4:44am: Everyone can agree that there’s a specific course of events in poker that would cause them to “tilt”. For each person, that course of events and the threshold for tilting are different but the lowest common denominator is that we all tilt in some, way shape or form. Let’s be honest, we’d all be winning players if we could learn to control our emotions and not tilt, right? It’s a good thing I don’t have to answer that question because tilt will always exist for a couple of reasons (a) losing money never feels good, and (b) there is so much injustice in poker.

“How on earth can I stop from tilting?” That’s the magic question to which we’d all like a magic bullet. What is the secret to not getting angry after a bad beat? How can one reasonably be expected to control his/her emotions after a runner runner disaster for a large chunk of their bankroll?

If I could answer that question with 100% confidence, I wouldn’t need to play poker because I’d set up shop in a nice little office and play counselor all day long. My client list would be nearly infinite, as you could imagine. But seriously, I will do the best I can to put it into perspective for you and help you avoid the downward spiral, mind consuming seige that is tilt.

First off, in order to answer the questions above, we need to establish a concrete definition of tilt. For all intents and purposes, we will define tilt as “a state of mental confusion or frustration in which a player adopts a less than optimal strategy.” In fact, it almost helps if you define tilt as a temporary illness. Much the same way doctors diagnose a disease, we must diagnose the symptoms of tilt. The key here, however, is to diagnose these symptoms in the early stages so that these feelings don’t permeate into your game. This involves you being brutally honest with yourself and identify when you’re in a state of tilt. If you find yourself checking just three of these ten symptoms, then you’re probably tilting:

- An immense feeling of frustration and anger towards both the player and the game itself
- Strong desire to exact revenge or spite your opponent
- Complete loss of patience in the game you’re playing
- Trying too hard to win each hand dealt
- Second guessing every single decision made
- The concepts of table image and logic have gone totally out the door
- Chasing draws without proper odds
- Sudden bursts of unexplained and illogical aggression
- Overvaluing marginal hands
- The inability to press the fold button

All of these things can be detrimental to your game, or even worse: destroy your bankroll, or even — depending on the situation — ruin lives.

So let’s put a stop to it already, or at least try. Here are five simple suggestions from me to you that will help you stay off tilt:

1. Always, always think long term. Poker isn’t about winning the battle. It’s about winning the war. If you’re a winning player, there’s absolutely no question your results will return to form over time. Why is this so hard for people to see at the time? If that is the million dollar question, then the million dollar solution is: TRUST THE MATH. A good example of this is the swingy phenomenon of coin flips. Literal coin flips, that is. If we flip a coin 100 times, it’s completely within reason that it lands on heads 75 times out of 100 when of course the odds are exactly 50%. Let’s take that same coin and flip it 900 more times, totaling 1,000 flips. This time, heads is only slightly ahead of tails (513 to 487 - 51.3% to 48.7%).  Going even further, let’s flip the coin 10,000 times. This time, the number of heads outcomes are eerily close to the number of tails outcomes — (5,023 to 4,977 - 50.23% to 49.77%). Point being, as the number of flips increases infinitely, the closer the percentages will gravitate towards either other, eventually totally leveling out at 50 percent within fractions of decimal points.

It’s important to just recognize that when you’re running bad you are just caught in one of these deviations (see the first 100 flips), and that it will eventually come to an end. Like we’ve discussed before, the best solution is volume. But equally as important as volume is maintaining your composure during these times and realize that mathematics doesn’t always take the same path, but it always, always leads to the same point — no matter how you slice the pie. Put every single ounce of trust left in your body on the mathematics of poker. I promise it will even out for you over time. When? It could take a while, but hang in there. That’s why long term thinking is the key to success.

2. Learn to let go. You need a break. It’s extremely important to recognize when you’re in the beginning stages of tilt so to avoid anything totally devastating happening. I can’t tell you how many times (in my past) that I ignored this advice, and found myself thinking “things can’t get worse”. Things can always get worse, and I cannot stress that enough. A good friend of mine once told me (and it’s so true): “when you play to get even, you get even worse”. It’s time to let go and swallow your pride when you feel even three of those ten symptoms creeping in. You’ve lost, get over it. It’s perfectly normal to lose.

3. Find a healthy way to express your anger. Some of this might sound a little crass, but that’s only because we all have different ways of expressing anger. Get a punching bag. Masturbate. Go punt a football 40 yards outside. Cry, if you have to. The idea here is to not keep the anger bottled up and to express it in a way that’s not going to hurt anybody physically or mentally. If you keep these hostile feelings inside, you’re going to feel a permanent resentment towards poker (which is where I believe the term “perma-tilt” came from.)

4. Be happy you got the money in good (if bad beats are causing you to tilt). Fish pay your bills. I know that it’s a very pride swallowing thing on nights where you constantly get the money in good, only to lose to runner runner and miracle cards over and over and over again — only to have your -35% roi opponent (who think he’s a genius) taunt you in the chat. Rejoice during times like these. Don’t get angry. Be happy that (a) poker is still a very beatable game because (b) people keep putting their money in bad. And for re-assurance about when that will turn around, see point #1.

