4:54am: I found this article on P5s, written by Jack Welch. I think sometimes in poker we have to think outside the box for the solutions to our problems. This includes examining things outside of the game itself. This article makes a suggestion ten books that would make you a better poker playing, having read them.

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I have a theory.  Maybe just a hunch.  Call it wishful thinking even.  But I believe better people make better poker players.  Certainly, a sociopath might have an advantage where aggression is concerned.  However, when we think about long-term success across a decades-long career, poker longevity can only truly be achieved by those individuals who have their acts together.

Every poker book written by every poker expert will archly discuss the importance of such personal attributes as patience, self-discipline, psychological control.  Yet, few, if any, teach you how to acquire those traits.

The books listed here will provide an excellent base to improve your life-roll management.

1. Blink - Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell maintains that we “blink” when we think without thinking. We do that by “thin-slicing,” using limited information to come to a conclusion. In what Gladwell contends is an age of information overload, he finds experts often make better decisions with snap judgments than they do with reams of analysis.

Sometimes we over-think things. Sometimes you just have to go with your read.

2. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose - Eckhart Tolle

“Be aware that what you think, to a large extent, creates the emotions that you feel.  See the link between your thinking and your emotions.  Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.”

3. Zen In the Art of Archery - Eugen Herrigel

Through years of practice, an activity becomes effortless both mentally and physically. The body becomes capable of executing often complex, often difficult movements without conscious control by the mind.

“The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull’s-eye which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art…”

4. If - Rudyard Kipling

The first few lines of the title poem say it all.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting…

5. The Bible

The Main Event of literature as far as I am concerned.

Good for bankroll management.  “Covet not thy neighbor’s ass.”

The 23rd Psalm is always excellent to keep in mind when shoving all your chips into the middle of the table.

6. WOODEN: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off The Court
- John Wooden

ESPN’s show “Who’s Number 1?” ranked Mr. Wooden as the greatest coach of all time in any sport. “Intensity makes you stronger. Emotionalism makes you weaker.”

7. Personal Best - George Sheehan, M.D.

I knew George Sheehan.  He was either the most normal great man I have ever encountered or the greatest normal man.  I wish I had thought to tell him that.  He would have laughed.  Modestly, of course…

“The memorable thing is not to excel against others but to excel against yourself…The real trophy is within.  The real trophy is the self.”

8. The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”

Many professors give talks entitled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to reflect on what matters most to them. While they speak, each member of the audience can’t help but ponder the same question: What wisdom would I share with the world if I knew it was my last opportunity? If I dropped dead tomorrow, what would I want as my legacy?

Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture. He didn’t have to imagine it as his last, as he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—“Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”—wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (“time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). The Last Lecture is a summation of everything Pausch had come to believe. It is about living.

9. The Secret - Rhonda Byrne

Laugh if you will.  Come to think about it, those chortling the loudest probably have the greatest need to study these concepts.

According to James Arthur Ray, there is scientific evidence to back up the spiritual practices and laws defined in The Secret. “Science tells us that everything is energy, and so your thoughts are energy. Your body, your cash, your car—everything you think is solid, if you put it under a high-powered microscope, it’s just a field of energy and a rate of vibration,” he says. “And so are we. So if you think you’re this meat suit running around, you have to think again.”

One way to describe this energy is by comparing it to radio waves, “The frequency you give out through your thoughts and your emotions is what you have a tendency to manifest in your life,” Re. Dr. Michael Beckwith adds. “Whether those thoughts and emotions are conscious or unconscious, it doesn’t matter.”

If you are sending out the same negative energy over and over—whether thoughts or feelings—you will attract similar energy back to you. Ray explains, when bad things happen people might ask, “Oh, God, why me?”

“Because it is you,” he says.

10. Collected Essays - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

BONUS PICK!!!!

11. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Dr. Stephen Covey

Habit 7.  Sharpen the Saw.

