We have moved to www.holdemforaliving.com/index - If you have this URL bookmarked, please update your bookmarks to reflect the change as this version of HFL will go offline in two weeks. This is the last post on this URL. See you guys over there!

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

If you’re wondering where the old links to Poker Discussion and Life Discussion went, it’s because I am working on a installing a totally new forum for all of us to enjoy. Can’t wait to unveil it, although I am having some slight problems. We shall see.

-trujm

4:55am: Mojo, who is one of our finest regulars, has been here since nearly the beginning and is also the person in charge of the Daily Videos Section, accomplished a pretty impressive feat last week: he finished 1st in the Tuesday 8:30 $11 Omaha H/L Limit Tourney on Stars. Sick enough in itself, right?

How about this for an encore a week later: 2nd place in the same tournament, at the same time, with the same number of entrants. He finished 2nd after a truly EPIC heads up battle with his opponent and the eventual winner of the tournament. Throughout the duration of the heads up portion of the final table, I personally saw around 4-5 MAJOR lead changes, and also saw Mojo play the role of both spoiler and recipient of an unbelievable number of bad beats/coolers, and just straight up unbelievable hands.

After what had to be over 45 minutes alone of heads up play, the tourney finally ended as his opponent has both the nut hi and the nut low (I believe, correct me if I’m wrong Mojo) on a totally crippling hand. Mojo showed a lot of resilience in coming back from major chip discrepancies at least five times throughout the whole process.

To finish 1st in any MTT is an accomplisment in itself, but to follow it up the very next week by finishing 2nd is just straight up sick, so kudos to you Mojo, and congratulations man. You deserve it.

-trujm

1:37am: I’ve learned over time to seperate business from pleasure, no matter what line of work you go into. Any time personal feelings are injected into the workplace, usually things get a bit more complicated. The same holds true with poker. At no time during a session should I be thinking about spending time with my girlfriend, and conversely at no time while I’m spending time with my girlfriend should I be thinking about the bad beat I took last night, right?

Maybe in a perfect world, but the truth is that most of the time work permeates into other areas of your life that should be more reserved for leisure only.

Achieving the correct balance between life and poker is one of the hardest things about the game, not only because of it’s addictive qualities, but also because of it’s tendency to linger in the human brain for quite a while after the session is complete. That being said, it’s hard to please everybody and acquiring this balance is usually easier said than done. How much time you devote to poker depends on the role it plays in your life. If you do it for a living, then naturally you should expect to have to put in 30+ hours a week at the table (usually more). If poker is a part time gig for you, then that’s exactly what it should be — part time. Point being, money has been the root of many evils for quite some time now and once it becomes the axis at which your world rotates, then everything else around it could (and usually does) fall apart. Pulling a line from one of my favorite movies, but used in a somewhat different context:

“Some people play poker to enrich their lives, and some people play poker to define it. Don’t be the latter.”

We might need money to survive, but it’s the people around us that make life worth living. Always know what’s important to you at the end of the day, and keep the big picture in mind. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that the most important thing in our day isn’t whether or not 70/30’s are holding up like they should.

How to counter balance this? Take breaks — lots of them. It may even do you some good to schedule breaks. Go tell your girlfriend, wife, or mother that you love them. Spend some time with the kids. Just like we protect our investment at the poker table, we need to protect our investment in that which makes us happy. It’s pretty much agreeable that it’s a healthy thing to be a well balanced person. So to that I say don’t let poker make you become one dimensional, and get out there and start leading a healthy lifestyle today.

4:54am: Well, mark this one in the books, today was my first out right losing session from a winning percentage perspective, since I started playing $100 heads up sit n gos. While I don’t mind losing, I have to admit the timing of this one is pretty bad, as I am coming of a pretty poor week, and in addition to this I just paid $1,000 in bills (all due on the 15th). I’m not sure what the problem is. I took a long and hard look at myself today and questioned whether it was my play or the cards. After going back through hand histories, I came to the conclusion that I’m just not connecting with the flop as often as usual today, and this whole week for that matter.

