5:13am: The key to my success tonight was consistency. When bad things happened, I didn’t let them compound into something that could potentially effect the way I play. After having put in a solid week of 24 games/day, I’m starting to realize that there’s SUPPOSED to be a bunch of ups and down throughout the day, and that’s my JOB to handle it accordingly.

$200 isn’t peanuts, and that’s how much is on the table every time I sit down with an opponent to play a heads up sit n go. Being as such, should one really expect that it be easy? I don’t think so. Having always had a complete respect for money, and how hard it is to come by, I feel that grinding $100 heads up sit n gos is a absolute privilege and I’m so fortunate to be able to play at these stakes. If the math holds up, I should make more this year than some engineers.

Back to tonight: there was really only one “rough patch” of 2-4 games, where it could have gone either way, but unfortunately went the wrong way, so I had to accept it, move on, and not let it affect the rest of the night. Moving on was an understatement, as I would then go 5-1 after that point to close out the night.

As soon as I get the hang of all this volume, I’ll be on total auto-pilot from here on out, until eventually I hit the $200s (shooting for Jan 2009, but that’s ok if not).

Good luck to anyone playing in a session today!

More later…

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

5:20: Everything was sunny and bright up until the point at which I was 10-5 and ready to close the day out strong. All of a sudden, my old run of cards from the last 2-3 days made a cameo appearance, and I lost 6 out of 8 coinflips when all in. Granted, one of them was my fault. The blinds were too low, and I knew my opponent was on tilt, but I made the mistake and called anyways. I was ahead, of course, when he turned over K7off, but everything went downhill from there as he hit his king.

I would then lose four straight matches, and totally wipe out what had been a great day so far. It was at this point that I hit the reset button, and went to my GF for a pep talk.

Ever see the movie Rocky (or the series, rather)? Well, whenever Rocky felt down or didn’t believe in himself, he always turned to Adrian for re-assurance. Whenever I need a vote of confidence and a new twist or silver lining in a situation, my girlfriend (Adrian 2.0) is always the one who reminds me where I’ve been, and where I’m headed.

Coincidentally, I returned to win five straight matches, before dropping the final match of the night and eventually finished 14-10 on the night. And to that I say: I’ll take it!

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.

3:41pm: The session started great (2-1) in first two sets, but the rest of the night was a mixed bag of good and bad, but mostly bad. Realistically, if most of my hands hold up, I should have finished around 15-9, or something in that vicinity. The only problem? I can’t get hands to hold up. Hands that are 75% or more to win lost probably 60% of the time tonight, and hands where I was in a coin flip (with the better end) would end in me losing about 80% of the time.

Of course, as someone wise told me tonight, the best thing to do is to take my own advice and know where it’s going in the long run, which happens to be right here baby!

All that being said, I definitely like where I stand (skill-wise) in $100 heads up matches. There are still plenty of people willing to get their money in bad, so for those of you thinking that the $100 hu sngs are just a bunch of sharks, think again. They are equally as bad as the $50 players.

Today, I have a little something special for you guys. It’s (almost) all my bad beats and coolers wrapped up into one cute little video. Keep in mind I still finished 12-12, even after all of this.

Enjoy, HFL!

4:20am: The night started off extremely rough. My first three sets went like this:

Set 1: 1-2
Set 2: 1-2
Set 3: 1-2

In my fourth set, I finally broke through in going 2-1, but then ran into a series of unfortunate events in the next set of matches, and went 0-3 in the fifth set. It was at this point that I had to get my act together and focus. I was sitting at a 5-10 record overall, and down 2300 to 700 in the only match I had left on the screen. If I lose the match, I’m down nearly $700. Somehow, some way I dug deep down and came back to win the match.

This turned out to be the turning point of the night, as I would go 7-2 the rest of the way to finish the day at a complete stalemate (12-12). Nights like this aren’t easy, but when you committ to putting in the amount of volume that I’ve been putting in lately, you have to know that a lot can happen in 24 heads up matches. Thousands of hands will be played, and just by the very nature of the volume of hands, you are going to see some pretty bad beats.