This is the habit of self-renewal, says Covey.  Self-renewal necessarily surrounds all the other habits, enabling and encouraging them to happen and grow. Covey interprets the self into four parts: the spiritual, mental, physical and the social/emotional, which all need feeding and developing.

These books - any one of them - can provide the breakthrough to move you to the next level.  In poker and in life.

Sharpen your edge.

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

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

2:35am: It was yet another session of extreme swingyness, peaks and valleys, ups and downs. So many times in crucial situations in crucial hands that determine the winner of the match, I’ve been on the wrong side of the fence in the last 3 days. Today, despite that fact still existing, on skill alone I was able to eek out a 13-11 record.

I say “skill alone” because I was definitely more unlucky than lucky today and somehow was able to turn in a winning day. This new committment to putting in high amount of volume at mid/high stakes is way different than playing 5-6 matches a night, turning in a 4-2 record and calling it a day. It was easy back then. This is because your mind has less time to forget about the ugliness, and it’s hard not to take that with you into the next match.

Yet, that’s what I’ve been in constant struggle with the last three days, and surprisingly, I’ve been up to the task. For the most part, when you’re opening up games left and right and you’ve got so many more to play, the bad beats don’t stay with you as long because there’s really no time to focus on the negative.

I’ve said this before, and this time is no less important: it takes an EXTREMELY mentally tough person to play these for a living. I’d even go so far as to say that it’s probably the most exhausting form of poker because there’s so much thinking involved. That’s the price we pay, however, for the decrease in variance (as compared to other forms of poker).

If I would have been playing heads up cash games the last 3 days, I’d be down thousands of dollars. That’s because I ran terrible when either myself or my opponent was all in. The “battle in the trenches”, I felt was one area that I excelled in. But unfortunately, coin flips have not been very nice to me this week.

All that being said, even though I’m on a completely break-even streak this week, I know things will change. All I need to do to remind myself of that is to take one look at my graph. The greatest predictor of the future is the past, and based on where I’ve been, I like where I’m headed.

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.

5:02am: Today’s live session was definitely not easy money. It was a table full of local sharks, and had it not been for the amount of trouble I went through today in order to play live (which I won’t get into), I would have sooner turned around and went back home for a full heads up sng session.

I decided to stick it out, and in doing so I decided that I was going to have to mix things up a bit today because everyone at the table knew what my usual gameplan is. Today was a day where I only played hands in position, and I picked up a bunch of small pots by playing the button and the cutoff very aggressively. The plan worked to perfection, as no one really caught on to what I was doing.

Then, there was this one hand where I made a “blocking raise” preflop of $15 with Ac9c from middle position. I knew I wanted to see the flop, however I knew if I just limped, someone was going to make it at least $25-$30 to go. Whenever I enter the pot there, I usually get a lot of respect, so everyone (5 people) just called and we see a flop of 7c 5c 2d. The guy first to act folds unprevoked (checked out) and the action was on me. I decide to bet $30. The man to my left (loose/passive) calls $30, one guy folds, another guy folds, and the LAG player on the button makes it $130 to go. I thought about pushing right here, because I did have two overs and the nut flush draw, but I wanted the third guy in too so that I’d have better odds for the hand to hit. For that reason, I decide to just call the $100 and so does the man to my left. The pot is now $480 going into the turn.

The turn is a very beautiful card for me: Jc, giving me the absolute nuts at the moment.

I thought that if I checked it at this point, there’s no way in hell someone else would bet a scary card like that on a flushed-out board without a flush themselves. Even a set would probably take the free card here, and try to pair the board cheaply. Keeping these things in mind, I decided to lead out pretty strong ($300) hoping and praying that someone else had completed the flush OR that someone would figure, “there’s no way he could have a flush here, he would have checked. Who in the hell leads out when they hit the flush?”.

Unfortunately, no one had a flush and no one figured any of that stuff I mentioned above. Everyone folds, and I take down the pot as it stood at that point.