A big part of my losing night came at the hands of the SIX times that I lost a 70/30 when all the money was in the middle. Add that to the fact that I can only recall winning one or two coin flips all night long, and in addition to that I only connected with the board with AK 15% of the time tonight. Definitely a recipe for disaster.

Financially, this is my worst down swing, but that’s only because I’m playing higher stakes. I think there was one time I have ran worse than this, from an amount of hands perspective. I once ran bad for over 20,000 hands when I was playing $50 heads up sngs.

So let’s do a little review after having played nearly 600 $100 heads up sngs:

Wins: 351
Losses: 237
Win %: 59.6

Before this terrible run that I’m on, I was winning 62.2% of my matches, but clearly that’s out the door for now.

I can say first and foremost that confidence is everything when playing heads up sngs. Even I have to admit that with the sheer amount of misfortune I’ve underwent in the last 7 days or so, it’s always at the back of my mind that the match could be over before it even starts. There even comes a point sometimes when you’re all in with the best hand, your opponent turns over a hand that’s behind and you just assume you’re going to lose the hand.

All of these thoughts are completely understandable during bad runs, and I’d by lying if I told you that it doesn’t bother me. The difference between me and the next guy is, however, my emotions are always even-keel — which helps keep the bad days in check. I can almost assure you that you’ll never log in to HFL and see me report a four figure losing day. Today, I lost $320, and you know what? I can live with that.

Where you live and die in husngs lies all in the streaks. You’re going to, for the most part, win as much as you lose in the battle of the trenches, heads up. That’s because you and your opponent are going to be dealt an even distribution of cards. Where you will either lose or make your money will depend on your streaks. For example, if you check out my sharkscope below, I actually have a nearly identical amount of two game winning streaks as I do two game losing streaks:

The difference is that I have wayy more 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13 game winning streaks than I do losing streaks, and that makes all the difference in the world. As long as the lows are never as low as the highs are high, then it’s going to be hard to lose money playing heads up sngs.

So how do you keep the winning streaks significantly higher than the losing streaks, as I have? Answer is simple: I have nearly progressed to the point as a player where I do not tilt. There are times, when I’m feeling a little uneasy about situations and I’m upset inside, but I rarely left it affect my play. So to that I say emotion control is probably the #1 most important thing about heads up sngs and profitability, followed by actual card-playing talent (which includes psychological and mathematical aspects).

I’m not sure when this run is going to end, but it cannot come soon enough. I hate reporting negative results to you guys, but unfortunate that’s the hand I’ve been dealt this week. Don’t worry though, I believe in myself more than you realize, and I know the turnaround is coming soon (and in a big way). Mark my words.

I found this interesting article on P5s weighing the options of pursuing a college career vs. deciding to play poker for a living. I myself did a little of both. That being said, when one finds success early on in the game, it’s a tough decision, as marked by this very interesting article written by CardXFactor, a contributing writer for P5s.

