Rolled On The River

50NLHUNLHE

If you tried to pronounce it, people would think you were having a stroke, act FAST.

Hmmm, while typing that last line of text, I realized something. The national stroke foundation (like most disease prevention companies these days) has designed an acronym to help the public see the signs of the relevant disease.

Facial weakness
Arm weakness
Speech difficulty
Time to act!

This is all well and good, but as a guy writing a blog with at least one active viewer, I generally do a google research on what I’m talking about, and it got me thinking, how many people have left ’stroke fast’ ’stroke, arm weakness’ on their search history while trying to remember the acronym’s definition. Add me to that list.

Wow, what an eventful post! Its good to keep it casual, I guess, though if I got any more casual, I would probably stop breathing.

Heads up is going good, most of my sessions and sweats have been up, I’ve been reading some books and articles, as well as watching a few of DOGISHEAD’s HU videos. I’ve also been working on a couple of little side projects and doing some part-time work like a good little all-rounder.

My next blog will be soon, and I’ll make sure it’s interesting, well, more than this hunk of garbage…

Ok maybe not, but at least it will have a subject.

I promise.

Really.

Heads up is going well, I don’t believe in karma or luck balancing out, but I’ve been running like the sun, and it’s about time. If I hadn’t been reading the books that explain variance in relationship to sample size, I would probably have quit by now, resigning myself to being unlucky.

This is no more.

I was watching Skelm play an interesting heads-up match, he explained the reads he had on the player, how his 3-bets came in succession. A value 3-bet in a hand, followed by a few bluff 3-bets was this guy’s game, and Skelm caught onto it pretty quickly. His play was exploited, and it was clear he was unable to adjust, or even identify the leak. This cost the guy $800 at 100nl heads-up.

By the time he realized his mistake, he was already down a significant amount, and knew that he was being outplayed. This is where it gets interesting, in the chat box he then offers Skelm $200 for an hour worth of coaching. He thought it in his best interest to lose another $200 to find his weakness and learn how to plug the hole. Skelm gladly accepted, and gave the guy his coaching, and all was well with the world.

It’s just an interesting way to look at how a human thinks about poker. He obviously wanted to play better, knowing that he’d been exploited, an turned to the person who was there taking his money. Apparently he was quite happy with the quality of coaching he got, and thinks the money was well spent. An expensive lesson for him, but cheaper than it could have been.

I don’t really have a heads-up ‘game’ so to speak just yet, it’s basically Skelm telling me what he thinks the right decision is, and me following it, questioning it, and attempting to understand the rationalization behind it. I wouldn’t expect to see half of what he sees in an opponent if I was left to my own devices, which is expected since I’m new at the game. Every decision in NLHU is tailored to the opponent, whereas full ring can incorporate a lot more static play based on combinatorial math and statistical analysis.

I’m enjoying it, you are an integral part of every hand, and your opponent is there, waiting for you to figure him out, you aren’t waiting to take a shot at a fish with 7 other regs, hoping to hit something a little better than what he hits while in position. This is much more fun, less robotic, more psychological, and for me, over my small sample size, more profitable.

While I in no way think that I’ve accomplished all I’ve wanted to accomplish at small stakes full ring no limit hold ‘em, I’m having a little bit of a change anyway. Skelm’s focus and training has switched from full ring to heads up and he discussed with other coaches, and decided that I should also divert my attention there. A game of psychology where the style of the opponent determines the correct play more often than the cards that fall. I’ve noticed, watching Skelm, that he only plays one table at a time heads up, and yet it can still produce a win rate comparable to full ring, therefore he is able to play one person and win as much as the sum of playing 96 people (8 players by twelve tables). This should be read as swingy and emotionally taxing.

Guess I’ll give it a shot!