Mental preparation and focus before sessions like these are crucial, and understanding how variance works is the glue that holds yourself together. At 5-10 (headed towards 5-11), I could have packed it in, went on tilt, and just declared the night a lost cause. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, it made me that much more focused. That being said, every day is a grind, and it’s not easy. It takes an extremely mentally tough person to do this for a living. It also helps to keep a positive attitude, which is almost always easier said than done.

I look forward to a better session tommorow, even though I am happy with tonights results.

3:06am: The live session was yet another card dead affair. Finally, after waiting 5-6 hours to pick up some sort of drawing hand or hand with “possibilities” I picked up Kc10c, on the button, and called a $25 raise in a 6 way pot. The flop came: Qc 9c 4d.

Someone in early position led out for $75, and the original guy who raised called behind him. The call was a no-brainer at this point, and I even contemplated a raise. However, I didn’t want to scare a third person who would potentially pay me off (if it hit) away.

The turn: Kd

The initial bettor checks, and the original raiser bets $75. I decided that my hand is probably no good, but I am indeed priced into this pot from and odds point of view. The other man calls, and we see a river with over a $600 pot.

The river: 2s

Everyone checks to me, and I thought about value betting the King, but it really didn’t make sense. As I’ve discussed before, ONE PAIR usually does not take down pots of this size, so value betting the river would go against that belief, which is usually right more often than it’s not. Having said that,  I checked behind everyone, and took it down - as both guys held a queen.

Following that pot, which was the only pot of “significant” size that I won all night, I decided to call it a night and ended the session up $500.

On to some heads up…

*EDIT*, Finished 2-0 in my heads up session. Up $700, and calling it a night. Good luck everyone!

2:36am: In a day where I just could not, for some reason, win more than one game in a row, it was a constant uphill battle the whole night, before losing the final three games of the session. 9 consecutive games went like this: WLWLWLWLW, but the final three games went like this: LLL.

If I had to sum it up into a few things, the reason tonight’s session wasn’t a good one for me probably had to with:

• Not being able to close out the victory (when my opponents had 600 chips or less)
• Whenever I held two pair, I kept losing to a higher two pair
• Did not have very many drawing hands, and failed to complete the few that I did have
• Opponents ran better than me in the 25/50-50/100 blinds
• Got rivered quite a few times in circumstances where the match was mine if the card doesn’t fall

So there you have it, as that pretty much sums it up. I look forward to a better session tommorow. I am undecided on whether or not I am going to play live. I do know this much: based on my sharkscope results (after having played 3,000 heads up matches), Thursday is indeed my best day, from a profit standpoint. It is also my second best day, from a return on investment standpoint.

The silver lining to today’s performance is that I was able to rack up quite a few VPPS, taking advantage of PokerStars 1.5x VPP promotion for heads up sit n gos.

Good luck to everyone playing a session before I start.

3:19am: It was easy. That is, until the final two matches of the night. I decided to push my 3-0 record a little harder to see what happened, and if I did not win the next two matches, I committed myself to grinding some heavy volume through the wee hours of the morning. On the other hand, if I won the next two matches I would reward myself with some much needed sleep.

For my nightcap, I found myself playing two of the top $100 heads up sng players. One of them ranked (top 20 in the world) with a Star, and the other with stats hidden, but has had success at this level and stakes even higher than this. I knew I was going to have to be either (a) creative or (b) lucky to even split the series, much less win both of them.

I took a page from my article on Monday on well timed aggression and bluffing, and picked some pretty sweet spots to represent hands that my opponents had no choice but to put me on. After being a little bit lucky combined with some well timed aggression, I grinded the player with the star down to 400 chips (twice), eventually winning the match by getting lucky and hitting trips on the river (after the player let me catch up by catching and checking two pair on the turn).

