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.