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Poker Video: Limit Hold'Em by DeathDonkey (Micro/Small Stakes)

You ask a good question that I will probably not be able to answer, but I think this is a spot where people have fundamentally different ways of looking at something. I am not at all big into quantifying mistakes - I generally know that there are small mistakes and huge mistakes, I would say the example you give falls in between small and huge, and would certainly be enough of a mistake that I'd keep playing a guy who did it. Now if it were a lower stakes table and he balanced well after the flop with that awkward limpy style, I might consider finding someone else to play, but I'd be pretty happy about that button strategy so I tend to think its a big mistake. But like I said, I am not a big believer in needing to quantify things like that (for instance, I long ago stopped caring about "winrate" and believe I am happier and better at poker as a result).

I will say as far as our button strategy goes, there is a time to limp and I will talk about that when I get to playing vs. maniacs or chronic BB 3 bettors. So I don't necessarily think "only fish limp the button" but I do think if an unknown limps the button he is a fish until I have strong evidence to the contrary

-DeathDonkey

HU LHE has always been a mystery to me so I'm very happy to see this video series. I'm an action junkie and love to be playing as opposed to waiting to play hands. HU LHE will obvioulsy give me what I'm looking for. Hopefully I can put the elements of his series to use and show a profit.

I'm wondering what limits HU LHE becomes worth playing. Are some limits unbeatable or very difficult to beat due to the rake, or do the bad players found at those lower limits make up for it? If I'm currently playing 2/4 or 3/6 6 max is HU at those same limits a wise idea or should I wait for a larger bankroll to play HU at a higher limit.

I'm also curious to know how you would adjust your bankroll requirements for HU LHE play. If the variance is greater, how much larger should your bankroll be. I currently play 6 max with around 500 big bets but will take stabs at higher limits if I find a good game. Can I play HU with a 500 big bet bankroll? Do I need a larger bankroll or are the higher variance concerns off-set by the fact that your win rate can be higher playing HU LHE if you practice good game selection?

Do all of the concepts you're discussing in the series apply to HU SNGs as well as cash games? If not, will you touch on some of the differences at some point? I'm thinking that playing some SNGs will provide some security during the learning phase of playing LHE HU.

I have seen the HU LHE tables on Full Tilt. I'm wondering what other sites may offer HU LHE cash games and what limits they start at. Anyone know?

Lots of questions I know, but I'm pretty excited about this series and am looking forward to learning more.

Thanks.

Hi Casa,

- I think 3/6 HU is right around the bottom limit I'd want to be playing if my goal were to make a decent profit, lower than that and the rake is obscene but you could get some experience.

or are the higher variance concerns off-set by the fact that your win rate can be higher playing HU LHE if you practice good game selection?

You nailed it right there. I think if I were starting with a small bankroll but got to keep my skills and experience I would play strictly heads up if the challenge were to move up in limits quickly or something. That said, there is plenty of variance, I've had many many many -100 BB sessions but almost none have come against a huge fish, though a couple have been against huge maniacs which are insanely profitable of course.

I have never played a HU SNG and I wouldn't want to claim any advice I give in this series is appropriate or not appropriate for HU SNGs, I simply don't know any experience there and will be talking about HU limit cash games for this series.

I know there are HU limit tables on Stars and Cake for low limits, UB and AP for high limits only I think.

-DeathDonkey

I have been playing a lot of HU LHE this weekend since watching the video. My God I hope I'm not just on a heater. I'm lovin' this.

I have found that momentum is huge in HU matches. If it is with you the other players seem to get very frustrated and begin to tilt or make bad decisions. If the momentum is not with you, I suppose it's best to take a break.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on momentum and how you can use it to your advantage in HU matches. If you can incorporate it into an upcoming video that would be great.

Absolutely will, a lot of what I talk about will fall under the general category of "psychology" which I feel people tend to ignore in videos because there is not a lot of concreteness to the topic and so its hard to figure out how to say things that are generally true, but I do see a lot of patterns in villains when I play heads up as it relates to the mental side of things and hopefully will address your question and many others.

Glad you are doing well.
-DeathDonkey

I only have few thousand HUHU hands, and I'm not sure how quickly standard deviation converges, but my std dev per 100 hands is 23BB, which actually sounds pretty low. Typical std dev for 6-max is something like 18-20BB and it isn't that different from 23BB or even few big bets bigger than that.

Maybe it's just my stats or the passivity of my typical opponents, but this would mean that the total variance isn't that much bigger. The money flows back and forth much more frequently as you're involved in most pots, but maybe the total variance is more of a function of the big pots.

Anyone care to share your own std dev per 100 hands? (From Poker Tracker's Session tab and from the More Detail.. button.)

