Gauss Blog, Never Surrender. Never.

So, April was a total disaster. In the first week of the month I was about to move up to 50nl. My BR was close to $1,000.00. Then I had some serious doomswitch. Same old story, which I know readers would not believe if they were to look at PTR. I have had these periods where I do not win any all ins, even with the best of it. I looked at Pokertracker and was $200 below EV (four buy ins) at the beginning of the runbad. I havn’t looked since but Im sure its at least as bad for the second half of the runbad. At one point I got it all in on two separate tables with a set and got rivered by a pocket pair, AT THE SAME TIME ON BOTH TABLES.

That said, I do have leaks, and like I have said many times, runbad cannot be an excuse to let me off working on those leaks. I will continue to do that. The title of this blog is never surrender, and I mean it quite literally with poker. I will become great or die trying.

So now my bankroll is appropriate for 10nl (LOL). Im not going to do that right now. What I am going to do, is play 100 heads up sngs. These are 8 player tournements where the first prize is $8 profit and second is $3 profit, approximately. I had stared the challenge and unsuprisingly ran horribly at the outset. These shennanigans are in gloats and spews on pokerroad, in case you are that one guy who loves reading others beats. I will
blog about results and experiences during the challenge.

The idea is to work on leaks and learn something by taking me outside my comfort zone, and to profit and rebuild my roll. I have already learned some things about poker through these heads up games:

1. Value Bet. One of my issues with poker is continually looking at absolute hand strength instead of relative hand strength. Already I can see myself checking when I should be betting. When you are likely to have the best hand, you must bet. If you don’t, you will not win at poker. Making the decision to check a marginal hand and show it down is slow death at this game. You must make the pots you win bigger and those you lose smaller. The way you do that is to value bet. The question to always ask is does villans range contain worse hands that can call. Easy idea, more difficult in practice.

2. Stamina and Focus. Heads up poker is teaching me some discipline. It only takes one small mistake to cost you the match and your buy in. The heads up game really accentuates the emotional aspects of the game. I cannot tell you how many villans take one loss and come totally unglued. The heads up game really accentuates the emotional aspects of the game. Every decision matters, very much.

3. Straights are Great Hands for Getting Value. Much of my profit in FR comes from sets. Great, but the key to making money is to have a good hand which villan does not expect. Anyone can flop a set and stack a dufus with aces. Disguised straights get money from a wider variety of opposing hands. I’m working on how to draw profitably, combo draws, draws with a marginal pair, etc. Inotherwords, im working on opening up my game.

Goals for May.

rebuild my roll,

maintain minimal ironman level

have a profitable month, and

work hard at getting better.