Heads ups

I discovered a new way to make money playing poker: heads-up games. I tried them a long time ago but was not very successful back then. Now, I have already scored 7 out of 11. This is not spectacular, but the main point is that I am making a profit - and I can use this very well at this time. My bankroll at Pacific had dropped to $30, I got it back to $57 before my last two losses. And three of my losses could easily have gone the other way:

1. after a long battle with one player, he apparently got tired of it and started going all-in on every hand. Eventually I got KQ and called. He had 5-2 and won.
2. Got JJ on second hand. My opponent went all-in! Having no information on him, I decided to call. He had AK and won.
3. After a very long battle (the blinds were already 75/150!) I pushed A5 and got called by KT, which made a straight on the river.

In all cases I was favorite, in the last case even 90% favorite by the river. Clearly, in the long run I will make a profit also in these situations. In the seven games that I won, most of the time I gradually built an advantage until the decisive hands. Of course often the opponent would fight back to equality, but I usually felt that I had the upper hand. I definitely feel very confident during these games.

There was only one opponent that I never got anywhere with, he put me under pressure right from the start. Of course I am only playing $5 games at the moment (see bankroll) so I can expect my opponents to be generally not very strong. I'll be curious to see how this continues.

The most important thing about this however, is that you rarely have to put all your chips on one hand (and possibly suffer a bad beat). Most hands do not go to showdown. Thus events like my recent MTTs do not occur, where you play well for an hour and a half and then lose all your chips to an idiot. Also, in a heads-up game you are playing all the time which is nice; you don't have to wait for good cards like in other games.

Scary

I cannot believe what is happening here. Look at my profit graph in PokerOffice:There seems to be absolutely nothing I can do to stop from losing. Just now, I ran TT into a complete moron who first limped with his Kings and then flat-called my reraise. I think we can all agree that this is a total idiot's move. On the low flop I pushed and he called, of course.

Then a few rounds later I got JJ and pushed. Exactly the same guy from before had also limped into this pot. This time he had QQ.

It really is disgusting.

Another horrible, horrible play

With AQ, I raise to 4BB and get one caller, who had limped before me. Flop QJx, two diamonds. He checks, I bet 1/3 of the pot. What am I, invulnerable? He calls, turn 9, he checks again. NOW I wake up and bet 300. He reraises me to 600.

At this point I just know that he as KT. I mean, how could he make it any clearer? But like a rank beginner, I cannot believe this until I see it with my own eyes. So I go all-in, he calls and shows me his KT. Happy now, Rob?

I don't know why I even bother. I think I was not in the right frame of mind to be playing poker.

Still much to learn...

I did a "poker IQ test" at Donkeytest. So 100 is an average score. My results: Overall, not a great result, but it was nice to see the big plus for the tournament play. This score was apparently better than that of 94% of the people who took this test! I'm also reasonably good at playing blinds (77%) and small and medium pairs (78%). Interestingly, my score with big pairs is much worse (beats only 32%). I suspect that this is once again the old problem of not being able to let go of a good hand.

Also, I am apparently bad at considering flop texture (30%). This news is unfortunately not very useful for me, because it doesn't answer the obvious question about how to improve this...

I am very slow, at least when doing this test (17%) and bad at aggression. I do not know if this means I am too aggressive, or not aggressive enough. I got an additional picture with bars, it says "aggressive 20, passive 18". That is not very helpful.

I also appear to be mediocre (40%) at analyzing betting patterns, and, rather disturbingly, at Logic (36%)! I wonder why?

For some strange reason, I can only take this test once - per email address, that is. I definitely plan to take this test again in a few months or so, to see whether I improved. I must say that the result was a bit disappointing for me, given my very positive results over the last half year I expected a higher score.

It is a real shame that I don't get to see my score per question. That would be a lot more helpful than only this summary. I wonder why they did this. I suppose they might not want the answers to become generally known, because then many people could test perfectly and ruin the test for others. But this could be fixed by stabilizing the scores, and not letting them depend on future test-takers anymore.

I will try to derive the right answers from looking at what I answered and in which areas I performed poorly...

Blog readability

Get a Cash Advance

Interesting...

PS. I suppose my live comments on my recent tournament success had something to do with this. They may have lowered the reading level somewhat...

Steps.............

On the first hand, I get 99. I raise to 200, I get FOUR callers and then somebody pushes. I fold, two players call (AJ and AK, I believe), the pusher has 66... but flops a 6.

Just a few hands later, I get AA. I raise to 200, I get only ONE caller, who has.... K2. Flop 345, turn 6.