5. Remember that it happens to everyone. You lost $300 tonight, and it seems like the complete end of the world, right? To that, I say: no it’s not, and misery loves company. Open up a $200/$400 NL cash game table and watch people lose Plasma TVs, Cars, and even HOMES in these games. Seeing someone lose a $140,000 pot on a two outer on the river suddenly puts things into perspective for you. Maybe things aren’t that bad? Like I said before, it can always get worse. Always.

6. Detach yourself from the results. This is perhaps the hardest of the six suggestions, but it’s completely necessary in order to avoid going on tilt. Everyone likes to win, and most poker players are very competitive people, but there comes a point where winning can mean TOO much to you. We hear the term “results oriented” a lot, and this is where that phrase comes into play. Don’t worry about the outcome of one particular hand. Worry about the outcome of the same hand ran 100, 1000, and 10,000 times, which ties back into long term thinking. Complete emotional attachment might be asking too much, but I definitely think it’s completely reasonable for you to not care AS much when you happen to get unlucky. It’s just a game.

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Another suggestion is to look up some bad beat videos on youtube (there’s tons). One of the most important things to remember when you’re on tilt is that you’re not alone — thousands of people are having the exact SAME problem as you at the exact same moment. Yes, they are getting two outed. Yes, they took a runner runner beat tonight. And yes, they keep getting counterfeited when they flop two pair and their opponent calls them down. Watching videos of this happening to other people re-assures that it’s not just some conspiracy against you and your account. Variance in poker is real, and it happens to everyone. No exceptions.

Someone once told me that it’s the little things that count so here are a few small suggestions in order to avoid falling into the downward spiral: (a) if you have a gym membership, go work out. Kill two birds with one stone: improve your body and get the pent up frustration out of your system. (b) a very cold/hot shower — very underrated as a means of refreshing your mind set. (c) surround yourself with people who ground you and are a calming force in your life. It’s important not to be alone during these times, because when this happens sometimes you spend too much time in your head instead of in the presence of other human beings.

I could literally go on all night, as this is a topic that I’m very familiar with. While these suggestions aren’t for everyone, hopefully I’ve put a creative spin on at least one thing that you will take from this article that will take you one step closer to solving this huge problem that many people have.

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

3:28am: Most players would readily admit that playing small pocket pairs isn’t their favorite thing in the world to do. Some would sooner enjoy mowing the lawn, or scrubbing dirty pots and pans. That’s because small pocket pairs are not easy to play, as even I will admit.

There’s gotta be some kind of rule book or chart somewhere telling us what to do when dealt pocket fours, right?

Not even close. Playing small pocket pairs is much more a balancing act than anything else. First off, you must recognize your hand for what it is: it’s just a pair. Of course there’s the slightly optimistic anticipation of the possibility that you will flop a set with that bad boy and felt your opponent, but 19 times out of 20 that’s not going to happen.

Let’s take a look at how I usually approach the situation, according to “type of board” and for each opponent type (TAG and LAG). For example’s sake, let’s assume we’re holding pocket fives (5c5s) in this case. Let’s also assumed that you and your opponent are fairly equally stacked at 1500 a piece. Let’s also assume that your opponent has raised on the button (60) and you elect to just call in the 10/20 blinds:

1. Nondescript board - 9d 7s 2c. Against a LAG opponent, I would recommend check raising this flop pretty hard, and then folding to a shove or any kind of bet on the turn/river. You need to make a bold statement with your hand on the flop in order to find out where you’re at. Let’s say you check, and your opponent bets 2/3 the pot (90). Check raising to, say, 350 right here should tell you fairly quickly where you are at. Every now and then someone will float you with AJ, AQ, AK in this spot, but nearly all other hands that have not connected with this board are going into the muck. If you get called, I would say it’s pretty safe to put on the brakes. Your opponent will likely be a little timid as well, and you may even get to a showdown that you normally may not have seen — with the best hand.

Against a TAG opponent, I probably lead out for the pot. The reason I suggest this line is because a TAG opponent is going to play relatively more straight forward, and those who are playing tight will usually have the discipline to lay down over cards in this situation. If you get called, I would say theres an 80% chance you are already beat, in which case you saved yourself from being curious later on if you had just check/called the whole way through.

2. Board with at least two paints - As Qc 3c. While this is a less-than-desirable board for your hand, it’s fairly cut and dry and actually a little easier to play than on a nondescript board. In my honest opinion, after having played 7,000+ heads up sngs lifetime, that there’s no significant value in betting in this spot - no matter if your opponent is LAG or TAG. LAG opponents are a little harder to put on hands than TAG opponents, and could have been raising with any two, so your hand is more likely to be good against someone who is LAG in this spot. However, you could get into some trouble betting this hand because a good LAG is going to put you to a decision on this flop, and that’s a decision you’re not going to want to have to make. The TAG opponent almost certainly has you beat in this spot because tight players like to play paint cards, so betting usually isn’t a good idea in this spot either. I always tell people to keep your decisions as easy as possible, because it keeps your mind fresh and playing balanced. Having to decipher 3-4 levels of thought to determine whether a mediocre pair is good in this spot is too tall a task in these blind levels, and therefore not worth the brain power in chips. So to that, I say suck up the pride and check/fold.