=====================

I have been in the middle of many debates over the years regarding whether it is better to stay in college or put school on hold to pursue playing poker full time.  Usually, the person who is in this predicament has a valid argument for choosing either option and is yearning for some solid advice for what to do.  It may seem like an easy decision one way or the other, but I know from first hand experience that there are a lot of questions that need to be addressed before making a crucial life decision like this.  “Luckily” for me, I did not discover online poker until I was a junior in college or my decision to finish school might have been different.
Like many online players, I quickly discovered that I could make more money playing poker than getting almost any part-time job.  The freedom to “work” when I wanted, go where I wanted, and do what I wanted were all great reasons to play poker as a job instead of working for the man.  Even playing low limits, it was easy to maintain a higher income than almost anyone I knew.  With a tough discipline and countless hours of hard work, I found myself consistently beating the games I was playing, and the thought of giving up school to play full-time definitely crept into my mind from time to time.
Ultimately, I ended finishing school and received my degree in business.  Even with the great monetary success that soon followed for me after college, including a win in the Sunday Million, I would never be where I am today without playing poker AND finishing college .  Here are some reasons why I recommend balancing both poker and college to anyone who is thinking about giving one up.
1. FLEXIBILITY:  Going to school and playing poker can be extremely flexible if you schedule it correctly.  I had plenty of time to play poker since I only had to be in the classroom about 15 hours a week. I didn’t take a single online or summer school class and I still got my degree in 4 ½ years.  It would actually be a lot easier today for students that can take online classes because they have even more free time for poker.  Schedule your classes around times you want to play poker and you’ll be fine.
2. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE:  Employers are looking for a college degree and some real world experience.  If you can prove that you were successful playing poker and also did well in school, it will actually give you a leg up to someone who has just done one or the other.  I am a really good example of this.  By treating poker as a business the last few years and also getting my degree, I was fortunate enough to get a job in Global Wealth Management with a top 30 fortune company.  I was able to easily relate my experience as a poker player to the real world, and was literally hired on the spot for a really competitive position.  I can honestly say that without my poker and college experience, I would have been wasting my time even applying for my current profession.
3. SELF IMPROVEMENT:  You learn a lot about yourself during the hard times you encounter during college and poker.  If it were easy to play poker successfully and go to college, everybody would be doing it.  The personal satisfaction you get when you finally finish school is really indescribable.  It’s not that getting a degree is the toughing thing in the world, but you’ll be proud of yourself for sticking it out and finishing.

4. LIFE CHANGES:  When you’re young, single, and don’t really have any expenses it is easy to live off of even small winnings playing poker.  Even if you only have a relatively small ROI, you can still live the “good life” when you only need to support yourself.  The reality is that life changes and even just a few years after college, your situation may drastically change.  What happens if you get married?  Have children?  Have a bad run of cards?  Expenses go up?    There are tons of other scenarios that could play out where playing poker full-time could not work out as easy as it may seem sometimes.  Getting your degree is a huge backup plan for the unexpected situations that could arise in the next 60 years you’re alive.

My last point is probably the most important aspect to think about when making the decision to finish school or not.  Even the most successful players will encounter many life situations over the years that cannot be controlled.  Like I have said before, playing poker is about making the right long-term decisions and not making decisions based on what happens in the short-term.  When you choose to flat out quit college for your “short-term” poker success, you’re going against exactly what you have taught yourself to become a successful poker player.

3:00am: Let’s get this straight. While those results might sound modest, by no means am I happy with the outcome. I was coasting to a really big night (at 13-4) when all of a sudden everything went south. I would go 1-6 in my last seven games to end the night at a less-than-satisfactory 14-10. Realistically, the only thing I had to do in order to prevent it from being a total collapse was just not go 0-3 in the final set. Finishing with two straight 1-2 sets would have been fine by me.

The cards didn’t fall that way unfortunately, as I took cooler after cooler after cooler before checking out for the night. If I had a flush, my opponent had a higher flush. If I had trips, my opponent had a straight. You get the picture, because I’m sure you’ve been there.

It’s never fun, but the silver lining to this situation is that at least I improved upon yesterday’s debacle. Any results I turned in, for that matter, would have been an improvement over yesterday.

So it looks like we’re caught up in one of those small deviations that you see throughout my graph, which is good and bad news. The bad news is: we’re in a small devation, and it sucks. The good news is, not once have I never NOT come out of it, so I look forward to rebounding and riding the next peak to a big pay day.

More later..

4:37am: Well, I’m in between matches, and regulars keep registering before I do, so I thought I’d take some time to tell you guys about what I call “hinge games”. Hinge games occur any time you’re playing an odd # of games broken down into sets, segments, sessions, or whatever else you choose to call them. Hinge games are games that when you head into the final game of the set, it will determine whether or not the set was a winning one or not.

For example, if you’re playing three game sets, and you’re tied 1-1 going into the third match. That match is now considered a “hinge game”. While every match you play is important, you must put much more emphasis into winning this one in particular. The goal is to have more winning sets than losing sets, and a good portion of the time the set will be determined by one game and one game only (the last one). If you have been playing less than satisfactory the first two games, make sure you get it cleaned up for the all important hinge game.

