Card Dead

Je suis donc bien arrivé à Vannes jeudi soir, avec mes trois sac d'environ 10, 30 et 40 kilos respectivement. Apres avoir fait un détour d'au moins 1,5 fois le parcours initial je suis arrivé dans ce FJT, qui, ma foi, me laisse un sentiment mitigé. D'abord la mauvaise surprise de découvrir qu'il me faudra payer 315 et non 275 euros. Ensuite la désagréable impression d'être sous surveillance en permanence. Tu peux faire ce que tu veux. Mais visiblement ici, la liberté a un prix. Tu peux aller sur internet, mais il faut demander qu'ils allument la live box. Tu peux rentrer apres 00h30, mais il faut toquer à la fenêtre pour alerter le veilleur (prions pour qu'il ne s'endorme pas). Tu peux inviter des amis, ou quelqu'un(e) à dormir chez toi, mais c'est 8 euros par nuit et par personne.

I have changed my approach to the game. I play a non standard, a non "book poker" anymore. It means, no raises anymore on the button, no automatic pilot cbets... I wanna play with my opponents now, see a lot of cheap flops, seeking for a fatal meeting with them. Why I changed my style is because I have noticed that the most of my opponents were pretty good preflop, and pretty good when noone have a hand. And when you play a standard game, you don't see a lot of flops, therefore the probability of a disastrous meeting is dramatically reduced. The poker which is told to you guys, is a poker which works well against the good players, because you protect your hands, anyone can take an edge over the other, it is like an nash equilibrium. The more your opponent is tough, the more you want to raise OTB, protect your hand, and so on. In fact, this way, you protect yourself, but on the other side, you force your opponents to play well too. But this approach isn't optimal at low stakes. Force them to make mistakes. Juts limp, see a flop, min raise, suck them to you. It's a sweet trade off : you accept to do mistakes early on the hand in order to benefit to their mistakes later in the hand. I think I often overvalued the part of maths in poker. The trade off you try to accomplish isn't gradable or quantifiable (I don't know which word is better, so I 've written both). It's still maths, but so deep that you have to count on your experience, and on the experience from the other rather than on equations. However, don't forget to try to steal some pots otherwise you'll be grinded down :).

After my losses I moved down and played the $11. And was really surprised how the competition is much easier ! There is truly a big difference between the $23 and the $11. When I play the $11 now I just limp all my hands and bet hard my best, I can play without thinking and then 2 or 3 tabling. Therefore, playing the $11 is far much financially interesting but unfortunately so boring... I still don't know why I always run so bad when I try to play the 23$. The opponents do not make big mistakes anymore, they play poker, and I feel my edge is dramatically reduced, if ever I have one. I think I still have one, but so thin that there is a lot of variance, and a lot of losing streaks that I can't bear. I hear everywhere that in the low stakes HUSNGs, you have to play ABC and will win, and what people call low stakes are up to the $55. But poker is a game which is changing. Nowadays, people don't play poker like it was played 10 years ago. There even are some differencies one year to the other. Needless to say, people progress. And the top HU players who just advice to play ABC in the $23 are wrong in my opinion. Likely it was the case when thay played poker at the $23 themselves, but since that old time, the competition became harder. Therefore, I wonder if HUSNGs are still profitable. I checked my hand histories and don't know how how I could play better. I mean, I could play differently, but this is a matter of styles. I do not make big mistakes, and what I could change in my game is only details. It is micro poker (to see what are micro and macro poker, see the Ed Miller Blog). However, there are still some good HU players that win some money playing the HUSNGs. The foremost play the >=$100. I have heard that most of their profit come from recreational, fortunate players who take shots at the high stakes heads up. So the competition might be softer as those stakes as far as you avoid the regulars. $23 is peupled by hu players that struggle, wanna moving up and work hard; Fishs and donkeys don't play that high because they would be broke too quickly, and fortunate, recreational players are playing higher.

Today I lost a lot... I'm behind 8-to-2.

1-2

1-2

0-3

0-1

6-to-6 yesterday, here are the sets

1-2

1-2

3-0

1-2

First Set

9-to-9 today. I tried to isolate my heads up matchs into sets, like trujm does. It works realy well for me, because I don't mind if I lose or win some money, I just try to win the sets. Here they are :

Today I continued to win and was ahead 5-to-2. This is the first match :

Yesterday I played 7 hu $23 and was ahead 6-to-1 ! I first played 2 Calling Station (cs). The cs are easy opponent to play if you adopt the right strategy. You no longer have to raise OTB because they call you anyway, so you must have good hands to put more money in the pot. Just limp all other playable hands, and fold the worst. It's still possible to bluff them in very specific situations (see the Andrew Blokos's blog). I'll show you an exemple if I find one. Then I played very very tough opponents, who was big winner on sharkscope. I fortunately won most of the matchs, but if they read me, hey, we have no interest playing against each other, so keep out of my way ! However, against such players, you can make more sophisticated moves, and it's very satisfying when you succeed them. For instance, pay particular attention to the draw heavy flops :

Yesterday I played 6 HUnsgs 11$ and was ahead 4-to-2. One HU i lost was difficult, because I was Card Dead and because I played an opponent you can't beat beeing card dead : the agressive calling station (acs). This opponent is bluffing a lot and think you play like him, ie you bluff a lot. Then, he calls a lot too. Here is a hand :

I ask myself often this question, and the answer is not that simple. I made a mental programm I'll try to follow.