3. “Drawy” board - 7h 9h Jh. There’s a number of ways you could go about doing this. Surprisingly, players in this day and age have progressed to the point where if you lead out strong here, they usually won’t just call. Whether or not they are on a draw, you will usually be faced with either a fold or a raise. I find this to hold true for both TAG and LAG players. Your hand may or may not be good, but I think the play regardless of whether your opponent is TAG or LAG is to lead out pretty strong (120), and then check/fold if you feel any sort of resistance whatsoever. If you get called, odds are your opponent either has (a) a heart, (b) one or more of the cards on the board, or (c) over cards and (a) combined. In any of those three cases, you aren’t far enough ahead to invest a lot of money in this pot, so it’s safe to put the breaks on after the initial information-seeking bet.

4. A paired board with an over card - 9c 9s Kd. A LAG player is probably going to make a continuation bet on this flop, so you can make a strong argument for check raising here. However, this time if you get called, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re beat. If you check to your opponent, and he bets 90 in this spot, a check raise to 240 will take it down roughly 55% of the time. From the other 45% that you get called, I would venture to say that against a LAG opponent you are ahead 40% of the time. A good portion of the time what you’re looking at in this spot is someone who has a pair higher than yours, but also didn’t connect with the board (see: pocket nines). However, more than likely you’re looking at someone who is just floating you with a strong ace. From here, the best line is to take, in my opinion, is that if the turn is lower than your card (2, 3, 4) then I would bet hard, and fold to a raise. If the turn is higher than my pair, then I would probably bet small and fold to a raise. The river should usually be checked in either case, to which you should use pot odds accordingly when faced with a bet from a LAG player.

The TAG is probably going to let you know where they are at, but there’s a good chance that they connected with the high card on the board. A solid TAG would probably still make a continuation on this flop, so my advice to you would be to make one hard check raise, see what happens, and then shut it down if you get called because you’re almost certainly beat.

5. Paired board with an under card - 10s 10c 3d. You’re almost always good in this spot, no matter if your opponent is TAG or LAG. The correct play here is to trust that your hand is good now, and will stay good because your opponent simply has over cards. I would bet each street for value in this situation.

6. Low board with one over card - 6s 4d 2c. Did your opponent really call you with a 6? That’s the question you need to ask yourself, and decide quickly because if you believe that they do not hold a 6, you have to play this hand like you have top pair, and bet out accordingly. Against a LAG, I would probably recommend check raising the flop and then betting out (if you believe they don’t hold a 6) with medium sized bets. Against a TAG player, I would just lead out and call a small raise, but fold to a large one. In either case, if you’re already beat you have a pretty solid backup plan in case a 5 or a 3 hits, and it’s going to be really hard for your opponent to put you on a gut shot draw if your straight does fill up. It get’s slightly complicated if you make your set, but you’re usually still good in that case. Just make sure to keep the pot small until you’re sure where you stand.

7. Low board with no over cards - 2s 3c 4c. In this case, even against pocket Kings, your hand is still around 40% to win so it’s justifiable to felt this hand against even a TAG. I’m almost never folding this hand against and LAG player, so you should play it as aggressively as possible. Against a TAG, I would probably bet out, and/or call all raises, and only fold if I believe my opponent has a set.

8. Flopping a set - 5s Jc Kd. I saved the best for last, for two reasons. (1) because this is the situation we all dream of, right? and (2) because it’s the least likely to happen. I actually compare this situation to sitting in the weeds for 2 days straight with a sniper rifle, waiting for something to cross your path and then finally, something slowly drifts in front of your cross hairs. All analogies aside, I would say that the main thing you need to do is just make sure that your opponent doesn’t fold. That being said, I think it actually depends on what you perceive your opponent’s opinion of you to be. If you feel that your opponent thinks you’re a tight player, I would probably make small bets or check the flop and set the trap for later. If your opponent considers you loose and reckless, then I would probably just bet out with the hand, and hope to get raised. Either way, I truly believe betting out with monster hands is the new “slowplaying”, because people sniff out slowplays way better than they used to, in general.

So there you have it. Whether you agree or disagree with my advice, one thing is certain: there’s more than one way to skin a cat. This is far from a “guide” on how to play small pocket pairs in heads up sngs, but if you have taken at least one or two small “pointers” from this very subjective article, then my work here is finished.

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

10:03pm: With me finally getting completely settled into my brand new home, with my brand new office, I have finally been able to dedicate the time necessary into putting in some serious volume heads up. Join me, why don’t you? — in becoming a complete heads up machine (that is, if your desire is to do this for a living). We’ve been preaching volume, volume, and more volume for quite some time, but it feels like the weight of the world on your shoulders everyday when you feel like you have to play 20+ games. Being as such, it would be beneficial if we invented some sort of routine/program to follow in order to break it down and seem like less of a burden.

