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.

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

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.

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

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: 5:00pmĀ  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.

7:58pm: Since there’s been such a demand to produce more tutorials to cover more situations and outcomes, I will crank out a seventh tutorial hopefully before Friday. After scrapping the idea to make the sixth tutorial cover a $100 match (will be covered in the seventh tutorial), the sixth tutorial should be the final one to cover a match from the $50’s.

This particular episode serves mainly to show how to wear your opponent down mentally, frustrating them to a point where they will make the big mistake. That is indeed what happens, as you will see on the last hand. This match wasn’t about patience so much as it was taking advantage of a good run, while giving off the image that I just trying to push him around in big pots.

Also, as promised a month or so ago, I am currently working on a batch of “single hand” video tutorials, which will be sorted by situations (i.e “Underpair with overcards on the board”, etc). I added the section to the HFL content menu - keep checking back for this exciting addition.

Enjoy, everyone!

4:11am: I’ve been asking for a session that was, for a change, easy from start to finish without having to start out in a hole and that’s exactly what I got on Thursday night. This is in sharp contrast to what seems like a streak of 9-10 sessions of myself starting at least $300-$500 down, before (almost always) coming back to finish in the +. On the very first hand I played in the post (Ks4s), I flopped top two. The action is as follows:

In middle position, I check the option in the post, and 5 people see the flop (Kc 4c 2d). The blinds check to me, and I bet $25. Two gentleman with position on me decide to call, and the two blinds fold. The turn was a brick for all intents and purposes: Qh. I lead out for $55 this time and both players behind me once again decide to call. At this point, I don’t want to see a Queen or a club on the river. Much to my delight, the river brought the 4d and I decide to lead out once more — this time for $100. The man immediately to my left, who was obviously on a flush draw, instantly folds and the player to his left decides to call. I turn over the boat, and drag the pot.

While it’s almost never a good thing (to be results oriented), it never hurts your psychological mindset when you immediately start a session up — $275 in my case.

The session would eventually end up $525, as I picked up a couple of small pots from this point and one medium sized one. I only lost one hand at showdown all night. All in all, it was a pretty good night that I decided to end early due to being tired and not wanting to sacrifice my quality of play.

In other news, the sixth video tutorial is set to be released on Monday, June 30th. It will feature one of my matches at the $100 level. Stay tuned.

5:47pm: HFL is running a promotion, of sorts. Those of you looking to pick up a little extra cash to pad the bankroll are in luck. All you have to do is be one of the first five between now and tomorrow at 5:47pm CST to sign up for Cake Poker, Full Tilt or Bodog using one of HFL’s links, successfully deposit and play at least 10 heads up sngs (at any stake) and HFL will ship you $50, no strings attached. The money will be mailed to you in the form of a cashiers check.

I will update this post with the countdown of slots left to take advantage of the offer. A slot is considered to be taken and will be removed when each person completes their first deposit.

For more details, use the contact form or contact trujm at trujm@holdemforaliving.com

Current Slots left: 1/5

*EDIT*, as of 2:39pm on 6/26 there is only one slot left. Who wants it?

*EDIT*, offer is over. Thanks to the 4 people who participated. Enjoy your free tutoring and free $50 (after deposit is made).

3:43pm: I’ve been working on my new home a lot this week, so I haven’t had much time for poker in the earlier part of it. That will change today, as I am now off to play a live 2-5 NL session at Harrah’s New Orleans. I will do a full recap of my live session tonight when I return and do the late night update.

I also look forward to starting my $100 heads up sng quest this weekend. I will keep you guys posted when I finally do get around to playing my first one. If everything goes as planned, the sixth video tutorial will feature my first $100 heads up match, win or lose.

Good luck to everyone playing tonight.

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.

2:58am: HFL’s first ever tournament will take place today at 5:00pm EST. To register for the tournament, click “Tourney” then “Private”, and then find the tournament (”HFL Heads Up Tournament”) in the list of tournaments in the middle.

The buy in is $20 + $2, with 1,500 starting chips, 10/20 blinds and 10 minute levels. The payout structure will be the standard structure for all similar tournaments on PokerStars. If we have at least 20 people, I will add another $50 to the prize pool.

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

Session Results:

Tonight was not a good night for me heads up. I started off the day as per usual (4-3), but then lost most of my remaining matches to finish 7-9 overall. There were a number of bad beats, but the worst luck of all was the fact that I kept playing players with winning statistics all night long. I wasn’t able to turn things around, and will end the night on a losing note.

I look forward to a better day tomorrow and hopefully a good showing in the HFL tourney. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there! Good luck everyone.