Disgusting.

That push

It was really bad. (Or was it?) I am just putting this down here for the future. To refresh your memory, in that €120-game, I did the following.

"Push on next hand instead with 92s. SB calls with KK... I flop 982, and
there are no further miracles. Stack 19k!!"

In that hand, my stack was 9k, average stack at my table was 9.2k. Though the blinds were 400/800 with antes 75, so that a round cost 1725 and my M was 5, my Q was nearly 1 (based only on my table). I had noticed, and written down, that all-ins were not often being called.

With 7 players at the table, my actual M was 3.65. So I could survive 36 more hands, that is not a lot. Nevertheless, we were down to 21 players with top 20 being paid. On the other hand, I was not really interested in a €10 payout after investing €5.50.

What would you do? When I started writing this post, I was convinced it was a bad, possibly very bad, move. But the odds of having a (high) pocket pair (or AK, AQ...) behind you with only 3 players left to act cannot be very high. Finally, this hand set me up for a great result, since with this higher stack of mine people were even more reluctant to call my all-ins.

A new goal

See the list of "biggest wins" to the left? I now have a goal in poker. I want to WIN an MTT. Cashing is nice, but winning is better.

Live as it happened

I made these notes while playing my first MTT at CelebPoker. Sometimes I got a little bit excited. Enjoy. The good news is that I won $120 €120 ($175), erasing more than half most of my recent losses. I am almost back to $2000 profit now.



Level 1 = 10/20. People are completely unimpressed with a raise to 80. In the first
seven minutes, I got AK twice but failed to connect. I also got KQs, same story.
Then QJo as BB, I folded to a raise before me, flop QQx. I would have made a full
house and shared a pot with another QJ who "elected to call".

Down to 900 after 15 minutes, 835 after half an hour (starting stack is 1500).
I am starting to fear getting high cards. I will have to push soon.
Level up in 6 minutes (to 50/100).
I pushed when I was dealt KQo yet again after a minraise to my right. Left called
with TT, as did OR. Board became a flush... Still, this puts me back up to 1340
because one player folded to a flop bet. Level 50/100 now. My M = 9.

Not getting any hands. People seem to be tightening up, finally. I push AJs.
I get called by 33.... odds *exactly* 50%... I win! FLop J, Turn A, river no 3.
Stack 2380 now. Next hand limp-fold QJs, do not connect. Level 75/150, M=10.

The idiot to my left just got knocked down severely, is now below me. Good,
because he was calling way too much. That didn't last long, but now I have JJ!
Push after short all-in. He calls of course. HE IS OUT!!!!! Stack 5095!!
He had AJ, short all-in had A2, so he had even less outs. No wait, he is not
out, he still has 770 chips - now 995.

KQo AGAIN. Minraise before me. I call. I CONNECT!!! He bets flop, I push.
He has QT!!! I WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stack now 9270, M = 30. I am fourth
player overall. HIghest stack is 12225, 81 players left. Top 20 gets paid.
I survive the first hour. I am still 4th, 77 left.

2nd stack sits down to my left, he has 11150. Observe him. AK as SB, folded to
me, I raise to 3BB, he folds. A good sign. Two players at this table are now
above me, one was here the whole time. Now 3 players. I am still 6th with 7 tables!
Seems unfair! Now there are again only 2 above me. Still... I should be first at
the table!

Anyway, taking it easy now, M=30, no hands, no pressure. One player at my table
now has 25k, he is chip leader of course. AGAIN AKo, BB. 3 limpers, raise to 800.
UTG calls with 77 and flops another 7. I lose only 800 more, fortunately.

Stack now 8445 (still nice), avg = 5357. 54 players left. Antes now, M = 17.
Still 8th biggest stack. In 5 minutes, blinds will double! M will be only 8,
boo hoo. Am 4th stack at this table with 5 tables left! Strange.

Damn, lost a big hand as BB when I hit top pair 8 on the flop and tried to win.
Opp stayed around with flush draw and hit on turn. Stack 6545 - below average!
41 players left... Will I survive the second hour? Need to start making moves now.
M = 6, blinds + antes = 1000.

QQ!! Raise to 4BB, TWO Callers, A on flop. That is the end of this tournament
for me. Now I have only 3845 left, M = 4. 38 players left. I am going to push
soon.

A8. I push if noone raises. But they do. Bigtime! Two huge stacks go allin...
THey have QQ and KK, QQ turns a Q.