So let’s do this: committ to playing 24 heads up sit n gos a day, 5 days a week. Break each day into eight segments consisting of three games a piece. Play each segment however you’d like. Take as many breaks in between each segment as you need, and play them whenever you’d like. The only catch is that you must play the required eight segments each day. This includes times when you go 6-0 in your first two segments and you don’t want to “ruin” your unblemished record by continuing, so you decide to stop for the day. No, you are not allowed to do that. No matter how you cut it, you are going to play eight segments of three games per day.

Here is a link to a sample spreadsheet I am using to keep track of these segments.

So why this method? What does it change? How does it help you?

Well, it does a few things:

• Keeps your thoughts/mindset encapsulated, meaning you only worry about the present, and not the past or the future
• It prevents the player from taking a results-oriented approach
• It keeps things in perspective because it gives variance a fighting chance of evening out
• It’s a completely organized, streamlined approach and is much more business-like than just randomly playing games whenever one feels like it.
• It will allow you to follow a regulated schedule, which makes the process seem much more like a job and less like gambling.
• Each segment is a fresh start. When you go 0-3 in one segment, the next is a new chapter in which you are entitled to forget that the chapter before it even existed.

The three game segment approach also yields a forced result. There are no ties. There are four different outcomes:

• 3-0
• 2-1
• 1-2
• 0-3

If you’re anything like me, you’d consider 75% of those results “managable”. The only one of the four you REALLY don’t want to see is 0-3. Anything else should be considered acceptable results. Even if you finish 0-3 in any of your segments, that’s ok — that’s why you play eight of them.

Another thing you should note is that I have chosen Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday as the days dedicated to playing my sessions. These days were specifically chosen and hand-picked, based on the days of the week which were most profitable, as determined by Sharkscope. If you’d like to find out which days of the week are most profitable for you, simply click your name and then “More Options” and then “Graph Results By..” and then “Day of the Week”. Choose your days wisely, as I have. You can even choose to play the hours of the day which are also most profitable for you. Relying on this data also assumes that you have a relatively large sample size, or else the data is meaningless. 1000 heads up matches should be a large enough sample size to yield the information you need in regards to this.

Remember, heads up sngs are nothing more than mindset tweaks and making self-psychological manipulations in order to keep yourself grounded, and to keep the results steady, upward, and consistent. Implementing this organized approach is a big step into getting serious about heads up sngs for some serious extra cash, if not for a living.

3:02am: The biggest battle you face at the tables, espcially heads up, may not even be against your next opponent. Instead, your toughest competitor might be you. Everyone’s got an achilles heel. That is, something that “sets them off” into self-distruct mode sending them downspirling in slow motion with seemingly no way to stop it.

For example, you’re about to put someone away in a $20 husng; they have 280 chips to your 2720. You pick up A10off on the button, so you just put them all in hoping to get a call. You get the call you want, and they turn over the hand you want - J10off - but the RNG lets them off the hook when the flop brings the unfortunate Jack. That’s actually OK, because you’re still at the point where you can maintain your composure and put them away.

But what happens when the situation happens not once, but twice? - and in an even MORE unlikely way. The blinds are now 50/100, and you have 2100 to your opponents 900 and pick up 10 10 in the big blind. Your opponent open shoves, which makes this an easy call and then flip over A2. Beautiful, right? Not so fast. The flop is: K K 3. Still looking good? How about the turn (Q)? Is that a good card? Almost never. Especially in this case because it allowed a Q to hit on the river, counterfeiting your two pair and giving the underdog with A2 the winning hand.

The question is: how do you handle things like that when they happen to you? How is one supposed to take it when it happens over, and over and over again. Here are a few steps to stomaching the sometimes seemingly never ending barage of SICKNESS that happens in heads up sngs (while still in the match):

1. Take 10 seconds, breathe, and look away from the screen. Remember that at the end of the day, it is still just a game and it is for this particular reason that we have bankrolls: so that we don’t have to get sick when things like this happen. It is also the same reason we preach “volume, volume, and more volume”.

2. Remember that if the best hand always held up, no one would ever play. I once heard a proposal for a game variation of Texas Hold Em where the hand would be over on the flop. This was literally one of the dumbest things I had ever heard, and clearly conceived by someone who is so emotionally scarred from getting drawn out on, that he had to invent his own little world where the best hand always wins.

3. Believe in the RNG in the long run. Yeah, yeah - you hear it all the time: long term. You hear it so much, that you’re sick of hearing it, but it’s completely true. Take it from someone who has played nearly a million hands in poker in his life. “Long term” can seem EXTREMELY long sometimes, but the numbers always even out in the end.

4. Do not melt down. There’s a tendency to compound the problem by taking out your frustration on yourself. For some reason, we love to play the victim in life whenever we can - and once a night has gotten terrible past the point of no return, people have a tendency to just “blow a fuse” and not care anymore. Whenever you feel yourself START to get at this point, it’s time to stop. Seriously. Do not register for any more heads up sngs until you’ve completely regained your composure. Also, do not lie to yourself: only you know deep down if you’re just fooling yourself into believing that you’re in the right mindset. Trust and honesty with yourself in these moments is key.

On the other hand, if you happen to be in the middle of the match, you need to do the best you can to emulate the mindset you were in when the match first started. A fresh mindset has been the base of many of my comeback victories, and there’s no reason you can’t do the same.

