Can heads-up cash make a comeback?

Heads-up poker is lifeless, lengthy dwell heads-up poker.

Once thought-about the hardest and purest type of poker, and definitely a massive hit with the railbirds, heads-up cash is a format that has just about died on-line. It died as a result of getting powerful regulars to play one another with out an edge was too massive an ask, which dried the video games up.

It does appear to be having fun with a renaissance proper now, on the very least as a publicity machine. Phil Galfond has received three out of three Galfond Challenges and Polk vs Negreanu was a lot higher than most individuals anticipated. Now Landon Tice and Bill Perkins have introduced a new problem that may ignite much more curiosity in heads-up cash.

Tice is ‘paying’ Perkins 9BB/100 of their 20,000 hand No Limit match at $200/$400. What that primarily means is that Tice is giving Perkins a $720,000 head begin and he believes he can nonetheless beat him. If, for instance, Tice beats him by 10BB/100 he would revenue $80,000 total earlier than rake is factored. The suggestion is that Tice believes he’ll beat Perkins by a a lot larger margin.

Closing the talent hole

A superior participant ‘paying’ someone to play them isn’t a new factor in poker, however it’s within the context of excessive profile, dwell streamed, matches which might be used as content material and/or advertising and marketing. I really suppose this concept of handicapping matches might catch on.

When the match was introduced PokerShares had Landon Tice as a 7/10 favorite with Perkins as a 5/4 underdog. When you take into account the seemingly enormous hole in talent between the 2, these are very shut odds which counsel they picked the appropriate handicap.

You might get shut to five/1 on Daniel Negreanu in opposition to Doug Polk and the talent hole there may be narrower. Negreanu is a skilled participant and Perkins is a leisure participant, in any case. The talent hole is way wider with Perkins and Tice, however they’ve discovered a guess the place they each like their probabilities.

If the match is entertaining and specifically if Perkins does nicely, this could possibly be a actual shot within the arm for heads-up cash. It might encourage regs to play in opposition to regs and likewise deliver leisure gamers out of hiding, once they beforehand didn’t get pleasure from being the victims of ‘bum hunting’.

Will ego get in the best way?

Before I get too excited and declare that is the way you get heads-up cash again and thriving, there may be a seemingly hurdle. The downside with such a guess is that it means one participant has to confess they’re the weaker participant. Heads-up cash specifically is rife with ego and machismo, and a lot of gamers merely won’t need to admit they should be paid to play.

But if the poker world can train a little bit of humility, or certainly if a expert participant can trick one other one into pondering they need to pay them a forfeit, this might actually make heads-up cash an attention-grabbing spectacle once more.

I guess Daniel Negreanu wished he had mentioned being paid a few BBs/100 earlier than he began his match with Doug Polk.

WIll heads-up cash make a comeback on-line? Let us know within the feedback:

Barry Carter

Barry Carter is the editor of PokerStrategy.com and the co-author of The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2, Poker Satellite Strategy and PKO Poker Strategy