The rest of the night was just maintenance and picking up small pots, as I mentioned above. After a 5.5 hour session, I decided that I was indeed lucky to be up nearly $400 in a very “sharked out” game so I took my loot and left with the intention to continue my session via heads up sngs when I arrived home.

In regards to my online mini-session, there is nothing significant to report other than those who ran better than me, won the match, and those did not, lost. This enabled me to finish 3-2 on the night, and hopefully tomorrow I will be able to play a longer one. Here is the last hand from the last match I played (against a pretty solid player), for those who are interested:

PokerStars Game #18736711128: Tournament #95280719, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/07/11 - 05:58:10 (ET)
Table ‘95280719 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: prodigies (1000 in chips)
Seat 2: trujm (2000 in chips)
prodigies: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Qc Js]
prodigies: raises 60 to 90
trujm: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [Kc 3c Ts]
trujm: checks
prodigies: bets 90
trujm: calls 90
*** TURN *** [Kc 3c Ts] [Ad]
trujm: checks
prodigies: bets 240
trujm: raises 720 to 960
prodigies: calls 580 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (140) returned to trujm
*** RIVER *** [Kc 3c Ts Ad] [8s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trujm: shows [Qc Js] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
prodigies: shows [Qs As] (a pair of Aces)
trujm collected 2000 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2000 | Rake 0
Board [Kc 3c Ts Ad 8s]
Seat 1: prodigies (button) (small blind) showed [Qs As] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 2: trujm (big blind) showed [Qc Js] and won (2000) with a straight, Ten to Ace

More later..

4:33am: This isn’t easy to do guys, but it’s always nice to celebrate it when it happens. Here’s to staying on top of your ‘A’ game, focusing, and not letting anything stand in your way:

Now bring on the downswing! (just kidding). Happy 4th of July, everyone!

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.

2:28am: There’s all kinds of good runs in poker; Good runs with preflop cards; Good runs with opponents; Good runs with cards postflop; Good runs in race situations; Good runs with people just handing you the match. You get the idea. Right now, I’m on a good run in just about every single way I just mentioned.

Not to take anything away from the quality of my play, but I’m either off to one of the best starts even conceivable after moving up in limits (to $100 husngs from $50), or I’m just getting extremely lucky. I’d like the think it’s the former and not the latter.

I’ve had to make a few good calls here and there (see below), but for the most part, people have been just giving away money (also see below), which is something I totally didn’t expect at this level. Here are three hands that are pretty much a microcosm of my experience in the $100s so far:

Donation #1:

PokerStars Game #18546608093: Tournament #94271041, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level I (10/20) - 2008/07/03 - 02:02:41 (ET)
Table ‘94271041 1′ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: smartass2007 (900 in chips)
Seat 2: trujm (2100 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 10
smartass2007: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Ac Ad]
trujm: raises 40 to 60
smartass2007: calls 40
*** FLOP *** [5d Ah Qd]
smartass2007: bets 100
trujm: calls 100
*** TURN *** [5d Ah Qd] [Kh]
smartass2007: bets 100
trujm: raises 260 to 360
smartass2007: calls 260
*** RIVER *** [5d Ah Qd Kh] [8h]
smartass2007: bets 380 and is all-in
trujm: calls 380
*** SHOW DOWN ***
smartass2007: shows [8d Kd] (two pair, Kings and Eights)
trujm: shows [Ac Ad] (three of a kind, Aces)
smartass2007 said, “lol wow”
smartass2007 said, “nh”
trujm collected 1800 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1800 | Rake 0
Board [5d Ah Qd Kh 8h]
Seat 1: smartass2007 (big blind) showed [8d Kd] and lost with two pair, Kings and Eights
Seat 2: trujm (button) (small blind) showed [Ac Ad] and won (1800) with three of a kind, Aces

Donation #2:

