First Month Results -- Looking Ahead

Well, it's been quite a month. I started out on August 1st at $50nl heads upwith $2k and the help of a very solid player. The results since then have been nothing short of amazing.

In the span of a month, I've almost doubled my starting bankroll, having hit the $3,700 mark today on the last day of the month. I'm having a good time, and really feel like I'm getting better with each day and session that I play.

For September, I'll be starting at $100nl heads up properly bankrolled and comfortable. The breakeven part of the graph towards the right hand side was mostly due to my moving up to $100 and the play adjustments there, as well as just running like crap for a bit of time. When you lose hands like this one, it hurts a bit when you're just starting out -- http://www.pokerhand.org/?3124089 but whatever, I'll get it back.

Hopefully now I can start focusing more on posting hands and interesting spots, since I'm more comfortable with the overall game and matchflow of heads up poker.

First 10,000 Hands Of Heads Up

Played my 10,000th hand of heads up poker today. Not bad in 23 days really, though I think now that I'm playing 2 tables I should be able to play 20k next month with little issue. The hands add up so much faster that way.

I really feel like I'm building a solid base for this game. The results have been solid and I'm getting better at reading hands and situations and opponents with every day that goes by.

Unfortunately I lost a couple buyins in my first foray in to the $100 games. It's no big deal, I'm down 3.5 buyins in 1k hands. I easily could have been breakeven if a couple key hands had held up in pots for full stacks, but what can you do.

For now I'm going to leave the shot-taking at $100 for a while until I have a more secure bankroll. I was playing it with 35 buyins, but tanking 5 buyins stings a bit when doing that, so I'll wait for now.

So, lets continue owning $50 for the rest of the month. I'm hoping to make it to 15k-17.5k hands by the end of the week, but we'll see how things go.

Swonnnngs

Had a tough day yesterday. Started out on a heater too -- was up $75 very early on, running good, feeling good etc -- then the wheels came off. Took a crappy beat when I got my JJ in against A7o on a T52 flop, and lost, and that seemed to turn the tide against me for a while.

Struggled against a couple of opponents, wasn't getting cards either which doesn't help. The other thing that started to happen was that I was making legitimate hands, which kept ending up as second best. If I'd river 2pair, the same card would fill the other guy's straight draw. These things will happen though.

I was down nearly 4 buyins at one point, started to turn things around and almost got back to even -- right before the other shoe fell and I found myself back down more than 3 buyins. I was so dejected, but kept at it. The thing about playing two tables now is that at least it gives me the chance to put in some hand volume.

Against the last three or four opponents I finally got it together, started making some cards and stacked a couple of people. I ran it up and got ALL my losses back. Quit for the day with a grand profit of 27c.

I can take a few things from that session though.

--Breaking even by far beats losing, especially when I was down 4 buyins at two points during the day

--The fact that I got it all back shows me that I am doing a good job of game selecting when I'm getting away from the guys who are crushing me before things get too out of hand, in favor of the weaker spots who I can just run over and get me back to where I need to be.

I'll be back at it tonight and during the day tomorrow. I'm glad that the weekend is shortly here, the play I find is SO much worse from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon. Here's hoping.

Put In A Good Weekend

I really feel like I'm hitting my stride at this game so to speak. Played a good number of sessions and hands over the weekend, and won at a very solid clip as well. For some reason, it seems like the games on the weekends are a lot softer than those during the week. The key during the week is to focus even harder on game selection.

Played a pile of hands yesterday, it's amazing how fast the hands add up when you're 2-tabling. Ended up winning ~2buyins in just over a thousand hands. It's too bad, at one point I had two absolutely terrible players on the go, I just couldn't hit any hands against them. They both had the same leak in their game, getting NO value for their big hands, which makes them easy to play against with little varience.

These guys were flat calling hands like pocket kings preflop, then checking the flop when they hit their set. It paid off for me once when a guy did exactly that with kings and a flopped set -- he allowed me to river a flush on him, then paid off when I check/raised him with the made hand. Against these types of players you pretty much can just wait and hit hands and work on getting value out of them.

Unfortunately I really wasn't catching much against either of them, so I ended that around break even. Then a total spewmonkey sat with me and donated $85 to the cause, rescuing an otherwise pointless day of heads up grinding.

Dealing With Adversity

Had my first terrible losing session yesterday. Played against a guy who was literally just a BRUTAL player but was hitting everything against me. I felt like I was playing a solid game, just every time I'd make a hand, he had something better. I river a straight, he rivers a flush -- I river 2pair, which also hits his straight draw -- I make a flush, he has a bigger flush....those sorts of things.

In heads up poker, these are all huge hands. Over the course of time, if you get your money in every time you have a straight or better, you're going to do well against only one opponent, it just so happened that last night this guy always seemed to have a bigger hand.

On the bright side though, I don't believe that I tilted from it or played badly because of it. I finally quit the guy when I was down 3 buyins to him, even though I feel like over time I'd have a huge edge on him, things just weren't going my way.