A6. Push OTB. Blinds fold. Next hand TT! Now I can go out in style.
No, I cowardly fold after minraise, call, and all-in reraise. So does everyone
else.

Next level. My M drops below 2. 35 players left. Need to get a lot of luck.
A8 will have to do. YES, all fold. 5k now, M = 2.5. Not great. Average
stack is 9k, M = 4.5!! Everyone is in trouble. This time I fold A8.
Too bad, everyone folds to SB who pushes. 30 players left.

J9s! Fold when RHS calls. I moved, table full of shortstacks (comparable
to me). Nice balancing they have here. AQ!! Have to push now...
Go over the top of a shortstack. And I win! Phew. 26 left, stack 7500, M=5.

AQ again!! EP minraises, I push. HE FOLDS!!! 9k now, but blinds become 400/800
with 75 ante, so a round will cost 1800, so my M = 5. Avg stack is exactly
12000 now, with 25 players remaining from 200 originally.

11 minutes to the next break. Will I make it? All-ins are rarely called.
KQo as SB... I push, he folds. 9k again. Good, because I just had to pay the
blinds. M=5 still.

People are still limping... What a sight. 22 players left, smallest stack is
1318. I get a free round!! Yippee. Allows me to fold K6 as SB.

I was planning to push OTB with 96o, but there was a caller so I folded. Flop
T66. Push on next hand instead with 92s. SB calls with KK... I flop 962, and
there are no further miracles. Stack 19k!!

Suddenly I am in 5th place. 21 players left. I reached the second break.
After this, level will be 500/1000, round will cost 2500, my M = 7.
(I limped KQ. FLop AKx. I fold to a bet. Turn K.) Now in 6th place (during
the break).

BB, extreme short stack pushes, I have to call with 93 but lose.
Next hand I bluff as SB, back to 17k.

People still know how to fold! I push with 44 in third pos., all fold. 19k. 7th place.
16 players remain. My stack is exactly average. 15 players now. 14.

Next level: round costs now 3150, so my M = 5.5. Still in 8th place with 14 left.
Really want to make the top 10 now. Some guy just called an all-in with KTo and won.

Push with A9o in 2nd pos. All fold. 17k. Idiot calls all-in with K4, loses.

Hit top pair on free flop as BB. Opp calls a bet! Flush draw? He folds to turn
all-in, thankfully. Stack 22k! Still in 7th :-) 13 left.

Push with KJo, again no callers. Stack 25k! 6th position, 12 left.

I guess I should coast to the top 10 now. I AM THERE!! There was a four-way
all-in.

FINAL TABLE! Still in 6th. Nice payouts start at 6th, basically ($50).
Shooting for more of course.

Next level. Round costs 5000! My M is down to 4 now, but never despair...

QT OTB. Fold to UTG raise. Biggest stack is to my immediate left.
22... fold to early all-in. He has AQ, gets called by AK.
Good thing EP went all-in, it would have been my last hand.

People are still limping and minraising. No eliminations yet. Down to 9th now.
Very short stack pushes, is called twice, three times! 77 vs 98 vs KK (one
of the callers folded to a reraise).

AJo! Push in 3rd pos. 8 players left. All fold. 23k. Payout of $25 is assured!
There are two very short stacks now.

Flopped trips as SB, I called due to pot odds. 30k stack now!!! 7 players left,
payout $35. I'm in 5th. Really nice payouts start at 2nd place ($200 and $300)...

I push 55. Get called. by AQ. I WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stack now 60k. Round costs 6600, M=9. Hasn't been this high in quite a while.
Need to slow down now, stop pushing. Having written this, I push on the next
flop that gives me 2nd pair + oesd. Down to 35k again. DAMN. M = 6 still.

Need to cool down for a while! Still 7 players left, avg = 43k.
I will try to wait until the next elimination before I make another move.
Can't take that long...

Nobody seems to be willing - there it is. 6 players left! $50 assured.

Now 5 are left! Hurray, $65 assured. Player who was down to 4k or so now
has 100k. He is playing every hand now, I fold KT after his raise.
Another player pushes though, and he folds.

KQs! Push, all fold. 29k. Fold 78s UTG on next hand. I am clearly in last
position here. Hawkeye (100k) is taking advantage.

Down to 21k after a few more games. Round costs 8k now, so M < 3.

Hawkeye now has 150k!

Blinds pass. Down to 14k. finally get a chance to push, T7. All fold.
And another chance with A8, again all fold! 29k again.

Only 4 now, KJs is gold for some! $80 assured.
One guy only has 12k left. Now he pushes and is called by KQ! He must lose this.
Yes!! Three players left!!! $120, nice.