5. Regain your composure, and finish the guy off. He’s gotten his money in bad at least twice now, which means he’s a good candidate to give these chips back to you. Be patient, don’t rush it, and find another good spot to get your chips in. Not to get all “hollywood” and “cliche” on you, but I believe Mickey told Rocky in one of the movies that every good fighter has one good round left in him. He says, “get up, you son of a bitch! fight this guy hard! cause Mickey loves you!”

In short, don’t let yourself be your worst enemy. In playing heads up sngs for a living, you will find over time that the only person who can beat you is you. Know your weaknesses, be honest about it, and whenever you feel yourself sliding into the dark place, jump out before the water gets too deep.

3:19am: Just read this article and decided to share it with you guys. I recommend reading this if you’re facinated or sickened by the idea of variance in Poker. Enjoy.

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Am I running bad?  Playing bad?  Am I the unluckiest person in the history of statistics?

One of poker’s great mysteries is how success can spiral so quickly into failure.  We can get our money in good or make the right play, and have everything backfire with the next card.  Critical decisions can be second- and third-guessed, over and over.  There is an infinite range of strategies, loose or tight, aggressive or subtle.  Very few aspects of the game are black or white; we swim in a sea of grayscale.

So how do we address the questions above, pounding through our psyche during a losing streak?  How do we know what needs to be changed in our play, if there is anything to change at all?  If we overreact by doing the wrong things, or are feeling persecuted and downtrodden, poker becomes that much harder to beat.  The game is difficult enough as it is.

I’m a firm believer in reviewing hand histories, looking for situations where I could have gotten away from hands, bet more, called less, etc.  But I also look for classic symptoms of negative variance, to assure myself I am making the right plays, and I’m not staggeringly, heart-stoppingly unlucky.  I’m just running through a bad stretch.

SYMPTOM #1: When I get a monster, nobody else does.

We’ve sat tight at a very loose table, folding our rags to every raise and re-raise, waiting for an opportunity to strike.  Finally, here it is…American Airlines in the big blind.  Here we go!  C’mon, suckers…get those chips flying…wait a second.  Where’s everyone going?  Why are you all folding?  Oh, dang….

SYMPTOM #2: Lose the big flips, win the small ones.

We’re in the money of a tournament with an average-sized stack, about 20 big blinds, looking for opportunities to pick up chips, move up the leaderboard, and seize the chance for a serious payday.  We’re dealt AK in the big blind.  The cutoff has about 16 big blinds, and makes a pre-flop raise in a classic steal position.  We shove, wanting to look like a pure re-steal, so our opponent will call with his A9 or KQ.  But he doesn’t have A9 or KQ…he’s got JJ, and we lose our flip.  The very next hand, we’re dealt 98 suited, and in a fit of frustration, shove our puny stack against a button raiser, who has 66.  This time we flop an 8 and win the hand, but we still only have 9 big blinds.

SYMPTOM #3: Our range assignments are good, but reality is at the wrong end.

After winning our race with 98 v. 66, we’re dealt AJ in the next hand, on the button.  The action folds around to the cutoff, who shoves his 12 BB stack.  It looks like a steal, obviously.  Even the tightest of players should be doing this with no less than QT+, KT+, any ace or any pocket pair.  Loose-aggressive MTT players will do this with any two cards.  We are way ahead of both ranges, so we call.  As it turns out, our opponent has KK, and we’re eliminated from the tournament.

What each symptom has in common is simply bad timing.  Not bad luck – we’ve been dealt some good cards, and won an equitable share of the coin flips.  Not bad play – at no time did we make any regrettable decisions or bad reads.  Just bad timing.

So what can you do about it?  Not a lot, at least not directly.  You can’t control everyone else’s hole cards, their decisions to bet or fold, or the river card turning a win into a loss.  But you can try to keep your head up.  Take solace and comfort from the knowledge you’re not necessarily doing anything wrong.  The next time you play, the breaks may turn in your favor.  The button will have KK when you get AA in the big blind.  You’ll flop an ace in that key race which puts you in the chip lead.  When you make the hero call with A8, the shove monkey will meekly turn over 86 and you’ll stack his chips next to your own.

If you comb through your hand histories for the “running bad” symptoms, and come up empty, what then?  It’s time to get self-critical.  If you’re a losing poker player, but you’re not terminally unlucky (nobody is), and not suffering from bad timing…it’s probably your play.  Find the leaks and plug them.  It’s easy to blame bad beats on bad luck…but if you’re always getting your money in ahead, you’re playing too tight and not giving yourself a chance to get lucky in return.  It’s easy to complain you never catch a flop…but you are calling too much and seeing too many flops, leaking chips in early levels, chips crucial for later tournament survival.  You may always be getting dominated by the hero who makes a very loose call…but you’re bluffing too much, giving your opponent a reason to assign a range much wider than you’d like.

When you leave the table, you decide what kind of poker player you’ll be when next you play.  Our greatest chance for improvement is to use our downtime wisely and objectively.  The next time you’re getting crushed over and over, with no…end…in…sight, give yourself a checkup.  Take the time to look for symptoms of variancitis.  Find your own path to good poker health.

