May thy head always be up

Let’s face it, I’m very inexperienced poker player. I’ve never faced a real downswing from what the big boys tell me. During the past couple of days, I’ve gotten closer than before.

Over the last 4000 hands, I’ve lost about 13 buy-ins. I’m not sure if that counts as a downswing in heads up, but it does for me. It’s the biggest one for me so far. Looking back, I see some 10 buy-in drops in my graph, but they’re different from the latest one. This last one is a very steady slope down while others have had some ups and some downs mixed in together.

More important than what my downswing has been, I’m glad to see that I’ve been able to get into a mentality of not really being in a downswing. I’ve been able to play good sessions, even though I’ve been “in a downswing”, because downswings only consist of losing sessions and if the game stays the same, the probability of a losing sessions is not any bigger than after a huge upswing. Therefore “being in a downswing” doesn’t really exist. Downswing is only a way to describe past success, or more so lack of it.

These kind of thoughts have really helped me to play good game even after losing sessions. Anyone ever had similiar thoughts?

Time for another post! I just can’t keep this hand inside me! I picked a 0.5/1 table with who seemed to be a regular sitting on it, and joined the game. He started on the button raised, and I folded. After the first hand he sat out and I asked if the 1bb was enough for him. He asked if I wanted it back and posted the big blind, which lead to this hand:

IPoker Network $100.00 No Limit Hold’em – 2 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN/SB): $100.00
BB: $212.43

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BTN/SB with 6 T
Hero raises to $3, BB raises to $12, Hero raises to $100, BB calls $88

Flop: ($200.00) 4 9 5 (2 players)

Turn: ($200.00) 8 (2 players)

River: ($200.00) T (2 players)

Final Pot: $200.00
BB shows K K
BB wins $199.00
(Rake: $1.00)

I thought that he was just messing with me and I of course insta shoved the T6o. Didn’t go that well. :( Have to give him props for not leaving after that hand, but taking a buy-in or so more from me. :)

On a more serious note, I’ve been watching Dog is heads-up, which has so far been extremely good! Watched 4 episodes so far, can’t wait to watch the rest!

Nothing more today, bye!

Surprise, I’m not busted even though haven’t posted for a while! In fact, I’ve been running very well. May a little too well.

I’m up about 20 buy-ins already this month in just about 7000 hands. I feel that I’ve won almost all coinflips or close, and my good hands have almost always come out on the top after river. I don’t feel that I’ve played badly, or sucked out huge, I’ve just been on the good side of the coin. This makes me feel a little uneasy. My all-in ev adjusted graph for this month looks like this:

What makes me feel uneasy, is that I’m almost waiting for my luck to turn, and start diving. I feel that I haven’t earnt my money, even though I haven’t really done that much wrong. All this run-good just makes me feel somehow weird.

I don’t really have any big point here on this, this just mixes my feelings. Anyone else feeling the same when running above EV?

Couple of days of my HUHU career have again passed, and it’s time for a new post! Yay! In my introduction post I promised to open my learning process some, so here we go! If anyone has any good methods of learning, please do point me to them.

Videos:

Being a Deucescracked member, and this being a Deucescracked blog, I suppose videos are the most obvious method. So far I’ve watched almost all episodes of Pr1nnyraiding. I have mixed feelings about the series so far. Some of the content has been great, like outlining the archtype villains and basic countermeasures, but I think I was expecting something more. Some of the adjustments are very basic and general, and in some episodes I found myself getting a little bored during the hand histories. Though I do realize that it is an entry level video for heads up, so maybe Pr1nnyraiding 2 is more for me!

I have a feeling that videos showing good players playing and opening their thought process would be really useful for me at the moment. I feel that heads up (and why not other forms of poker too) is basically consisting of two things: by observing villains game, we make assumptions about villains game, and based on them we deploy correct countermeasures. Simplified, villains actions change our actions. I feel that I have a decent grasp about taking reads and observing villains, but I lack the correct toolset to exploit them. This is why I need to watch videos!

Ranges:

I’m using HEM to track my game and provide a simple HUD. After decent amount of hands, I gain some idea of villains tendencies, for example, villain is opening 60-80% of all hands on the button. 60-80%? Looking at the numbers, I realize that 60-80% is pretty wide, coming from a 6-max environmet, but I have no idea how low that goes. Does a 60% opening range include T8o, 85s or T4s? What does a 20% polarized 3-betting range consists of? No. Idea. In shorthanded games, I have never had to deal with that wide ranges. I do realize that I can’t rely only on the stats, but they should push me to the correct direction. So, my next assignment is running lots of ranges in PokerStove!

Game review:

I’ve always been very lazy at reviewing my sessions afterwards. That’s a thing that I really should take up more often, as it definitely should help me find the correct plays in the heat of the moment!

All other methods are welcome in the comments!

I also promised to rant a little:

I do realize that game selection and game rejection is an important part of heads up profit, but hey, I’ve had this kind of sessions with some regulars.

1st hand, villains opens, I fold.

2nd hand, I open, villain folds.

3rd hand, villain opens, I fold.

Before the 4th hand, villain sits out and starts waiting for a new player to play against him. And I see literally tens of these regulars waiting on the tables, some of them seem to be doing it every day for hours and hours.

That’s for todays post, more some other day!

Hello everyone and welcome to “May thy head always be up”! The main function of this series of posts is to provide an insight to a recreational NL100 6-max regulars 1-month journey into a world where no one ever has anything and where no one respects no one! That is the world of no limit heads up, or HUHU! My name is Morto, and I will be your host for the month! Before going too far, let’s give our hero a chance to introduce himself!

Well, actually our hero is our host, so let me give you a brief summary of my poker career. I started playing poker about 3 years ago with a decent no-deposit bonus of 5$. I think I played full ring fixed limit somewhere in the early days, but moved to short handed no limit pretty fast. The no deposit bonus was all I needed, and now I’m playing NL100 6-max pretty regularly and doint fine in it. I have a job outside of poker, and am not looking for a profession here. Though I am planning to continue studying later this year, and it would be great to be able to live on poker during that.

Well, that’s about the past, let’s now take a look at the future! I have challenged myself to play almost exclusively heads up for this month. As I am not in any way dependant on poker income, my only and holy goal is to get better in heads up poker. I will play matches against players better than me (I might lose!) if I think I can gain some knowledge or experience from them to get me closer to my goal. Of course I won’t turn down players worse than me either. :) My plan is to play NL100 for the whole month.

Our first post is starting to gain lenght, so I will end it right here! Will think about answering any questions, so comments loose! Would also love to hear everyones thoughts about good ways to learn heads up (more on that in next post, I think!). I’ll end my introduction in an example hand I played some time ago that made me like heads up even more. After the villain called, I was pretty sure I’m somewhat behind. Was a strange moment when the client showed my equity. :)

IPoker Network $50.00 No Limit Hold’em – 2 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: $168.10
Hero (BB): $56.50

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is BB with Q J
BTN/SB raises to $1.50, Hero raises to $5, BTN/SB calls $3.50

Flop: ($10.00) 2 5 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets $6.00, Hero calls $6

Turn: ($22.00) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets $13.00, Hero raises to $45.50, BTN/SB calls $32.50

River: ($113.00) 3 (2 players)

Final Pot: $113.00
BTN/SB shows Q T
Hero wins $112.00
(Rake: $1.00)