40k using TT. Others have 50k and 200k.


...... At this point, with only 3 players left, I did not have the time anymore to make notes. One player (X) was sitting out and the other (Y) suggested we steal (share) his blinds, though Y's stack was much larger than mine. Unfortunately, I could not resist pushing QJo into the 77 of Y as BB. This was really, really, really stupid. All I had to do was just fold and raise a bit longer in the right spots, and I would have earned $75 more for free. I was just so on a rush from making it this deep into the tournament, that I couldn't think straight anymore. I was having so much fun pushing etc. Oh well, I can't be too upset about this (and I'm not), I made a very nice profit and by rights should have been eliminated a very long time ago. I should have gone out in 21st place in fact, just outside the money... I guess this sort of makes up for all the bad luck I have been having. It really was extreme. Let's hope that this bad phase is over now.

Now I know what it means to be on tilt

It is simply not to be believed how bad I am running at the moment. I just lost FOUR more tournaments.

1. flopped trips, opponent flopped the same trips with a better kicker
2. made a set on the turn, bet out, opponent stuck around with 64s to make his backdoor flush
3. SB raises to 4BB in an obvious steal attempt, I go all-in with A8, he has AT
4. I go all-in with 22 on a harmless looking flop, opponent calls with 99 (this is the tilting part)

I just cannot believe it. SIXTEEN tournament losses in a row, apart from a single third place in between.

In the last nine days, I have lost $200, bringing my net lifetime winnings back down to $1863. Still a nice amount, but my online bankroll is now down to $124, since I cashed out a lot of that. I still do not intend to make any new deposits ever, so I am forced to drop down to $5 games and hope to work my way back up. In fact the last game above was already a $5 game, fortunately.

I had heard a lot about variance, but experiencing it is something quite different from reading about it.

Oh dear

I seem to have lost ten tournaments in a row. Well, almost, the sequence was interrupted by a single third place in an SNG. It has been quite a while since I had such a streak. Fortunately there were a lot of $10 games in the mix. What happened?

1. 77 as SB, I raise to 3BB (definitely not enough) after all fold. BB calls with 53, flops a straight flush draw! I go all-in on the flop -- too late, as he calls and makes his straight on the river.
2. QQ in EP, I raise to 3BB (a bit low, given that this is the first blind round), player behind me calls with J9 and flops a straight as I flop a set. I think I am supposed to lose all my money here (flop was KQT). I expected to be up against a straight draw.
3. Another double special: I push with KQo in EP (reasonable given my stack and the blinds). The SB has 99 (and flops another 9), the BB has JJ. I fail to beat either hand.
4. The end of the game is missing here. But I played too tight too long. In particular, I got A8 in third position with 9 players left, the first two players folded. Given my M of 7, I probably need to push here. The SB with 96s may or may not have called that. As it went, there were two callers before him and he pushed for 4BB! So it is clear that he was crazy, and I might have lost a bit there (but not all, since he was so shortstacked). Then I got QJ in first position, 8 players left, and again refused to push. A short stack two seats to my left pushed instead and did not get called. Then I refused to push when I flopped an oesd as BB and the SB bet 2/3 of the pot. Dubious perhaps, but I would have given him irresistable pot odds of 8:3. Then I folded as SB preflop, refusing odds of 7:1, and prompty would have flopped a set and turned quads :-(( Finally I even refused to push with TJ after one limper, though the blinds were coming in only 3 hands. WAY too passive overall.
   
5. In a heads-up tournament, things went quite well until I called an all-in of AK with my QQ and lost the race. Nothing to do!
6. I pushed JJ UTG with stack 2800, blinds 75/150. That was way too extreme. AK called and won the race. It was too early to push, I could have just raised to 450 and folded the flop. I might have made a c-bet on the flop KQx, but definitely (hopefully) not more than that, keeping me alive and kicking.
7. A big $20 tournament in which I made several costly mistakes, including horribly overplaying AA. Eventually I pushed for 7BB and the BB called for half his stack with AT.
8. TPTK lost to flopped set + flopped straight draw (who made his straight). Again I was very aggressive (looks like I need to find some balance here! compare 4 above), pushing on the flop JTT with AJ. Quite a bad move on my part.
9. Third place! Thanks to a rivered flush at a crucial stage...
10. Played a turbo game, I should not do that. Missed my only reasonable chance to push and that was it.
11. Lost 500 on the first hand when I played QQ well, but my opponent called preflop with K8 and flopped two pair. Later flopped a flush and overbet the turn, causing my opponent to fold (I was worried that he was on a flush draw). Never really recovered.

