Ninja edit: April results

So after finishing work I got home & was determined to get a quick session in. I managed to get 3 2mans & a four man in before now. Finished 2-1 in the 2mans & shipped the 4man for an overall monthly profit of $25.

Time to celebrate!

Jay

April Results

I only set myself 2 goals this month & while I didn't hit either of them I'm pretty happy how the month panned out despite dropping $25 on FTP.

First goal was to hit 160 games for the month, while I came up slightly short on this one at 143 I did take off about a week due to tilt. So, I prob would have hit the target but as a result of the tilt I got myself a coach on a more permanent basis.

As for the $20 target on stars I'm not sure I'm going to hit it. Currently I'm $10 which may be my final result with an evening left which I'm not sure I'll get chance to get a session in.





- Good luck at the tables.

Jay

May Goals

So I've been reading a book I've meant to buy for a long time now. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell looks at talented people & how they became so successful. The underlying theme is that these sucessful people hold one main thing in common, they practiced their discipline for over 10,000 hours. The idea behind this has made me realise I need to make sure I'm maximising my time at the tables. That means no more surfing the t'interwebz or Youtube, whenever I get chance to put in a few games where I can fully concentrate I need to snap the opportunity up. This month I should be around 40 combined hours of poker, so I want to start out by pushing the boundary a little further just to push myself but to make it acheivable.

On the same theme, I'm pretty happy with my scheduling at the min. Solid sessions in the mornings from 5:30am - 7:30am, a couple of videos over lunch at work & then around an hour for a mini Stars session. I have pondered over the possibility of playing late night sessions, one issue is potential burnout & having my concentration levels dip to a point where my edge is lowered in the games I play.

This coming month I've got the SCOOP HU Event #7 to play. It's the first HU MTT I've ever Ayer so I'm super excited. I booked the next day off work so I'm prepared to put in a late session if I need to & if I crash out early I can always grind the SNGs all day anyways.

So I think I'm maintaining my focus on getting in the experience of playing but with a bit more focus on the amount of time playing rather than the number of games. Fingers crossed this will help ease me away from playing the volume rather than the quality of games.

Cliffnotes (quickly before my iPhone deletes this draft - Too tilted to explain!)

[ ] Play 50 hours of poker
[ ] Watch 30 hours of videos
[ ] Play 160 games on FTP
[ ] Play 100 games on Stars
[ ] Cash in SCOOP Event #7

- Good luck at the tables

Jay

May is on it's way - Get busy

There is a week left of April, it's been a pretty shitty month IMO. I tilted pretty badly to start out which saw me lose 16BIs after a 1st day winning session 5 BIs. This put me in a horrible place, I sent Hokie 6 of my spewy games which was def a mistake but in a way I' glad I had this bad time, because it spurred me on to getting coaching & that can only help my game & make me a better player.

I want to concentrate a portion of my time on dealing with my mental game. I've got a few books that look at the subject, I guess the one I want to start with which is often talked about is The Poker Mindset. I had attempted to read it some months ago but never really gave it a fair chance. So I'm going to make sure its in my May goals. Hopefully, this book will give me at least one bit of advise I can practically use to stave off those tilt demons.

Another book I recently purchased was Outliers: The Story of Success. This has been on my wishlist for sometime, I've heard it mentioned by a number of people both from 2+2/poker world and a couple of people from my 'normal' world. So after I had a discussion with another HUSNG player & he recommended it as a good book I thought it was time I got hold of a copy. I'm not sure if I'm going to get the chance to read it throughout May but I'm certainly going to read it June, given I have a week holiday for a family wedding - plenty of time to chill out & get away from work/grind.

My volume target is currently off by 23 games with 6 days to go meaning I need to average over 9 games for the remainder of the month. This is primarily because I've not played enough days, 50% of the time this month I've not played anything. This is in part due to me taking a week off due to bad play/tilt but also I got out of my schedule of waking early & got into the habit of hitting the snooze button. I played 10 games this morning in the space of 90 mins. If I can hit this sort of volume on a daily basis I only need to get up at 6am or just before.

Looking at my Stars games, I had I pretty shitty session yesterday when I dropped 5 BIs, this has left me at +$3 for the month over 82 games which sucks pretty bad as I was pretty my on my target for $20 on Stars  for the month until then. But, I've still got 6 days to pull it back so until the month is over, nothing is over.