“All of us have bad luck and good luck.  The man who persists through the bad luck – who keeps right on going – is the man who is there when the good luck comes – and is ready to receive it.”  -  Robert Collier

4:16pm: Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of heads up poker online is the presence of tells on both sides. Think about it, how many times have you possibly tipped off your hand in the last 6 months or so by betting/raising too fast, too slow, or perhaps by not raising at all? Let’s take a look at which tells are obvious, how you can spot them and also how to conceal these tendencies. Keep in mind these tells are what I call “level 1″ tells, which operate under the assumption that your opponent doesn’t know that you know these are tells. An example of a “level 2″ tell would be something from the perspective that your opponent knows that you know quick betting indicates weakness, so they will quick bet a hand in strength to intentionally give off weakness.

1. Weakness Tells

• Quick bets. Like I mentioned above, those who bet their hand rather quickly are usually holding nothing more than one pair. Betting so firm, so fast is an attempt to communicate to you, “my hand is so strong that I don’t even have to think about betting”. Good players can see through this, and will usually make a play or, at the very least, optimize their play for what they assume their opponent is holding.
• The min bet. Don’t worry if you think that someone is only doing it to trap you with an attempt to force you into a raise. In all likelihood, the person you’re playing is not thinking that much, so if you need to raise for value, don’t be afraid to do so. Also don’t be afraid to try an take the pot from someone who keeps doing it repeatedly.
• Overbetting the pot on the FLOP. When I call this a “weak tell”, I might be using the term loosely, but I consider one pair to be a weak holding postflop, so by definition this tell is spot on. Notice that I emphasized the word flop, which we will get into later. In this case, usually when people overbet the flop, they are usually holding a pair, but are not necessarily looking for a call and are usually dreading a shove. If you can beat one pair in this spot, you are nearly going to be good 100% of the time in this spot.
• Quick checking. Usually when someone checks very quickly, they just want to move on to the next hand. When someone takes less than a second to check, I will usually take a stab at the pot - with probably a 66% success rate, which gives me good faith in this as a tell of weakness.

2. Strength Tells

• 4x raise preflop. Some things in life are given: death, taxes, and the fact that when someone raises 4x the pot preflop, they are probably holding a small to mid pocket pair. People usually raise more with hands that are harder to play, so they really don’t feel like seeing a flop with hands like this most of the time. A lot of people have trouble playing 77-JJ, and they’d much rather take it down uncontested because they won’t know what to do when overcards come out. Only problem with this method is that they will either win a small pot, or lose a big one. Pay attention to this next time because if you have QQ+, you can shove and will almost always get snap called by someone who is behind 4:1 who assumes you have AK or AQ.
• Long delays followed by betting. When people do this, it’s usually an attempt to communicate to you that their hand is weak enough that they need time to think about betting. When someone does this, I try to stay away unless I’m confident my hand is stronger.
• Preflop limp re raises. You’ve got KJoff in the big blind. Your opponent limps, and you want to make him pay for it, because after all you’ve got a pretty good hand heads up. That is, until he comes back over the top after having initially limped into the pot. If this happens, odds are your opponent perceives you as aggressive and knew you were going to raise pre flop. He also doesn’t believe you will have the disclipline to lay down a marginal hand in this spot - which you should - because he is more than likely not bluffing.
• The huge river overbet. Ever find yourself in a situation where the pot is like 150-250, and all of a sudden, randomly on the river your opponent fires out like 540 into a relatively small pot leaving you wondering what in the world is going on? After all, you just rivered two pair - this seems like an easy call, right? Wrong. More often than not, your opponent is holding a minimum of top two in this situation.
• “Just calling” on every street, followed by a huge bet/raise on the river. Good players will do this when they are weak because they will assume that you will assume that you have just been slowplayed, and are attempting to get you to lay your hand down. Most of the time people aren’t this advanced, and being as such you really have just been slowplayed. It’s probably a good idea to lay your hand down in this spot.

If you find yourself doing ANY of the above, drastically cutting these tactics out of your play can work wonders for improving you ROI. Good players can spot these things, and even sometimes average players. What I used to do is to keep a bunch of small post it notes next to my monitor, and anytime I caught myself giving off a tell, I would make a note on my monitor to make a conscious effort not to do it the next time. Tells are nothing more than bad habits, and most of them come natural. This is why you have to literally go out of your way not to do some of these things, until eventually — not giving off tells has now become a good habit for you.

Spotting these basic tells can also improve you ROI much the same way. Since we can’t see things such as facial expressions and body language online, we have to use the only tools we have at our disposal, such as timing tells and betting patterns. The tells listed above are very basic and are only a small part of equation, hence the name “level 1″ tells. Stay tuned later on for some tells on a more advanced level.

2:08pm: Everyone who has had some relative success in poker has no doubt at least thought about doing it for a living at some point in time. It’s easy to say “I make $30/hr playing poker, and $15/hr at my job, therefore it would make no sense to continue working hard when I could be hardly working at all”. There’s no question that in life you have to dream big, but you also have to be realistic about it.

First thing to do when making an important decision is to objectively weigh the costs vs. the benefits of making said decision. Let’s take a look at the good and the bad of becoming a professional poker player.