The last thing you want to happen is at the end of the night, look back at all the times you went 1-2 and thought to yourself, “man for every hinge game I lost, it cost me $200″, which is true in my case.

This is not to say you should do anything different, per say. It’s just to make sure you’re at a heightened level of awareness. Your concentration should be harder, your reads should be more accurate, and most importantly: you need to want THIS match more than your opponent - AT ALL COSTS.

Just focusing on improving your hinge games can make a huge difference in your winning percentage in heads up sit n gos when it’s all said and done. Every time you lose a hinge game, you have to win two more matches in the future just to get back what you forfeited by losing the match. So next time you play, remember the all important “hinge game” and how it could affect your profit.

5:44am: It’s never fun to report nights like these, but being the objective webmaster that I am — it is my duty to report to you both the good and the bad. Not that tonight was back-breakingly bad or anything, but a day that started out with so much promise (3-0) quickly went south, and I found myself fighting to keep myself above water all night long.

First and foremost, there were the suckouts. There were many of them. Basically, whaever my opponents needed tonight, they received. My favorite one of the night is below, but please keep in mind that there were probabably about 6-7 similar to this hand (although not quite as bad):

PokerStars Game #19606205413: Tournament #102055335, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/08/14 - 05:30:36 (ET)
Table ‘102055335 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2500 in chips)
Seat 2: ssolknitsua (500 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
ssolknitsua: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Ah 9d]
trujm: raises 60 to 90
ssolknitsua: raises 410 to 500 and is all-in
trujm: calls 410
*** FLOP *** [7c 3d As]
*** TURN *** [7c 3d As] [Js]
*** RIVER *** [7c 3d As Js] [Qc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ssolknitsua: shows [Ks Td] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
trujm: shows [Ah 9d] (a pair of Aces)
ssolknitsua collected 1000 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1000 | Rake 0
Board [7c 3d As Js Qc]
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) showed [Ah 9d] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 2: ssolknitsua (big blind) showed [Ks Td] and won (1000) with a straight, Ten to Ace

This hand pretty much sums up everything I experienced tonight. That being said, I’ve been through nights like these more times than you’d care to imagine. While all of these things might anger other people, they light a fire under my ass to do everything in my power to make sure that it doesn’t happen the next time. Although many situations are preventable, there’s a such thing as putting yourself in a position to get unlucky, and not doing so is my goal for tomorrow.

Here is the breakdown of the sets:

1. 3-0
2. 1-2
3. 2-1
4. 1-2
5. 1-2
6. 1-2
7. 2-1
8. 1-2

Positives:

-If you notice, I went 1-2 five times, which means that I was 5-0 in the ever-crucial hinge game (will talk about it more later today).

- People are still putting the money in beind, which is music to my ears. I won’t be worried until I’m actually the one getting it in behind (which doesn’t happen often)

- One match I played is the PERFECT match for the next tutorial because he was hyperaggressive and I pulled off a big momentum-changing bluff that allowed me to win the match.

- It’s been 55 sets since I’ve gone 0-3 in a single set

- Not even once today did I get angry at the results, and I kept my composure even when things were turning bad.

- Still have not had an overall losing session (from a win/loss perspective) since switching to the 3/8/24 game format.

Negatives:

- When you finish even on the day, you still have to pay rake. $120 to be exact (for 24 games)

- Fell short of my goal of hitting 30k today. A $300+ winning day would have also secured me a spot in the top 20 in total profit on Sharkscope for $36-$100 heads up.

- I took some risks today that I could have been more patient and didn’t have to take. Will correct that next time.

Overall, the day was destined for mediocrity from that start. I started to say around the fifth set that the night was going to be a long one, and I was right. I had a feeling I was due for one of these. Thank god that the worst nights I’ve had so far have all been nights where I finished 12-12. Not looking forward to the first time I finish under .500.

Anyways, good luck to anyone playing a morning session. Will be back to grinding mid/late afternoon after I run some important errands.