PS: and now I lost two more. It is enough to start doubting yourself. In the first, my 88 ran into 77 and, what was worse, TT. Of course the biggest idiot at the table had the TT. In the second, I had a problem which is quite rare: I got too many good cards! At one stage I won four hands in a row, bringing me up to 3000 in chips. The problem with this situation is that you start to feel invincible. So when soon after this, I got AQ and hit TPTK on the flop, I proceeded to give half my stack to the BB who had AA. Shortly after that, I pushed a random hand into JJ in the blind, who proceeded to get a completely unnecessary third J on the flop and an even more unnecessary fourth J on the turn.

I guess I need to drop back down to $5 games or so. Well, tomorrow I will start playing at Celeb, which should be another easy site. But that's what they said about Titan. Oh well, we will see...

A $100 night

Well, this time I had a bit of fun :-) I earned a net amount of $100 in a little more than one hour of play. But the fun was also due to the chatting during the games, which did happen a bit this time.

Also it gave me great pleasure to take all the chips from a complete and total moron, especially given the fact that he had 10 times as much chips as I did at one point. I got some incredible cards! Sometimes you just have those games where very early on you know who you are going to be playing heads-up against (at least if you do not get eliminated first), and this was one of them. He just kept on bluffing and most of the time, did not get called.

We started the heads-up phase with me slightly ahead, because I eliminated the third player with AQ vs AQ... I made my flush. Then, my opponent just started going all-in on every. single. hand. A bit annoying when people do that, but on the plus side, in this case I can just play by the book and let the cards fall where they may. Unfortunately, on the very first hand with 2 players, he caught 22 and I had KJs. I was basically expecting that he was bluffing so I called and lost. This is how he got to have 10 times as many chips as I did.

On the very next game, he had another pair, this time 33! I went all-in with my T8 (forced due to extremely low stack) and was rewarded with a flop 882.
Then the following amazing hand happened. Compare in particular the flop to my opponent's hand.

$250/$500 No Limit Holdem
2 players
Converted at weaktight.com
Stacks:

Hero		($2744.00)
BB		($12256.00)

Pre-flop: ($750, 2 players) Hero is BTN

Hero goes all-in, BB calls $2244

Flop: ($5488, 2 players)

Turn: ($5488, 2 players)

River: ($5488, 2 players)

Final Pot: $5488
BB shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $5488 ( won +$5238 )
BB lost -$2744.00


After this it was mostly a question of folding, either before he went all-in or afterwards. There was just one hand that he folded preflop - I wonder what he had! Eventually I got A2, which was good enough to push with given my still small stack. He called with 74s... Now our stacks were close to equal, but he still had a small lead. After a few more hands that I folded preflop, there was yet another amazing hand. Of course he again had no business calling with his hand, but it was more than obvious that he did not have the faintest clue what to do and was, indeed, just pushing basically every hand, even after I showed aggression.

$300/$600 No Limit Holdem
2 players
Converted at weaktight.com
Stacks:

BTN		($8524.00)
Hero		($6476.00)

Pre-flop: ($900, 2 players) Hero is BB


Victim goes all-in, Hero calls
Flop: ($15000, 2 players)

Turn: ($15000, 2 players)

River: ($15000, 2 players)

Final Pot: $15000
BTN shows:
Hero shows:

BTN wins $2048 ( won +$1748 )
Hero wins $12952 ( won +$12352 )


Two hands after this he beat me with T7 against J7 (flop Txx, turn J...) but three hands after that I pushed with Q8s. That was really dubious. Why did I do that? The blinds were 400/800 by now, stacks were 9k vs 6k. This was just stupid. Anyway, I made top pair on the flop and a flush on the turn (though I did not notice that until just now...) and my opponent got nowhere with his 98o.

All in all, a good night. It did not start of all that well! In the first game I played, I was seated next to some guy who seemed to be pushing with any two cards, so when I got 88 I just went all-in over the top. Unfortunately, there was a guy who had limped with Aces... Normally, a very stupid move, but given that my neighbour was indeed pushing a LOT, he could have expected this to happen also in this game. I had not paid enough attention to the aces player earlier to tell you whether he was just an idiot or cleverly making use of his knowledge about his opponents - which I was trying to do.

BTW, I just had a look at that hand again, the idiot to my left in fact had A9 and the turn was a 9. So even without running into the aces, that would have been basically the end of this game for me. Oh well.