I ended up getting a buyin back from a couple of other players in pretty standard fashion so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Overall since I started hu, I'm still beating the game for better than 30ptbb/100. I have to keep that in perspective here -- that's a HUGE start to be off to - I can't let one bad session get me down. I'll be getting back on the horse tonight to go get some of that money back :)

Progress, and Having An Open Mind

Played my best session yet yesterday. Got in against a guy who I at first considered to be the type of opponent that I wouldn't want to play. His stats just from hands that I'd seen seemed to show him as just wildly aggressive and a guy who generally would be hard to play against with little experience.

I decided to play him for a bit anyway, and was I ever glad I did. I ended up taking just over 3 buyins off of him. I was very surprised that he didn't quit me before he did. I posted the session on twoplustwo in their hand replayer - you can view it here in it's entirety -

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=5457106
&postcount=213

The funny thing was, as much as I did end up stacking the guy a few times, there are still things that I could have done better. I went over them in pretty minute detail with the guys that I'm studying with right now and made a few tweaks to the way I'm thinking about things.

I've had very good results for my first week of heads' up - way better than what I ever could have expected. Now I just have to get some hands in. I'm up just under 6 buyins in less than a thousand hands - that is owning it pretty hard. Under normal circumstances, I'd tend to think that was not sustainable, but judging by the fact that I'm improving and tweaking things and getting better with every session I play, I really think I can do BETTER, and that's a pretty scary thought.

I want to really focus for the rest of the month and put in the work to improve. If I can do that and start building something meaningful and moving up in limits, I think this blog will become a whole lot more exciting in the months to come.

Here's hoping.

Quality > Quantity

Putting in a high volume of hands at heads up is going to be difficult I think. That's not necessarily a bad thing, however. I've played sessions the past two nights after finishing my "real" job. I'm only playing one table right now while I get used to some of the nuances of heads up play, and at around 80-120 hands per hour played, I'll have to focus on other goals instead of number of hands.

I started out on a bit of a downswing as I think I mentioned in my last entry, but have really started turning things around in the past two days. I'm gaining confidence with every opponent I play, and really starting to get a feel for some of the tendancies that can be exploited and how to adjust to them.

Here's my graph from my first 4 days at heads up:


I can't say enough about how helpful it is to have a couple other players to talk with on an ongoing basis while I try and learn this new game. Talking things out, looking over hands played, going over concepts and looking for ways to improve will pay dividends over the long run, soooo much moreso than just robotting through a volume of hands really not knowing what I'm doing.

I feel really confident in the players I've surrounded myself with. I hope that the partnerships that we form will be beneficial (and profitable) for everyone involved. I'm really excited to keep things going and hopefully move up in stakes within a month or two. The rake at $50hu can become quite a factor, so it would be nice to get away from that. Once I get to 30-35 buyins for the next level, I'll start taking shots - hoping to move up for good once I get to 40. That's the plan anyway...Gotta have a goal, and I do.

August Begins

As we enter in to a new month, I'm presented with a new challenge and opportunity. I finished off my tournament stake and made a profit, though after getting out to a hot start, it wasn't as big as I had hoped. For 50 tournaments played, I made a profit of exactly $500. A $10 per tourney played profit is decent, but it had so much more potential. I think I went the last 20 without a decent cash or a final table.

From the stake though, I had the opportunity to get to know a great guy who is also a very solid poker player. It seems most of the posts I read about staking arrangements end badly for one reason or other - usually a lack of communication between the two involved parties which results in things getting out of hand and before they know it, the stake is gone. In this arrangement it's been the total and complete opposite of that, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Due to our past success, and the trust that we've built, the same backer has agreed to a rolling stake to get me in to some heads up games. Going to start out at $50nl and play on a month by month basis. I have a good line on a VERY solid player who has taken my under his wing as his first student, and I'm excited to play and learn and improve.

I played my first sessions the night before last, and am excited to get in a good number of hands this month. Things went well, as far as I was concerned. I had control of the matches against the opponents that I was playing, I just got unlucky at the wrong time against them. Ended the first day down a buyin, which in the grand scheme of things is no big deal. If I held up either hand, I would have ended the session a winner.

Played another session the following morning, against the absolutely perfect type of opponent for the style of game I play. He bought in for $35 and I quickly stacked him for that. He rebought for $20 and I just knew he would be ready to shove that in lightly and gamble to try and get some of his money back. I didn't have to wait long before I picked up AK. I raised preflop and he made a 3bet. I reraised him to 8 I think and he called. I pushed the rest in on a J72 flop and he INSTANTLY called with A3, drawing pretty much dead to 3 outs - which of course he hit, when a 3 came on the turn.........

Oh well, I've done well to not let things like that tilt my play. Over the long run, I'll have the best of guys like that so I don't worry too much about it.
I'm looking forward to improving my game and putting in hands.