PokerStars Game #18546642807: Tournament #94270330, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/07/03 - 02:05:42 (ET)
Table ‘94270330 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: rydog012 (1255 in chips)
Seat 2: trujm (1745 in chips)
rydog012: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Qs 7s]
rydog012: calls 15
trujm: checks
*** FLOP *** [6s 4s Ts]
trujm: checks
rydog012: bets 60
trujm: raises 120 to 180
rydog012: raises 120 to 300
trujm: raises 1415 to 1715 and is all-in
rydog012: calls 925 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (490) returned to trujm
*** TURN *** [6s 4s Ts] [7d]
*** RIVER *** [6s 4s Ts 7d] [Ac]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trujm: shows [Qs 7s] (a flush, Queen high)
rydog012: shows [Js Kc] (high card Ace)
trujm collected 2510 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2510 | Rake 0
Board [6s 4s Ts 7d Ac]
Seat 1: rydog012 (button) (small blind) showed [Js Kc] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 2: trujm (big blind) showed [Qs 7s] and won (2510) with a flush, Queen high

Donation #3
(had to REALLY think about this one before hitting call):

PokerStars Game #18547386631: Tournament #94274799, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/07/03 - 03:18:19 (ET)
Table ‘94274799 1′ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (1650 in chips)
Seat 2: tywebb004 (1350 in chips)
tywebb004: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [6s 7d]
tywebb004: raises 60 to 90
trujm: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [As Ah 6h]
trujm: checks
tywebb004: bets 90
trujm: calls 90
*** TURN *** [As Ah 6h] [3c]
trujm: checks
tywebb004: bets 270
trujm: calls 270
*** RIVER *** [As Ah 6h 3c] [5s]
trujm: checks
tywebb004: bets 900 and is all-in
trujm: calls 900
*** SHOW DOWN ***
tywebb004: shows [4c Td] (a pair of Aces)
trujm: shows [6s 7d] (two pair, Aces and Sixes)
trujm collected 2700 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2700 | Rake 0
Board [As Ah 6h 3c 5s]
Seat 1: trujm (big blind) showed [6s 7d] and won (2700) with two pair, Aces and Sixes
Seat 2: tywebb004 (button) (small blind) showed [4c Td] and lost with a pair of Aces

As stated above, I really had to think about the last hand before I called. My initial read was KQ (possibly KhQh), and in the end I stuck to that read. Turns out I was slightly off, but my read on the weakness was correct.

Anyways, this concludes the night. 4-1, and now 28-7 overall in the $100s. For > 40% roi. This is great and all, but unfortunately the only place to go from here is down. But I’m ready - bring it on!

Graph Updates:

If you have the bankroll to move up to the $100s, maybe you should try it out. Maybe not as many sharks as you think?

*EDIT*, 7:13am: Couldn’t sleep so I decided to play another game, and I won - so that makes me 5-1 on the day.

*EDIT*, 9:45am: Still can’t sleep and played another one and won. 6-1 on the day now.

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.

4:01am: There’s a trend going on in heads up sit n gos. By lately, I mean within the last 8 months or so. I believe it is a function of people attempting to lower their variance and clean up their game. For the most part, the number of people who push all their chips in on a draw has gone down significantly.

I am basing this observation over the last 750-1,000 heads up sngs I’ve played. As recently as a year ago, and more noticably the year before that — you could fill your tank up with gas within a week if you had a dollar for every time that one of your opponents put it all in on a draw.

Why the recent change? Have people finally realized that flush draws only hit 1/3rd of the time? Did they finally crunch the numbers on open ended straight draws? Is it no longer thrilling to them? And more imporantly… is this a good or a bad thing for you and me? I don’t know the answers to the first four questions, but to the last one I say that it’s not necessarily a good thing. In general, I find that people realized that there’s no need to gamble to this extent in heads up sit n gos in order to turn a steady profit. In MTTs? Sure. In heads up sit n gos? Not so much.

This is not to say that no one is gambling, or that no one puts it in the middle on a draw. It’s just simply an observation that it doesn’t happen as much as it used to. Regardless of whether or not your opponent is doing so, always remember this: it’s always better to draw against better players, meanwhile taking the inferior players to a place I like to call “value city”.