Unless something goes horribly wrong in the next week, next time I write will prolly be Thur/Fri when I've decided what my goals are going to be for the month of May, just before I review my April goals at the weekend.

- Good luck at the tables.

Jay

Improving your game: HU vs A review partner

Yesterday I had arranged to play a couple of pratice games against a 2+2er I met from one of the month review sessions. The plan was to play te games using our normal games, make a few notes & give tips on what we used as the leaks in our respective games. After this we planned to swap the HHs so we could find out what the other player had & if the reads we thought we had were infact correct.

To get going, I decided to jump into a game & get joined by the other player. As the games were moving at a steady pace I figured I'd join a couple of games before we got in one together & I'd spew of the others so I could concentrate on the one between us. Good plan, failed exectution! I reg'd in 4 games & we still hadn't sat each other! I've never 4 tables HU but managed to run 3-1 which was a bit of a result!

After I'd finished up, we took to the $5 games & managed to sit first try & off we went. The game went pretty well from both sides & was a very testing match, not too many major hands apart from a super loose call. Hand played out:
10/20, eff stx 70BBs
Hero (SB): 67o - raise to 60
Villain (BB): Calls
FLOP: As6cKs [Pot 120]
Hero: bets 80
Villain calls
TURN: 7d [Pot 280]
Hero: bets 140
Villain: calls
River: 8s [Pot 560]
Hero: bets 220
Villain: raises 500
Hero: Calls
Hero: mucks
Villain shows 9sTs

After talking it through it was blatently a horrible call. There was a ton of hands that had me crushed, he'd been playing tight so far in the match & I spewed of 1/2 my stack. In the end I lost A3s vs K4s with effective stacks of 14BBs.

We spoke on Skpe afterwards & he was impressed with how my game had come along since reviewing the HH at the beggining of the month.

I guess this blog entry is a self indulgent entry at how well my game has developed this month, but the point of it was playing someone you know is useful for both of you if you are both pretty equal in ability as you can try out your game on someone who will give you honest realtime feedback & you also get to see the hands you were convinced you were behind & made the fold.

This has been a masive confidence boost for me, hopefully I can use this confidence to propel me & finish strong.

- Good luck at the tables.

The aggro game

Since getting some feedback from HokieGreg I've changed my game a ton. 
I guess he's reaffired what I always thought and that is I'm not 
aggressive enough. So after relooking at my range I took to the tables 
to try it out.

If I'm honest I've had mixed sucess. I think this I'd down to applying 
a very transparent strategy against my opponents. This has got me into 
a heap of trouble too many times. Eventually I tried a few different 
approaches which seems to have worked well.

  Specifically against loose aggro players & maniacs I've found a 
strategy to slow the game down enough till I can pick up a strong 
enough hand & play for stacks.

I seem to be handling the volume goal better now. Granted I'm down for 
the month but I'm not playing to hit the volume anymore, I'm playing 
each game as they come so hopefully this will continue & I'll be able 
to stretch my volume even further as time goes on. Ideally, I'd like 
to be playing at least 200 games a month. Realistically, I do think 
this is possible but only if I can improve my schedule in a morning. 
I've been getting up around 6 recently & I'm only getting in about 5 
games in this time, an hour earlier & I could hit 10 games a day which 
would leave me with a realistic chance of hitting 300 a month. I guess 
I'm going to carry on where I am for now & gradually get up earlier. 
If I can get up at 5:30 everyday next month then 5am from July I 
should be getting decent volume at the tables.

Games: 95/160
Profit: -$24
PStars: $12

- Good luck at the tables.

Week 2 - Snooze, reviews & SCOOP

This week hasn't been great volume wise, I've only played 2 sessions on full tilt, totalling 18 games. This is not a great effort on my part & need to make an effort for the last half of the month to get the volume in. So far this month I'm 73/160, 20 behind schedule. While this is still easily achievable, I need to overcome my tendency to play to hit the volume button & not to win the games I play. This is one of my huge leaks & after the donkish start to the month, really need to make sure I'm winning every game possible (which I should be doing anyways, obv!)

I have played more sessions on Stars this week for some reason & with relative success. Only 28 games for the week, but a net profit of $17 helps me comfortably towards the $20 target I set. I'm feeling pretty comfortable at Stars right now, so much so I used that profit to enter into the SCOOP Event #7 $16.50 (L) Heads-Up tourney.

