I think the main idea is to decrease the EV of 4B for the IP player.

Nuno Alvarez is this solver approved or just an exploitative adjustment? i have not ran sims deeper stacked offering a smaller 3bet sizing, but might have to do so if this is the case. our opponent probably folds fairly infrequently when we size down, but i guess this is not necessarily a bad thing as they have to navigate post flop with an expanded and weaker calling range.

I haven't tested it myself but I believe that it is solver approved!

Thanks Demondoink!

I think HUNL will still be profitable for as long Poker remains profitable.

Heads Up Poker is much easier to solve as you mention but RTA users are also very easy to detect IMO. I don't see it as a threat for now (at least on Stars) but I might be wrong.

As far as I know, Makeboifin quit him because he couldn't handle the swings anymore (he posted it on his public Twitter account) I don't know the story with Linus. I agree with you though, Berri seems like a pain to play against!

Nuno Alvarez i guess there are always ways to gain small edges on your opponents, even if many of you guys already know all the optimal flop cbet sizings etc.

ah okay, that's fair enough. even tho MBF has been around high stakes for a number of years now, i'm pretty sure he hasn't played these stakes as regularly as the likes of Linus/Berri etc, so that is pretty understandable. i actually spotted him briefly in the 500z pool not so long ago.

do you know the results of both matches?

I saw a graph sometime ago in here in which Makeboifin was up quite a lot. Never seen any results on Linus though.

In my head the opposite is true, as six max with narrow ranges seems easier to play than HU. When I watch Nuno Alvarez 's videos my head is left spinning at the complexity of some of the spots. His last video for example, I just finished watching it and even though Nuno has a lot of experience he was put in so many tough spots in almost every hand. Would just drive the human mind insane. I feel given the bet sizes, positional ranges, and line taken that six max is much easier to hand read. I think HU is nearly impossible to hand read at time and would view it as even more profitable than six max. I think this is why Polk beat dnegs for like 12bb/100? I'm sure many rec players just enjoy the action of 1 on 1 so should stay profitable in my eyes as well. Might have to play lower stakes on stars and higher stakes on other sites though. Time to jump into the video!

The smaller 4bet sizing discussion is interesting as well. Reminded me of Luke with his small 3bet sizes that everyone had questions about.

Also Nuno Alvarez the link above just takes me to a twitter stream that is not available. No graph can be seen.

Can't call Berri best HU player yet. There are enough of great and ''excellent'' players they can take hell out from him. For example - Buttonclicker, Filismies, Limitless and Stefan. And of course lets not forget Doug, Hellmuth and King himself (Negreanu).

RunItTw1ce whilst i agree with your 'narrower ranges/easier to play' statement to an extent, i think this is far too simplistic when comparing 6 max to HU. in HU you have one rfi range, one bb defence range, one 3bet range etc. on certain flop textures you always know the exact sizing because you are playing with the only range that you need to study (either the btn or the bb). where as in 6 max you can play from 5 different positions vs the bb alone, so that is 5 different sets of c betting strategies/sizings you gotta try remember. never mind when someone starts introducing a sb flatting range, or a button flatting range etc.

so basically the only way that HU is more complex is because wider ranges are involved pre flop, cos everything else is much simpler (not taking anything away from HU, it is still an obviously very skilled game). in 6max if utg opens you have to remember 5 different 3bet ranges, then another 4 if hj opens etc. basically you can never get to the bottom of studying 6 max, where as in HU i would imagine you could do so much, much easier.

the 12bb/100 win rate is because Doug was effectively playing vs a fish. Daniel has next to no HU experience and he was playing vs someone who was arguably the best player in that field back in the day. you can probably achieve higher win rates vs fish, but that is simply because you are playing them 1 v 1. where as in 6 max there are 5 regs and thus the fishes losses are distributed amongst 5 regs, instead of 1.

i'm not sure how much you use solvers, but i would say that the more you use them, the more you realise just how little we know in comparison to PIO etc. so even when we think we are not making many mistakes in 6 max, in reality we are probably making a ton of them all the time, but simply aren't aware because it won't flag up as often as it would in a HU match.

Jeff_ yes true. personally i don't play HU and i have never played any of these guys, so i would not be able to give a very accurate perspective, but the fact that two elite guys quit him should say something about his qualities.

from what i have watched of Limitless i would be surprised if he was in the top 5 tbh, and i'm not just saying that because he is losing to Stefan. i mean he effectively wasn't adjusting at all vs Fedor Holz who was over bluffing almost every line during their short match. he could even see this for himself by watching his stream. so even if he has a sound fundamental game plan, imo if you are unable to adjust to exploit your opponents it shows you are a bit too one dimensional.

yeah Buttonclicker seems like a sicko, could be up there as the best i'd imagine. i believe he has shot up the stakes relatively quickly, too, in just the past couple of years.

Thats why I wrote ''excellent'' in quote mark haha. Some name - great players, other '' excellent '' xD find who is who, hard with stefan and limitless though

Jeff_ haha yeah that's fair enough. i'm sure they are all excellent players, but not all of them are excellent when it comes to elite level competition. the Limitless thing i noticed surprised me quite a lot, as this seems like an obvious adjustment to make.

Interesting discussion guys!

I think Linus is still by far the best followed by makeboifin. Btw I've been told by someone really respected that Berri is way better than it looks as well.

RunItTw1ce looks like the graph is not available anymore :(

I can see the number of variations being more complex in 6 max compared to HU. I was going to make the argument Demondoink that HU players can change their sizing which will add in a few different ranges if they are opening 2x, 2.2, 2.5, 3x, etc. but that same argument would apply to 6 max as well to the ^5. I still think the wider ranges for HU post flop with the frequencies solver uses is going to be way too complex compared to 6max. Preflop sure there is an argument for HU being easier. I would just argue HU is way harder post flop. There are a bunch of 3x-10x pot bets in HU due to wide ranges you almost never see in six max.

I personally see HUNL as a 1 game discipline and 6 Max as a multiple ''mini'' games discipline.

I think the complexity of 6 Max is bigger since the number of spots to calculate is way higher plus the fact that the 3 way spots which are still extremely complex to calculate (even for computers)

Thanks RunItTw1ce!

Hey, that's way too broad of a question to be able to give you an answer. You should try to play the sizing scheme that you feel the most comfortable with.