in those games than regular speeds, so how could they have been more profitable? The key is to look at the edge per time played. 2% in 2.5 minutes is better than 5% in 8 minutes, even if 5% "feels" more comfortable to the human mind (less loss per game). But the way to strive to think is far longer than what happens in a 2.5 minute match, or 8 minute match or even 5 hours of play. Taking the long view, where variance is far less at work, you can see how much more money a 2-3% ROI hyper player is making than most turbo counterparts ever made in this game, even when turbos were at their peak.
As for the videos, most of the best work is about helping you learn to think and solve situations. It doesn't solve situations for you usually, and even when it does, it's not going to be a 100% solved strategy (3bet ranges always involve assumptions, data of the player(s) involved, and major postflop assumptions that are so subject to debate and improvement... since 3betting vs flatting you need to make assumptions you cannot pin down so easily about flat calling edge). So even when you see a chart on how to 3bet, it's nowhere near "perfect strategy." It's far better than "off the top of my head" or "NASH" or anything like that, but there is still a ton of room for improvement (and most charts are for readless play or play vs a very specific player... there's always room to adjust and improve your edge vs specific opponents bc they play far different from one another).
"Ok, maybe it is, and will be profitable to the 30s, or even 60s, but what is then? I want to study a game where i can go beyond  some  borders  and  limits.
Would it be more profitable to study 6-max hypers, MTTs or PLO cashgames? I have interest in all of these formats, mostly on heads up playing, but i want to pick a game which wont be complete dead in 1-2 years."
Highest stakes are more profitable than ever too. As long as you win solid in the 30s and 60s, you can honestly sit in 100s and get mostly fish action. As long as you don't tilt when a reg does sit you and you play well, regs won't sit you very long. It's almost easier than ever to move up in stakes now because there's so much fish action that players are content just taking turns rather than running regs out. Of course players complain about the waits, but when I was talkign to the author of the article you mention, he even agreed that players deciding to face some regs can make over $50hr in the $100s right now, and that's pretty damn good (we're talking six figure income if someone played 40 hrs a week, though most players are not going to play 40 hrs bc it requires a lot of work ethic and focus).
To be honest a lot of it is just people whining. Many of these guys worked hard for 6-12 months to learn skills and are now whining that they are "only" making $50-100 per hour at the tables and they have to wait a few minutes for a bad player to lose money to them. Meanwhile, doctors work for 8 years in school which costs 100s of thousands of dollars and they get paid less than these guys are making when they start out. It's kind of silly, but when you play a game like poker and it's purely money involved, it's very easy to get greedy (that goes for poker rooms too, look at how nasty the rake is at so many sites that have casinos... they are just so greedy... even look at the profits of "struggling" poker rooms that are listed on exchanges... they're making insane amounts of money).
As for the other games you mention, MTT and PLO are great games to learn right now too, they are very profitable. 6 max hypers are profitable too, but I would put them pretty clearly in 4th out of MTT, PLO and HUSNGs right now. I'm not sure the longevity in those games is as easily there. They are pretty popular now, but not nearly as popular as hyper turbo HUSNG, and I think edges there are more prone to worsening (and high stakes action is already worse than hyper HUSNG). Not that hyper 6 max is a bad game to learn, I wouldn't be scared of putting effort into that either, just that if I'm picking one out of the 4 we're talking about that I think is most likely prone to some of the negatives we're discussing, it would be 6 max hyper.
"I know that you have of course, a strong interest in getting players to HyperHUSNG, as you try to help people selling your videos. But what is your honest opinion about the game being solved soon? Also i read a post of Cog Dissonance where he points out the same. Wasnt, or isnt he one of your coaches as well?"
Cog is one of our current coaches, yes. I'd have to see what he said to know what he meant, but his graph looks as profitable as ever.

Also, you do have to realize, players (good and bad) will always be worried about the games dying. I mean, I'm in the same boat. I don't play anymore, but if HUSNGs aren't profitable, this site is not valuable. This site has grown in line with the popularity of the games, and the profit in the games follows the popularity as well. So we're all in the same boat as far as incentive for HUSNGs to stay healthy. I think the format is keeping it healthy more than anything, players just love to play in these fast and action packed games, and the low edge per game is great because losing players feel good enough to play these very often, when reality is that they are not very good for a losing player to play (think about losing $1 per game versus $3 per game... a losing player is thinking "I'm barely losing in the $1 per game, I'll play that" except the $1 per game only lasts 2.5 minutes, the $3 game lasts 10 minutes. That player is losing $25 per hour in hypers, but only $18 per hour in turbos.... but the hypers FEEL like they have much more of a chance and are doing better...).
Brandon Adams made a prediction years ago after reading Mathematics of Poker, which was a very insightful book. He said he was running the risk of ruin models in that book and he felts online poker as a whole only had another year before it died completely. This was 2007 or 2008 I believe. Of course, the next 2 years were two of the best years ever for online poker as a whole. My point is, many smart players have come up with these doomsday insights before, and to be honest I don't even think the blog post you read was all that doomsday, just some different thoughts from a mid stakes winner. Some of the negatives were trumped up a bit, but if you look closely the positives were all there, and you can eliminate things like "only 2-3% edge, it'll get worse" because there's no evidence that it is declining... it's just a natural fear that some people are going to have when they play a smaller edge per game format. It was a lot worse when hypers just got introduced, a lot of turbo regs were talking about how there would be no more profit in HUSNGs. Of course, HUSNGs became more and more profitable, as fish far prefer playing hypers than turbos.
 

Simple answer.
Pick a format that you enjoy. Success is a function of natural talent and hard work. There's a very low probability that you are a poker savant so you're probably going to have to work hard to enjoy success. You'll work hard at something you enjoy doing and will be more likely to be successful.

Hi there,
I'm the author of that article you mentioned.  I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed my article, but at the same time I'm afraid that there might have been some misunderstanding.  Ryan just made a cool post and I have little to add, but let me clarify a few points that you have brought up.
First off, I didn't mean to say hypers are "solved" or in danger of being solved or anything like that.  Yes, I did mention reciprocality and whatnot, but IMHO hypers having less reciprocality is one thing, and it being completely solved is quite something else.  I don't think latter is the case at all.  Also, I recommend you revisit the last few paragraphs of my article.  I mentioned a couple of spots where I think most players in hypers are still making tons of mistakes and/or not playing optimally, and this is one out of many evidences that hypers are still decently profitable.  
Of course, the whole point of my article was that you might want to have another game as a sidekick, but that doesn't mean you should *stop* playing hypers.  Also, up to 60s I don't think you have to worry too much about the issues I touched on in my article.  My argument was that the waiting list at $60s and above is getting longer and longer, and while that have posed problems for certain regs by decreasing their hourly (including myself), I still think you can make a decent hourly by multi tabling and mixing in lower stakes.
Hope that made sense, and I'm happy to answer to any further question you might have.  I don't come here all that often, but will revisit this thread frequently.  Or if you can leave a comment on my blog, we can talk there too.
Thanks,
- mela

There are still players who play Full-Ring games, even tough they have been "dead" for years
There are still players who play Flixed Limit, even tough they have been "dead" for years
Your biggest concern should be "where" to play. Most sites are very dry on action,  maybe except for Pokerstars and to some level Full Tilt Poker. The only way I see online poker in  general dieing right now, is by regulating all markets localy. Have fun searching big action on Pokerstars.FR