My Standard Deviation /100 hands is 16.9850, but it is only on a 1700 hand sample size. Limits are 2/4 and 3/6.

What does standard deviation tell you? It is a stat that is new to me.

My Standard Deviation /100 hands is 16.9850, but it is only on a 1700 hand sample size. Limits are 2/4 and 3/6.

What does standard deviation tell you? It is a stat that is new to me.

In layman's terms, it's a measure of how much the results fluctuate. I'm over-simplifying here, but say we have that 100 hand sample, then the standard deviation tells us that the result falls approximately 68% of the time between two standard deviations. So if you had a winrate of 0 and std dev of 18BB/100, then the result should be -18BB - +18BB 68% of the time. And between -36BB - +36BB approx 95% of the time.

Further, if we know the winrate and the standard deviation, we can calculate the probability that you're up for a given set of hands. For this, see my article on the article section. ;-)

I was just kind of surprised that it's not that different from 6max. So for a competent player, HUHU would imply "less variance", in a sense, because the fluctuation is swamped by the higher winrate that a competent player can have in HUHU. (Against bad players, at least.) DeathDonkey actually mentioned this in the video, and he also mentioned not being that much of a quantifier, but it's a refreshing insight to me at least.

I'd be curious to hear std dev values for bigger sample sizes of HUHU. I'd expect it to converge pretty quickly, but I'm not sure.

The intuitive explanation of the fact that the difference is actually pretty small is that the pots in HUHU are for the most part pretty small, because it's actually pretty rare that both players have a strong made hand. Strong made hand is, of course, a relative statement and what's strong in HUHU is not necessarily that strong in 6max, but I think the biggest cause of variance is the collision of big hands.

8/16 HU:

Std. Dev. 24.98 BB/100
Winrate 4.6 BB/100

Sample size 16,633 hands

-DeathDonkey

Since my bankroll would only allow me to play .5/1 heads up, I play SnGs.

I can attest to the fact that all of the DC videos about Heads Up Limit Holem will work fine for SnGs.

Most of the times, the matches will be over before the rising limits get to be a big factor, which is really the only strategy difference.

Another thing about SnGs that differs from cash games is that it is cheaper to showdown and feel out the villain at the start of the match. You can show down a hand or two at the start and get it back really easy when the limits go up.

As far as overall play goes, the videos will help you just fine for SnG play.

(And now with the rematch feature on Full Tilt SnGs you can often get your opponents to tilt and take advantage of them multiple times over, where as the tilt induced re-buys would only happen in cash games before)

8/16 HU:

Std. Dev. 24.98 BB/100
Winrate 4.6 BB/100

Sample size 16,633 hands

Yeah. The Borer/Mak book also estimates the std dev to around 25BB/100 in HU.

So, again, I'd say that what is commonly thought of as variance is actually lower in HU. Assuming of course that you can play and you game select well.

Here, assuming broadly that a winrate of 4BB/100 is attainable for a player and the std dev is 25BB/100. We compare this to 6-max, where typical std devs at midstakes are something like 19-20BB/100.

So we ask what winrate we should have at 6-max to be equally likely to be winning after 5000 hands. Based on the calculations I described in the article ("Thoughts about winrates and variance") this would equal to around 3BB/100 in the 6-max, which I've understood to be mostly unattainable in today's midstakes short handed.

So with these parameters, it seems to be the case that the short term variance is just an illusion. Well, you do get frequent small fluctuations (ie. another player winning quite a few pots in a row), but the bigger, more long-lasting swings are actually more rare.

Finally, given these parameters, 4BB/100 winrate and std dev of 25BB/100, we might want to know what's the likelihood of experiencing downswing of 100BB or more. This probability peaks at a 3000 hand sample where it's around 5%. So it's not completely unlikely, but still a pretty rare event.

So, all in all, HU is higher variance in the short term, but if and when a higher winrate is also attainable, it pretty quickly swamps the short term fluctuation.

(Just like DeathDonkey and others have said, but with some wishy-washy quantification here.)

just destroyed a guy using this. thanks again! good stuff.

Correction for pokerstove range slider.

This is from their website:

"Q12. How does the PokerStove slider rank preflop hands?

The slider interface for setting the top N% of hands orders the hands according to their preflop all-in equity versus three random hands. This rather arbitrary selection was picked because it balances the value of high cards with the value of drawing cards. It is not an absolute ordering, and depending on the specific situation you may want to edit that range of hands when doing equity calculations."

Hello guys,

The video does not play well. Could someone fix that?

Hello guys,

The video does not play well. Could someone fix that?

can you elaborate any? did you download a copy? or is the streaming messed up? or other?