When I started out playing hu cash, I had never heard of the term game selection and consequently I didn‘t use any. I never tried to avoid anyone at my stakes, I even enjoyed the challenge of playing known winners. Because of this, I got very good at playing against regulars. Now-a-days, everyone is a game selector, but unlike cash, regulars can’t avoid playing you by sitting out. If you can learn how to beat regs, you’re going to get a lot more games (which is extremely important for an SNE grinder) and you’re going to become a better player, which in turn will increase your profit substantially. Sounds exciting? Here are some tips on how to become a reg crushing machine.

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I played Isildur against across 6 tables and this time it went badly. I went 11-21 over 32 games, for a grand 2 day total of 56-62. It’s not as bad as it sounds, as I had most of my action taken. But I think its the last time I’m going to play him.

Today, I got less lucky than yesterday, but I also did not play as well and he played a lot better. There was one big mistake he was making yesterday that he shored up today that closed up my edge against him a lot. I felt like I played spectacularly yesterday, but today I just played pretty good. Prittay, prittay, prittay good. And what can you do when your opponent wins 60% @SD.

He did one thing very badly the entire time I’ve played him, a mistake that is well documented and I suppose speaks of a degenerate gambler within him: He rarely 3bets and folds. I was 4betting a tight range the entire time I played him and he would repeatedly get it in with Q8s or K6s or random hands like that.

There were other things he did that were kind of bad. But are his big mistakes and small mistakes enough to justify an edge against him, even when he does so many other things so well? Possibly, but not enough I think to make me want to continue to play him, and nor enough to justify anyone buying my action.

Anyways, it was good while it lasted. There were a lot of positives to take away from all this. One, a lot of VPPs (Cha ching!). Two, I learned a lot from playing him as opposed to watching him. Specifically, he did a lot of things as far as value betting goes that were a lot different than how I normally played but made a lot of sense. Lastly, I’m still having a good week. I’m up a good chunk and have earned a lot of rakeback on top of that.

I’m not going to lie, it was depressing to lose to him today. But I’m hoping this is only a small blip to a good year.

I just finished up my poker session today, and I made 51,535 VPPs for the day. A new personal record. You may be wondering how this is remotely possible? Well, the answer is Isildur.

I have felt like I probably had an edge vs Isildur at Hu sngs, because as I had seen from hands that my friends had shown me, he randomly and quite often will decide to get it all in preflop with a terrible hand. Nonetheless, I have the utmost respect for his deepstack play. From watching him I don’t doubt he is one of the best heads up cash players in the world.  But this respect is a curse for me. When I feel like I am playing someone “better” than me, I tend to play pretty badly. I start to think that this better player is going to know when I’m bluffing and will be capable of bluffing me in most spots I’m not expecting, which causes me to play passive and stationy. It is true that a better player will bluff and catch bluffs better than an average player, but not to the degree of perfection in my mind.  They are not all knowing.

But recently a fellow poker player wanted to buy some of my action against him, and I decided it was time to seek him out. Lucky for me, today I saw him at an open lobby.

Before we started, I asked some poker buddies who had played him before for advice. The gist of the advice I got was that he was really bad late game, but nothing too specific. The consensus was that he was terrible.

After playing him for an hour I began to see the specific ways that he played badly and adjusted appropriately. Some of the ways he played badly were really surprising to me. Some of them were pretty expected. I don’t want to go into the adjustments because pointing them out will encourage people to give him action and I, selfishly, want to get his action all to myself. Sorry .

As far as quality of play goes, I felt like overall I played really well against him. I think I only got caught in a big bluff once and I made a lot of them. My thinking didn’t get clouded by his aggression and overbetting. I was still able to make some big folds which I’m almost positive were the correct ones. We eventually got up to 6 tables at once and I don’t think my play deteriorated all that much at that many tables. I guess it’s a testament to mass multi tabling all the time. Some interesting hands.

1. A big fold, but after discussing it with a few people I’m sure it was the correct one.

Seat 1: heybude (1450 in chips)
Seat 2: Isildur1 (1550 in chips)
heybude: posts small blind 10
Isildur1: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [7d 9h]
heybude: raises 20 to 40
Isildur1: calls 20
*** FLOP *** [6d Kh 7h]
Isildur1: checks
heybude: bets 40
Isildur1: raises 80 to 120
heybude: calls 80
*** TURN *** [6d Kh 7h] [Th]
Isildur1: bets 220
heybude: calls 220
*** RIVER *** [6d Kh 7h Th] [7s]
Isildur1: bets 1170 and is all-in
heybude: folds

2. A big bluff

PokerStars Game #57381030684: Tournament #362796393, $5500+$100 USD Hold’em No Limit – Match Round I, Level I (10/20) – 2011/02/09 9:59:31 PT [2011/02/09 12:59:31 ET]
Table ’362796393 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: heybude (1440 in chips)
Seat 2: Isildur1 (1560 in chips)
heybude: posts small blind 10
Isildur1: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [Kc Qs]
heybude: raises 20 to 40
Isildur1: calls 20
*** FLOP *** [7d 2d 3c]
Isildur1: checks
heybude: bets 40
Isildur1: calls 40
*** TURN *** [7d 2d 3c] [8h]
Isildur1: bets 120
heybude: raises 220 to 340
Isildur1: calls 220
*** RIVER *** [7d 2d 3c 8h] [Tc]
Isildur1: checks
heybude: bets 1020 and is all-in
Isildur1: folds