Here are the benefits to going pro:

• Make your own hours
• Be your own boss
• Take breaks whenever you feel like it
• Vacation time whenever you need it
• Poker requires little to no manual labor
• Pay yourself as often as you’d like
• No having to dress up; Wear whatever you’d like to the office

Here are the costs of going pro:

• Lack of human interaction (if you’re playing online)
• Lack of QUALITY human interaction (if you’re playing online AND/OR live)
• On negative swings, bills don’t stop coming just because you’re on a bad run
• Tax issues: keeping up with it; documenting your results/expenses; filing correctly
• Society, in general, “frowns upon it”.
• The pressure to win every day because your livelyhood depends on it
• Guilt associated with all of the above

While the money might be GREAT sometimes, you must be extremely strong-minded in order to consider doing this for a living. You must treat each day as a seperate entity as the day before it, and never ever think about the past.

Someone once told me, “When you play to get even, you get even worse”. I can’t tell you how many people I see playing to get even, both live and online. If you want to find people online who are trying to get even, sharkscope your next heads up opponent. He probably started playing $5 heads up sngs, and the every time he lost he increased the buy in of his next one. One time, in a $50 heads up sng I sharkscoped my opponent and viewed his last 8 matches. It read like this:

1. $33 + 1.50
2. $20 + 1
3. $10 + .50
4. $5 + .25
5. $2 + .25

He started all the way down the totem pole at $2, and had lost each match he played, effectively trying to recover his money back each time he played. Long story short, he lost to me and then went on to play a $100 heads up match. He also lost that one, and decided to play a $200 match where he finally won.

Point being, going pro takes discipline and a lot of structure. Skipping around in game types/limits is fine for the casual player. However, if you plan to become a pro it’s sometimes best to find a “niche” that you excel in - while considering everything I have laid before you above.

10:32am: Somebody once asked me what my secret is to keeping my graph so steady and upward. I couldn’t really sum it up into one phrase, until I read the first line of this article describing how Kenny Tran won event #25 at the 2008 World Series of Poker:

“I definitely have a strategy. I like to grind people out and make them feel bored. I just torture them and let them finally make a mistake.”

All of a sudden, it hit me: this is exactly the same strategy I employ, especially in the early blinds at a heads up SNG. Everyone talks about “mixing up your game”, “playing unpredictable”, “loose aggressive” — and to all that I say: yadda yadda. Loose aggressive is not the new basic strategy. By basic, I mean that in everyone’s quest to try something different and unpredictable, they become — well — rather predictable.

In sharp contrast to this, the whole reason people play poker is because it’s an action game. Half the enjoyment of half the people who play poker is in the adrenaline rush that they feel when playing the game. If you grind them down slowly, you take that enjoyment away from them. So to that, I say try something truly new and innovative, go ‘against the grain’ and do what I do:

“Torture them to Death”

6:33pm: With just four registrants, we decided to run the tournament because it was an even field. The first round featured KingMoush (moushegh on HFL) vs. thedrjayman (Johnnyvegas on HFL) and Jdbizzie (jdbizzie on HFL) vs. myself (trujm).

The first match between Moushegh and JohnnyVegas took around 20-25 minutes, while the first match between Jdbizzle and myself went on for nearly 45 minutes. I don’t go into the 75/150 blinds very often, but he took me there. In the end, the blinds were too high and he was forced to shove with A2, only to be called by my AJ suited. The hand held, and I moved on to the second round.

In the final round between Moushegh and myself, I missed around 90% of the flops that came out and Moushegh took the match without any real contest from myself. The match lasted about 25 minutes, and ended as my 66 couldn’t hold up against his KJ and Moushegh took the match and the prize money ($36).

The good news for everyone is because the field was so small, we all received a portion of our money back. 2nd place allowed me to break even (minus rake), and 3rd and 4th paid out $12 — resulting in a total net loss of $10, including rake, for those who lost their first match.

I was somewhat disappointed in the turn out for the HFL tourney, considering we have over 800 members to this site. That being said, I’m sure it being father’s day had something to do with it — in addition to the buy in being a little too steep for some. We will hold another HFL tourney next month, with a buy in that is a little more managable ($5). Hope to see A LOT more of you then!

Good luck to everyone playing tonight.

7:31pm: This topic is one of the toughest situations in all of texas hold em, and especially in a heads up format because you see more of these situations than you would at a 6/9/10 handed table. Should you fire the final bullet after all the cards have been dealt? What factors decide when it’s right and when it’s wrong? Is it instinct, math, or psychology? No matter what the answer, simply put: if you fail to assign correct values to hands (especially on the river), you will fail at poker.

We’re all guilty of missing the river value bet in some way, shape or form — myself included. On the other hand, we’re also been guilty of betting hands that we shouldn’t. In playing heads up sngs, we simply play too many hands to get it right every single time. While mistakes are inevitable, what we can seek to do is cut down on them significantly and make sure that our play on the river is as accurate as possible in such a manner that it’s not a leak in your bankroll.

There’s four ways to make mistakes on the river:

• Betting when you should be checking
• Checking when you should be betting
• Betting too much
• Not betting enough

Let’s take a look at one example of each, and determine which one of the four is most detrimental to your bankroll.

