12:44am: After much contemplating, I have decided that the eighth tutorial will feature commentary on bluffing. Playing solid heads up poker on a daily basis involves you bringing your “toolbox” with you, and bluffing is definitely an important, if not essential, part of your arsenal. Playing “ABC” poker can and will get you pretty far, but in order to maximize your potential you have to know when to make a good play. The most important part of bluffing is timing, without question and this will be examined in the next tutorial.

The eighth tutorial will be released on or before this upcoming Saturday.

In other news, this week has been very kind to me. I just won my fifth straight match to improve to 56-28 on the week. In case you’re keeping track, that’s a net profit of +$2,380 — and you’ll never hear me complain about that. This week has also helped me improve overall to 61.39% (win pct) in the $100s. Not bad, considering I finished my run in the $50s at a 61.01% (win pct).

More later..

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

6:18pm: The day started out unlucky for JohnnyVegas as he drew trujm (myself) on the first match, but he made quick work of me, and then 3 others to defeat Mojo in the championship match. Hats off to Mojo, who also played well, but then ran into an unfortunate hand (see below), which pretty much sealed the deal for the championship match:

PokerStars Game #19152716226: Tournament #95156205, $5.00+$0.50 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round V, Level I (160/320) - 2008/07/27 - 19:11:28 (ET)
Table ‘95156205 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: thedrjayman (20960 in chips)
Seat 2: MrMojo728 (27040 in chips)
thedrjayman: posts small blind 160
MrMojo728: posts big blind 320
*** HOLE CARDS ***
thedrjayman: calls 160
MrMojo728: checks
*** FLOP *** [Qc 8d 2h]
MrMojo728: checks
thedrjayman: checks
*** TURN *** [Qc 8d 2h] [9s]
MrMojo728: bets 320
thedrjayman: raises 640 to 960
MrMojo728: raises 640 to 1600
thedrjayman: raises 3520 to 5120
MrMojo728: raises 3520 to 8640
thedrjayman: raises 12000 to 20640 and is all-in
MrMojo728: calls 12000
*** RIVER *** [Qc 8d 2h 9s] [Kc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
MrMojo728: shows [Qd 8c] (two pair, Queens and Eights)
thedrjayman: shows [Td Jh] (a straight, Nine to King)
MrMojo728 said, “nh”
thedrjayman collected 41920 from pot
thedrjayman said, “ty”
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 41920 | Rake 0
Board [Qc 8d 2h 9s Kc]
Seat 1: thedrjayman (button) (small blind) showed [Td Jh] and won (41920) with a straight, Nine to King
Seat 2: MrMojo728 (big blind) showed [Qd 8c] and lost with two pair, Queens and Eights

Even though we fell short of the required 20 entrants for the extra $50 to be added to the prize pool (19 HFL’ers participated), I was feeling festive and decided to add the money to the prize pool regardless. In the end, JohnnyVegas pocketed $92.75 and is crowned the champion until the next HFL tourney.

If you’re wondering how often the HFL tourney runs, wonder no more. We will run the HFL tourney 6 times a year, which would make the next one two months from now. Hopefully, we have established a little bit of a cult following, and I look forward to possibly 30-40 entrants next time.

Thanks to everyone who participated, and good luck to anyone putting in a session tonight. Feel free to start a results thread if you happen to start before me. This is normally my night off, but I stopped short of 24 games yesterday, so I have to work on my off day.

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

12:00am: The HFL tourney is now less than 24 hours away. So far, we have 14 registrants, but I can account for a couple more who haven’t registered yet.

REMINDER: Originally I had said that we needed 20 people to be registered 24 hours before the tourney begins for me to add $50 to the prize pool. That has been changed. If we have 20 registrants an hour before the tourney begins, I will add $50 to the prize pool. This should be a piece of cake, considering we are only a few people away from achieving this goal.

It should also be noted that a video will be made of the “final 4″ (pending everyone’s agreement to turn in hand histories), with all cards shown face up.

If you have not registered for the HFL heads up tourney, we would love to have you. Anyone is welcome. The entry fee is $5 and the tournament will be played on Sunday, July 27th at 5:00pm EST. The tournament ID is: 95156205. You can find the tournament by clicking “Tourney” under the PokerStars menu, and then “Private”.

The password to the tournament is: “kensentme”

See all of you there.

3:13am: I thought today would be a good day to introduce finally the individual hand discussion segments. Here is a hand I played in the last match of the day. I didn’t mention it in the video, but I actually came back and won the match (see transcript below), so there was a happy ending. However, the hand itself is pretty disgusting as you will see.

This video will always be available under the “Single Hand Video Discussion” link on the left side, for future reference. Enjoy!