The other player was significantly more aggressive than the ranked player, but it was more wreckless than controlled. He would usually fold if you applied any pressure back to him, with or without a hand. His demise was simply calling me too light in the hand below:

PokerStars Game #18856868722: Tournament #95950951, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level III (25/50) - 2008/07/16 - 04:13:01 (ET)
Table ‘95950951 1′ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (1775 in chips)
Seat 2: Rocky2184 (1225 in chips)
Rocky2184: posts small blind 25
trujm: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Ad Jh]
Rocky2184: raises 100 to 150
trujm: raises 1625 to 1775 and is all-in
Rocky2184: calls 1075 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (550) returned to trujm
*** FLOP *** [4h 5c 2d]
*** TURN *** [4h 5c 2d] [6s]
*** RIVER *** [4h 5c 2d 6s] [8c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trujm: shows [Ad Jh] (high card Ace)
Rocky2184: shows [Jd Kd] (high card King)
trujm collected 2450 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2450 | Rake 0
Board [4h 5c 2d 6s 8c]
Seat 1: trujm (big blind) showed [Ad Jh] and won (2450) with high card Ace
Seat 2: Rocky2184 (button) (small blind) showed [Jd Kd] and lost with high card King

The blank on the river sealed the deal, and the perfect day for me. Nearly $500 profit for an hour and a half of work? Not bad.

And just in case you were wondering, here’s an update on my statistics going into tommorrows session:

• $50 hu sng record: 1,324-846 (61.01%)
• $100 hu sng record: 77-36 (68.14%)

I’m well aware of the fact that this cannot possibly hold as well in the long run. That being said, I have to feel pretty comfortable about where it will likely level out at. Not quite as low of a dropoff in win % from the $50s as I envisioned, if any at all.

More later… Good luck today guys.

4:05am: Well, with the exception of one of my opponents, today was rather easy. I’ve been slowly grinding upward after my 1-5 showing the other night, but today was the exact opposite of a grind as I picked up nearly $400 after knocking off my first four opponents of the night. I decided to reward myself and leave it at that, and I will put in a higher volume session later today.

For the most part today, my opponents were weak-tight, and on top of that I ran pretty good. In one of my matches, I was actually behind when my opponent was all in with 55 vs. his JJ. The flop instantly changed things when 5 9 9 rolled out, which in turn sealed the victory and the match for me. The last match consisted of me taking a BUNCH of pots off of a guy who assumed I only played the nuts. Which brings me to my next point of interest…

In the works for today is a pretty in depth article analyzing the “bluff” in heads up sit n gos, and it’s place in the highly psychological affair that is the heads up sit n go. I’m sure a lot of you wonder how much I actually bluff, having seen my videos and such.

To answer that question, it’s definitely a lot more than you think. There’s no way I could expect to keep such a consistently upward slope, even in the higher-middle stakes by just playing “ABC poker”. Look for that article later on today.

5:06am: As I have become more and more familiar with the style of the $100 hu sng players, I am now becoming more comfortable playing a higher volume of games at these stakes. Volume is absolutely key in softening the variance and cruelty of poker, and it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve actually had the time to dedicate a whole day to poker.

That being said, the rake absolutely killed me today. After all the hours of laboring over 16 games and enduring all of the emotional swings that came along with it, my net profit today is +$120 (after subtracting $80 in rake for having played 16 games). There were some bad beats today, and I also got lucky a couple of times.

Most importantly, never did I panic — even when I was off to a 1-4 start. I would then go 8-3 the rest of the way, and was happy to end a very long session on a positive note.

One thing I have noticed specifically about the $100 level is the amount of players with “gimmicky” styles. By “gimmicky”, I mean players who specifically go out of their way to do something unorthodox and repeatedly. For example:

• Min raising every hand, and min betting every flop
• Odd Raises (but always the same amounts), such as raising to 53 preflop instead of 60
• Turning no limit poker into limit poker by always betting the same amount

.. and so on.

My take on this is that this is an attempt to throw their opponent on tilt. The only reason it doesn’t work on me is because I know they are going out of their way to do it, and specifically for that reason. If miniscule things like this put me on tilt, what kind of professional would I be?

To boot, I think these gimmicks are more substance over style and most of the time these guys are masking their level of skill with these attempted annoying tactics.

Anyhow, I will be playing a live session tonight. Good luck to everyone playing today!