3. I took a bizarre line here but I like my river bluff

Seat 1: heybude (1840 in chips)
Seat 2: Isildur1 (1160 in chips)
Isildur1: posts small blind 15
heybude: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [3h 4h]
Isildur1: raises 30 to 60
heybude: calls 30
*** FLOP *** [Kh 7c 6h]
heybude: checks
Isildur1: bets 60
heybude: calls 60
*** TURN *** [Kh 7c 6h] [Qd]
heybude: checks
Isildur1: bets 180
heybude: calls 180
*** RIVER *** [Kh 7c 6h Qd] [9c]
heybude: bets 510
Isildur1: folds

4. To be fair, one that didn’t work

Seat 1: Isildur1 (1220 in chips)
Seat 2: heybude (1780 in chips)
Isildur1: posts small blind 15
heybude: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [Td Qh]
Isildur1: raises 30 to 60
heybude: calls 30
*** FLOP *** [9s Jh 2s]
heybude: checks
Isildur1: bets 60
heybude: raises 120 to 180
Isildur1: calls 120
*** TURN *** [9s Jh 2s] [7s]
heybude: bets 210
Isildur1: calls 210
*** RIVER *** [9s Jh 2s 7s] [Ac]
heybude: bets 1330 and is all-in
Isildur1: calls 770 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (560) returned to heybude
*** SHOW DOWN ***
heybude: shows [Td Qh] (high card Ace)
Isildur1: shows [9h 7c] (two pair, Nines and Sevens)
Isildur1 collected 2440 from pot

Out of the 86 games we played in 3.5 hours I was up 45-41. Because of rake this is actually only a little over 2 buy ins. I’m not sure if this is above or below my expectation against him, but I do know I ran below expectation at the 50/100 blind level. He W$@SD 67% of the time at that blind level, while going to SD 86% of the time. Basically, he almost never folded at 50/100 blinds but managed to win 2/3rds of the time at showdown.

What makes me really excited about today is I made a ton of VPPs. I’ve already hit my VPP goal for this week and then some, and I think there are going to be days like this in the future. Blom likes playing a lot of tables at once, something that not a lot of HU SNG players like to do. But I’ll 6 table versus him for sure, and I hope that is going to make him prefer to play me. If that’s the case, I’m going to start skyrocketing up the VPP leaderboard.

VPP for week 5: ~45k

VPP total: ~241,000

I had a hard time admitting it to myself, but I was tired this week. I had a day where I needed to take a nap in the afternoon before I could begin playing, I couldn’t wake up as early as I normally do, and was falling asleep as soon as I put on Sportscenter. I got a nice break Wednesday as a Blizzard hit my town and I wasn’t able to play.

A big positive of this week is I was up about 12 buy ins, and ran well enough at higher stakes where that meant I was up actual money. Looking at my stats this year one thing has stood out a lot: I am destroying people at the 10/20 blind level. But every other level I have been a slight loser, and have ran badly at 50/100. At the 15/30 and 25/50 levels, I seem to be fine from the BB, but from the SB I am basically breaking even. I’m going to really analyze and talk with Max about how I can improve my play with shorter stacks, because I really feel like my general strategy is solid, but clearly there is something that isn’t working.

Anyways, I want to go to sleep early so I can get a good session in tomorrow, wish me luck.

I’m sure some of you have seen this story, but for those who haven’t, a baseball pitcher recently retired to make it so his team did not have to pay him the rest of the money owed on his contract, 12 million dollars. Many sports writers and others alike have been praising this decision. But there is nothing honorable about this decision, in fact it is the exact opposite of honor that should be bestowed on decisions like this.

Meche makes honorable decision

The main argument Meche himself makes for not wanting to take the money is “The Royals have already paid me enough, and I don’t think it’s fair to take money when I know in my heart I’m not going to be healthy.” But there is a mistake in the sentence: The word “fair.” Although to Meche it does not seem fair to him that he would get paid 12 million dollars for not playing, it is actually completely fair. His team, the Kansas City Royals, signed a contract with him 4 years ago with this agreement: We will pay you 55 over 5 years for your potential results over those 5 years, accounting for the risk that you do not live up to those expectations. The 55 million is accounting for that risk. If the organization knew that Meche would not take the last year of his contract if he were to get injured and be physically incapable, Meche would have been paid more money. Saying it isn’t fair that the organization must pay Meche for not playing is like saying it isn’t fair that the Yankees have not increased CC Sabathia’s pay for doing even better than expected.

What is really sad here is that he is actually getting praised for this decision, and that none of his friends and family were able to convince him otherwise. Why is not believing you’re worth the money a good quality? Why is low self esteem admirable? It seems like in the media whenever someone declines money they act like someone is being a great human being, but I can never figure out why.

People often talk to me about how it is “crazy” and “unfair” that athletes make so much money. But even that is completely fair. No one is forced to buy a $50 ticket to a KC Royals game, or $40 for a Royals sweater, or forced to take 3 hours out of their day to watch a game on TV. But tens of thousands of people do. And that voluntary exchange makes it worth it for organizations to spend a lot of money to improve their team, even on a mediocre player like Meche. But if you are really going to argue that baseball players should not be paid this much money, blame it on the fans. Blame it on the fact that they choose to spend their money on baseball instead of helping the homeless, third world, or whatever other noble causes. But personally, I’d like to have the  freedom to drop $200 on tickets to a Redskins game if I so choose.

In about a week from now Danny and I are planning to write a post answering questions that anyone wants to ask about HU SNGs or heads-up play in general. If you want to submit a question, email us at suitedacesblog@gmail.com.

We’ll probably only answer 3 or 4 so make em good!