The hand that finally put him away:

PokerStars Game #19084271363: Tournament #97841526, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level III (25/50) - 2008/07/25 - 03:19:33 (ET)
Table ‘97841526 1′ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (1940 in chips)
Seat 2: squishy310 (1060 in chips)
squishy310: posts small blind 25
trujm: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [8c 8h]
squishy310: raises 50 to 100
trujm: raises 1840 to 1940 and is all-in
squishy310: calls 960 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (880) returned to trujm
*** FLOP *** [Kh 6c Jd]
*** TURN *** [Kh 6c Jd] [5s]
*** RIVER *** [Kh 6c Jd 5s] [Kc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trujm: shows [8c 8h] (two pair, Kings and Eights)
squishy310: shows [Ah Tc] (a pair of Kings)
trujm collected 2120 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2120 | Rake 0
Board [Kh 6c Jd 5s Kc]
Seat 1: trujm (big blind) showed [8c 8h] and won (2120) with two pair, Kings and Eights
Seat 2: squishy310 (button) (small blind) showed [Ah Tc] and lost with a pair of Kings

12:07am: With already 3x the amount of registrants this time around, the HFL tourney, which is now 5 days away, should be a very interesting one. With at least 15 registrants accounted for, we should have no problem getting to 20 players, which will net another $50 to be added to the prize pool.

It should also be noted that a video will be made of the “final 4″ (pending everyone’s agreement to turn in hand histories), with all cards shown face up.

If you have not registered for the HFL heads up tourney, we would love to have you. Anyone is welcome. The entry fee is $5 and the tournament will be played on Sunday, July 27th at 6:00pm EST. The tournament ID is: 95156205. You can find the tournament by clicking “Tourney” under the PokerStars menu, and then “Private”.

The password to the tournament is: “kensentme”

See all of you there.

9:53pm: I really hope you guys enjoy this tutorial. It’s pretty extensive and I put a lot of solid thought into it. It covers end-game strategy from three different matches in three totally unique situations. The decision to do a tutorial solely on end-game strategy was at the request of you guys. A lot of people have problems not knowing what ranges to shove/call shoves with at the 25/50 blinds and up, and I think the video will give you at least a better idea of how to handle situations at that point in the match.

Having said that, if you guys appreciate these tutorials, which are completely free, PLEASE use some of our banners for various poker rooms if you are thinking about trying another room. HFL has now become, as one of our regulars put it, “an encyclopedia for heads up sngs”.

The motivation to keep cranking these things out free of charge, while still fueled by just my love of teaching and the game of poker in general, has to be met at some point with you guys meeting me half way and actually using one of our banners to sign up for your new poker rooms. So please keep that in mind if you love HFL and would like to keep it free, and perhaps even still existing.

I also want to remind everyone that the HFL Heads Up Tourney is one week from tonight, at 5pm (July 27). We have 11 registered so far, and would like to see a big turn out for that.

Enjoy the tutorial
trujm

11:43pm: A little more than a week after the release of the sixth tutorial, HFL will crank out the seventh heads up sng video tutorial by Thursday of this upcoming week. This is as a result of the ever increasing demand to keep producing more tutorials to cover a wider variety of situations.

The seventh tutorial, as planned, will cover endgame strategy from 2-3 different matches. The video will not be covering any action before the 25/50 blind level.

If you have any suggestions for future tutorials, please feel free to comment here in this post. I take all suggestions seriously, and would love to get your input.

5:25pm: Score one for the HFL crew, as SteveK takes down the first “MTT” in HFL’s history. What’s most impressive about this victory is that he was behind a number of times, and had to resort to solid short stack play to complete each and every comeback.

The final match was pretty much handed to him, but make no mistake: SteveK’s money went in with the best hand nearly every time. Another factor that went into the victory was some great timing, and also him finding the right balance between when to take a stand and when to fold.

Congrats to Steve. I hope he the first of many HFL members to take a tourney down.

4:02am: The next HFL Heads Up Tourney has been created and set for Sunday, July 27th. The details of the tournament are as follows:

• Buy in: $5 + .50
• Date: Sunday, July 27th
• Time: 5:00pm  EST
• Tourney ID: 95156205
• Starting Chips: 1500
• Blinds Start at: 10/20
• Blind Levels: 10 minutes
• Password: “kensentme”

We’ve picked up a lot of members since the last heads up tourney, and the buy in should be managable for everyone. If at least 20 people are registered for this tournament 24 hours before it begins, I will add $50 to the prize pool. If at least 20 people are registed a week before it begins, I will add $100 to the prize pool.

This is a great chance for all of you to put your skills to the test and show everyone what you’ve learned in your time here at HFL.

See all of you there!

*EDIT*, 1:42am 7/11: We already have three players registered for the tourney within the first 24 hours of this announcement. Keep it coming guys! Anyone is welcome!

6:12am: If you look in the “HFL Content” menu on the left, you will notice that there is a new link for “Free Live Tutoring”. The page includes a live chat widget for those of you wishing to get in touch with me and ask a few quick questions. The first five minutes of each session are free. If you would like to continue speaking, normal rates would apply OR you would need to sign up for one of our supported poker rooms.

Please see the link for the list of things you receive when you sign up for a tutoring session.

I will try to establish a set schedule of times I will be online to tend to those of you who have questions. I will post those times and days later on.