I'm giving serious thought to not bothering with HU anymore. I haven't gone off HU or anything, and i'm running ok at it, just on a basic cost/benefit level its quite close.

Ok so i'll just compare sitting down HU on 5 sites at $2/4-$5/10 and then playing zoom while i wait for action, with just sitting down and playing $1/2 zoom.

Hourly

assuming $6.67 average stake for HU.
about 400 hands/hour for HU and a reasonable WR of 6bb/100 gives me an hourly of $160 +rb of around $25/hour for a total of $185/hour.


$1/2 zoom gets about 1k hands/hour with a WR of about 4bb/100 gives me $80/hour + about $30rb for a total of $110/hour.

With the mixed approach i assume a 50/50 split of zoom and HU, which seems reasonable to me.
This gives us a total of $147.5/hour.

Just playing zoom obviously gives us $110/hour, so the mixed approach wins pretty comfortably, also as i'm not actively hunting regs anymore, my WR might well be higher as now i'm just sitting and waiting for action, so the true WR is probably even higher.

Convenience

This really is the forte of zoom, its crazily convenient. If i only played zoom, for one thing i'd only need a $20k roll instead of $100k roll, which frees up funds for other things, and makes it less likely i'll lose alot of money in some FTP style shutdown.

Also, i can sit down and be playing zoom in a matter of seconds, whilst it takes the better part of 10 minutes to set up all my tables for HU. Also, one can stick in little mini sessions of zoom whenever you have time. maybe you are going out with a friend at 8pm, and its 7.40 and you have nothing to do, you can easily play 20 minutes of zoom, wheras it would be impossible to start a HU session in that time.

Finally, you can stop whenever you like instantly, unlike HU where you can be stuck at the computer for hours trying to bust a donk, knowing that if you attempt to run to the toilet and don't post your blinds, the donk will be gone by the time you get back 90% of the time. So no need to have a 'piss bucket' by your computer, and no sessions where you are starving but can't quit.

Stress

HU can be super stressful and obv the swings will be way bigger with a jump up in standard deviation and a huge jump in the total money i could lose in a session. Zoom is a walk in the park, its such low stakes i can just keep grinding comparitively stress free.

Scumbaggery

Although i have quite a thick skin, it is still annoying to deal with the bullshit from other so called HU professionals. Hit and running, grimming, table blocking, and general abuse do take their toll on my psyche to some degree. zoom obviously has none of these problems, you barely interact with other people except playing hands with them.

Fun

Almost forgot about this rather important factor. I pretty much have equal fun playing zoom as i do playing HU, so its probably a tie for me.

Ability to play alot of hours

Again, not for everyone, but for a decent amount of people (definitely me anyway) i struggle to play alot of hours when i'm running hot, and i struggle to play alot of hours when i'm running bad. I can only grind consistently well when i'm running pretty average. When playing HU most of the time you are running good or bad, so its not great for getting in alot of hours. Additionally, the thought of spending 10 minutes setting up all your tables is enough to put you off playing a session fairly often.

Zoom has none of these problems, comparitively tiny swings so a more consistent game and getting in little sessions in the gaps between things i do in a day really add up over the course of a month.

Variety

Mixing it up will obviously lead to more variety, so i'm not as likely to get bored with the mixed approach, wheras playing zoom all day every day might get boring after a while

Achievement/respect/

Outplaying other decent pro's at decent stakes is a great feeling, and i've spent alot of time and effort getting really good at HU, seems a shame to waste it and just turn into a zoom grinder. Of course, i'm not super emotionally invested into poker that i care THAT much. sure its awesome to crush people, and that feeling is way more common in HU, especially as i'm considerably better at HU than i am at 6m. However, i have alot of other interests, and poker has been more of a means to an end for me for a number of years. Also, this argument would be stronger in favour of HU if i was interested in playing HSNL or nosebleeds and really testing my skills against the best players in the world. However, i really have very little interest in doing that simply due to the swings that are going to happen if i tried to do that. I've never been much of a gambler, and i think to suceed at really high stakes you need a little bit of degen in you. the thought of winning or losing 6 figures makes me feel sick.

Thinking about respect, it would be nice to have respect in the community for being a sick HU player etc, but as i outlined earlier, i'm really not that fussed about the poker community. Its great to be a great poker player, but if thats what i'm known for after i die, i'd probably consider my life somewhat of a failure. Besides, i could get some respect at least for doing well in the zoom games if i really wanted it.

Longterm goals

linked with a few other factors, i consider this what i'll likely be doing if i do well and am still playing poker in a year or two's time. In the longterm, i can only really see myself playing 5/10 HU max, or maybe 10/20 at a push. for the reasons outlined above i'm not really interested in HSNL, so my potential to make tonnes more money at higher stakes in the future won't change massively. In zoom if i do well, i'll almost certainly move up to NL500, where i will obviously be making more money, although admittedly at the cost of more stress due to higher stakes and lower winrates.




So, if we summarise all these factors together we see that;

Hourly- Mixed win
Convenience - Zoom big win
Stress - Zoom win
Scumbaggery - Zoom win
Fun - Tie
Ability to play alot of hours - Zoom win
variety - Mixed win
Achievement/respect - Mixed win
Longterm goals - Tie

So mixed wins 3, zoom wins 4, including one big win, and 2 ties. However, its hardly an objective analysis, the weighting of the categories is paramount. Obviously the goal in poker is to make the most money. The categories all have an impact on this, as they influence the two most important categories, Hourly and Ability to play alot of hours. Overall, in an average month i imagine if i played mixed i'd get in about 80 hours compared with about 100 hours of zoom. This makes a monthly total of $12k for mixed, and $11k for zoom, and 20 hours of extra free time if i play mixed.

All things considered, its quite a close decision, and i'd appreciate any thoughts you guys have about the two options.