Had some solid feedback from Hokie on one of my HH's & he advised me to go away & work on the specific leaks & then send more as this should help my game more than reviewing the one I sent. I intend to ship over the other 5 histroies this week, so I've had over a week to work on his advice & put it into practice.

In addition, I've had some great discussions with another 2+2er & got some awesome plans to help each others game, which hopefully should really benefit the both of us. We've looking to play a couple of matches against each other to pick out a few leaks in our respective games. I'm super excited about this, I think this will help a ton in bringing our games further.

Fresh start

I haven't posted for a week now & tbh I haven't played much either. I've been laying really badly & needed to stop the bad play. Hence the reason I hired Hokie. Just got my first review back & have a ton of stuff to adjust which I expected. It's super-cool that Hokie was willing to work with me, I know I'm terribad, but I'm willing to put in the commitment to getting better.

So I guess today is the fresh start I needed, feel pretty happy with the work I've got to do, gonna carry on watching the videos which I have been doing on a daily basis for the past month now, but I think I need to make more notes & apply the lessons effectively. But on the whole I've come back with a new positive outlook & commitment to improve.

- Good luck at the tables.
Jay

Run Bad vs Play Bad

I've played about 45 games so far this month; I'm 2 days ahead of schedule & wouldn't mind keeping it that way. However, that is the only thing that is going good. I'm not sure where I am at the moment; I'm down about 6 buyins so far. I had my first session where I went 6-0 & since that I've not had a winning session.

I think it would be quite easy for me to put a chunk of this down to variance, I have suffered my share of brutal beats recently & according to pokerluckanalyser I'm running at 1% of good luck. But this would be too easy to say, mah it's variance. I don't want to fall into the trap of doing the same thing I'm doing & believing the results will change eventually. What if they don't? I'm under no illusion that I'm not a great player, I have tons of leaks which need plugging & now is probably a good time to look at them.

Another issue I have digging away in my head is my tendency to go on autopilot when I’m not time constrained. Over the weekend I had two big sessions where I played a few hours at a time getting in around 15 games in. This situation brings out a bizarre reaction in me, one where I just stop thinking about what I’m doing & put myself in horrible spots. It’s like the volume element is priority over making the right decisions.

For my own sanity & personal growth I've decided to get some more coaching. As I've taken on a more aggressive approach recently I'm gonna employ the skills of HokieGreg who is a great player & a fantastic coach. I watched his leak finder video on HUSNG.com & it made tons of things click for me, so I’m gonna get him to review a handful of HHs of mine. This is another big outlay for me but I'm investing in my game & if I'm going to get better I need to make sure I'm on the right track.


GAMES: 43
PROFIT: -$12.45

5 tips to getting started in heads-up poker

So I've been playing HUSNGs for around 4 months now. Started with $50 in my roll & now have $120, not a huge increase but I'm not far off moving into the $5 games from my lowly start at $1 games. I wanted to use this blog entry to give a few tips on the getting the basics right, where to start, what to read, what to watch & how to build a good solid foundation to progress. This is probably aimed at the casual player, who like myself still has to get up in the morning & go out to work.

1) Books

A great foundation for any heads-up player is the always recommended title, Heads-Up No-Limit Hold 'em

This title covers a lot of the basics, ton of situations you will find yourself in & lots of styles of play you can adapt yourself or adapt to when your villain plays these styles.

If you find you need to study up on the basics first, Sklansky's The Theory of Poker is a great place to start.

2) Videos


I've probably made two great investments in my poker career, one of which was getting a subscription to HUSNG.com, if you can't afford this they have a beginners pack for $40 which offers amazing value for 8 videos.

3) Forums


Twoplustwo is a great resource for information, you can spend a number of months trawling the archives picking up plenty of sound advice. Once you have got into playing a bit more make a conscious effort to post hands for feedback, don;t be afraid to have your play criticised this is the best way to learn & improve.


4) Routine


I've found this a great help to establish some sort of routine to your play. My routine consists of reviewing my play from the previous session before I even open up a table to play.


5) Any other Advice?


Your surroundings play a very important part in your play. My set up isn't optimal at the moment, I have my laptop in the dining room connected to the living room, so I have to avoid playing at times when my fiancé & little boy is in the room because of the distractions which effect the decisions I make. This is also linked to advice given for not playing when you're tired, drunk & stressed.