1. Betting when you should be checking

   This one should be relatively easy to fix. This is because it’s easier and less risky to stop betting than it is to start. This is also the mistake most people will readily admit to making. The fix is relatively easy; Simply tune down the aggression factor a little. One of my favorite pieces of advice to people regarding poker is: “You can only gonna get called if you’re beat”.

   For example, you hold 2c2d and the board came out in this order: 2s3s4d, Turn: 5s, River 10s. You’ve bet every stage of the hand up to the river, and your opponent has just called you up until that point. I’ve seen so many people bet their hand in this situation, and while I will yield while it is “read dependent” at times, long term it’s simply not a winning play to make a bet here. Sometimes your opponent’s hand has more ways to beat you than it does to lose, and in these situations you should cease betting. You’re beat here if your opponent holds a spade (9), an Ace (3 [discount As]), or a Six (3 [discount 6s]). That’s immediately 15 cards that your opponent has two shots at having (one for each hole card). In addition to all of this, your opponent could also have 33, 44, 55, or 10 10. Add in all of that, and you are reduced to nearly 50/50 odds of your hand being good. Value bets in this spot rarely make sense.

2. Checking when you should be betting

   This is perhaps the hardest of the four to fix because there are so many factors that go into doing it correctly. Missing value bets on the river has long been a thorn in many a poker players’ side. Let’s run through an example of a situation where a value bet should be made where a check is often the play.

   Equal stacks (1500), and you hold AdKc on the button, and you raised preflop to 60 (from 20). Your opponent (who very rarely draws) called, and the flop was AsKd4c. Your opponent checks, and you bet 100 on the flop, and your opponent simply calls. The pot is now 320. The turn brings Jh. Once again, your opponent checks and you bet a good portion of the pot (250), and your opponent once again calls. The pot is now 820. The river is Qd, and your opponent checks to you.

   At this point, many people would check out of fear that their opponent holds a ten. While it might backfire on you sometimes, it’s better to bet here than check. Let’s look at why:

   Your opponent rarely draws, which usually means their hand is made when they bet or call. If your opponent called you on the flop, it’s a good indicator that they were holding an ace, or a lower two pair (first scenario being more likely). The only way your hand wouldn’t be good at this point is if they happened to be holding A10. Assuming that the first card they are holding is an ace, from an “outs perspective” their second card now has 4 outs to beat you. Add to this the fact that your opponent has checked to you, and slowly but surely you start to realize that it makes more sense to bet here rather than check. Your opponent will more than likely also not put you on a 10, and will often call with a slightly weaker hand.

   Since you bet every stage of the hand, and are continuing to fire on a scary board, your opponent might also incorrectly assume that you are weak. Level 1-2 thinking is that betting means weakness and checking means strength. If your opponent subscribes to this theory, then you will probably get a call here with a weaker hand.

   Also, in this spot many times your opponent will call you out of plain curiosity. Since you fired 3 bullets, and since they probably aren’t putting you on a ten here, your opponent might call just to see they are beat. I can’t tell you how many times my opponent calls and flips over a pair of kings in this spot.

   We now have 3 instances where betting produced a positive result, and one where it produced a negative result. The negative result causes you to to lose the same as you gain when a positive result is produced, therefore your opponent can hold a ten 25% of the time or less for this to be a winning play, and realistically the odds of your opponent holding a ten here are considerably less than 25%.

3. Betting too much

   This is simply a case of assigning incorrect values to hands. If you price yourself into calling when your opponent shoves, then you have to be sure that the hand you’re pushing with is considerably more likely to be good than not. One of the biggest makes my opponents make is overvaluing weak hands (such as 1 pair, bottom two pair, or the bottom end of a 4 card straight). You can generally get a “feel” for what hand strengths are worth over large sample sizes. This may seem overly simplistic, but it’s true: big hands should win big pots, and small hands should win small pots. If you’re only holding a pair, and the pot is slightly bigger than it usually is when you’re holding a pair then you might want to reconsider the amount your fire on the river, if at all. To cure this, simply take 5-10 seconds before you bet and ask yourself, “what is this hand really worth?”

4. Not betting enough

   This one is a mystery to me sometimes. There are times when you know you will get paid if you bet huge, but some still chose to under-fire on the river. Here is a classic example:

   You hold 7d8s. The board reads: 2c3s4d5h6c. You’ve bet out on every stage of the hand, so your opponent has a significant amount invested in the hand. The play here is to push — nearly every single time. Your opponent will usually call to chop, and even if they aren’t calling to chop they will almost certainly call you to win (so they think) with a single seven in their hand. There’s no reason why you should let them off the hook with this kind of board with that hand, and you stand way more to gain by them calling and losing the whole match than you do if you bet not as much and lure them into a call they normally wouldn’t make.

Which one of these mistakes is most detrimental to your bankroll? They are all really bad, but all in all I’d have to say #2. This is because it’s the hardest to correct. You have to be very honest and critical with yourself in evaluating your river play. Think about chips you’ve wasted in your life on the river card. Sickening, huh?