HU Tourney bankroll

Linford

Recently, due to time constraints, I have been playing a lot of Heads Up tourneys online and I am wondering if anyone has any ideas on bankroll requirements for just HU tourneys. I have seen posts in the past relating to bankroll requirements for cash games and SNGs but not HU tourneys.

I have kept stats for around my last 1,000 games. I play $10 to $50 HU tourneys games and over the 1,000 games it works out at an average of $30 buy in. I have a 65% win ration which has won me about $7,500, about $7.50 return per game after rake.

Currently I have about a $10k bankroll and I am thinking about playing higher HU tourneys and dedicating $5k purely to HU play. As the loss to win ratio in HU tourneys is bigger in HU tourneys compared to SNGs (i.e. one win in a SNG can pay for the previous 3 non cashes, plus there is prize money for second and third) do I need a bigger bankroll for HU tourneys?

Is $5k enough to cover playing $100 HU tourneys (48 buy ins) or should I just play $50 HU tourneys (95 buy ins) with that size bankroll – I have experienced losing 11 games in a row before in less than 90 minutes, so I know how quickly a bankroll can be eroded.

If this has been covered before, sorry.

Cheers.

Samba

It really depends on your style of play are you an Ax & PP ram jammer?

You will see alot of variance simply sticking your stack in with these hands (as so many players do), I went through a rough patch where i lost approx. 20 consecutive coin flips at the HU tables, that's no exaggeration.

It also depends on what format you are playing, Speed, Turbo, normal STT.

In short, if you play a nice tight aggressive & controlled game, you'll generally see less variance, i.e seeing flops and not just ram jamming.

Ask yourself this, what's the worst run you've gone on? Number of games with no win??


5k is more than sufficient for $100 just be sure to get yourself a rakeback deal as 1v1ers play serious amounts of rake.

Norwich Fan Rob

not sure where u play these, but u should play them on pokerstars if u dont.
The structure for HU tournies is awesome, 1500 started, and 1 hour into the game, blinds are 175/150.
Lots of play, and no need to hardly ever ram jam.
You win rate looks fine.
I would suggest, as long as u are playing the well structured games, and not the speed/turbo ones, u are adequately bankrolled for $100s.

RoundTower

Samba wrote:

It really depends on your style of play are you an Ax & PP ram jammer?

You will see alot of variance simply sticking your stack in with these hands (as so many players do), I went through a rough patch where i lost approx. 20 consecutive coin flips at the HU tables, that's no exaggeration.

It also depends on what format you are playing, Speed, Turbo, normal STT.

In short, if you play a nice tight aggressive & controlled game, you'll generally see less variance, i.e seeing flops and not just ram jamming.

I don't understand how you one style of play can be more high-variance than another in HU games. There are only two results, win or lose, and if you win x% of the time the variance of your results will be some function of x. The only way you can be predisposed to having long winning streaks or long losing streaks is if you tilt badly when losing, or play much better when winning.

People say this about SNG's as well but I expect they are misinformed idiots. They say things like "If you play against bad players your variance will increase", while this is theoretically possible I think it is unlikely to be the case.

Linford

Thanks for the responses - I play across a wide range of sites (except crypto - just hate the software) pokerstars are the best for HU, but I don't have very much of my bankroll there and they have a limit of $200 (not sure if it just me) that I can deposit every two days. I do avoid the turbo and short stack HU tourneys.

Samba

RoundTower wrote:

I don't understand how you one style of play can be more high-variance than another in HU games. There are only two results, win or lose, and if you win x% of the time the variance of your results will be some function of x. The only way you can be predisposed to having long winning streaks or long losing streaks is if you tilt badly when losing, or play much better when winning.

In short professor, loose aggressive players will see bigger swings.

Tight aggressive and controlled players will see a higher and more consistent win rate

People say this about SNG's as well but I expect they are misinformed idiots. They say things like "If you play against bad players your variance will increase", while this is theoretically possible I think it is unlikely to be the case

On what basis do you think it is unlikely?

RoundTower

Samba wrote:

In short professor, loose aggressive players will see bigger swings.

Tight aggressive and controlled players will see a higher and more consistent win rate

I mean that two players who play different styles but with the same win rate (lets say they both have a 60% chance to win in any given game irrespective of what went before), will have the same variance, the same propensity for swings.

The idea that loose aggressive players have bigger swings is a carry over from cash games, they get involved in more big pots per hour, and with less of an edge in each pot, so their per hour variance is higher.

If two players have the same ROI in SNGs, but one has higher variance, it is because he has more firsts and proportionately less 2nds and 3rds. I expect if you play against bad players you get more firsts, 2nds and 3rds, though I don't have numbers to back this up. So I expect playing against worse players does not increase your per tournament variance in SNGs.

eggie

emotional stability wins, raise and reraise early with tripe, win or lose, to get a feel for the other player, cheap info.

later in the game you have an idea how he/she reacts with certain hands, take it from there.

no 2 people play the same heads up.