Now offering HU coaching

Last night, I played my friend cntgetmedown in a late-night HU match. Luckily, it was only at 100NL. We 2-tabled for about 500 hands, and I lost 5.5 buy-ins. I overplayed a few hands, but it was mostly cooler situations. That's usually the case when someone loses so much money in a short period. Daniell plays pretty LAG, so he had a great image to get paid off with the many strong hands he had.

The NCAA tournament is occurring now, and it has reminded me how much I've fallen out of love with watching sports. Back in junior and senior year of high school, watching sports was my #1 hobby. I followed the NFL, NHL, and college basketball (in that order) really closely. Two factors have really diminished my enthusiasm: poker, and college. Poker (not limited to just playing) has replaced many of my previous hobbies, because it consumes a lot of my time and energy. Also, moving to Pittsburgh for college has made it difficult for me to closely follow the Philadelphia Eagles and Flyers as much as I used to. It's a bit depressing, but I have a feeling that I will have a reunion with my teams once I move back to the Philadelphia area after college.

One more thing - I am now offering heads-up coaching. HU is by far my strongest game now, and my results have been solid enough to justify coaching. Since coaching is a new thing for me, I am going to start off with a low rate ($80/hr) while I gain experience coaching. I can only take up to 2 students for now, since I also have to allot time to grinding and academics. If you are interested, contact me on AIM (ShadyBreakfast) or 2+2 (Whitewash). Here is a screenshot of my lifetime results at 2/4 NL heads-up, which started last fall:

Tweaking my HU game

I'm on a heater the past week, which feels great. A break-even month has turned into a really solid month suddenly. I'm playing well, and I've tweaked a few aspects of my HU game. I'm c-betting more. I checked behind on the flop way too much, and it wasn't working for me. I am also making more laydowns than I was incapable of during my recent break-even stretch.

I am still very enthusiastic about poker. When I win a big pot, I still often fist pump or say "yes!". While these things are certainly not vital to being a good player (and you could argue a winning player should be less emotional about results), I am happy that it illustrates how much I still enjoy playing poker. 2.5 years of playing poker seriously, with the typical rough patches that poker players go through, and I still love this game. Given the fact that I've gone through fads my whole life, this is definitely a good sign that I'm still alive-and-kicking with poker.

A little off-topic: Do you guys know anything about female online poker grinders? I'm just curious as to whether they're out there. I know Vanessa Selbst use to beat high stakes, but she doesn't play much anymore (as far as I know). Online poker is way way dominated by males, but it would definitely be cool to hear of women who are grinding 400NL or higher online.

I <33 my neighborhood

This morning, I found out that someone smashed the driver's side window of my car, and stole my GPS. My car was parked right outside of my house at school. We live in a beat-up part of Pittsburgh, but until now I wasn't so suspicious that I felt it necessary to hide my GPS every time I park.



Here is the scariest part - 15 minutes after I find out, I went back inside my house for a minute, and when I went back outside there was a guy rummaging through my car. WHAT THE FUCK. I screamed at him and told him the police were already on their way. He had my watch (I use it for running, its only worth like $30) in his hand, but gave it back, apologized and then left.

It's amazing how so many people are criticizing me because my GPS wasn't hidden. I just spent the entire afternoon filing a police report, filing a claim with my insurance company, cleaning up the shattered glass, and now I have to pay about $350 to deal with this whole mess. The only feedback some important people in my life give me is "your GPS shouldn't have been easily seen". Thanks for the consolation, everyone. I forgot that I'm supposed to assume the absolute worst outcome in every scenario in my life, and plan accordingly. To criticize me for this is like criticizing someone when they break their arm playing baseball. It's ridiculous.

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On a lighter note, for the first time in over a month, I feel like I'm pulling out of my poker slump. I'm up $4K the past 3 days, and I'm really motivated to grind lately.

lol job and swongaments

I'm on a 35K hand break-even stretch now. I don't know if it is a coincidence, but this started literally the day that I broke up with Allison in late January.

As I've gone through this BE period, I'm starting to hate academics more than I ever have. I was never enthusiastic about college, but it's sharply declining. A large reason for that is because now that I'm struggling with poker lately, it's making me have to think about the possibility of going job hunting after college. I fucking refuse to do that. I am not going to go bust my balls in hopes of getting a $40,000 job. Right now, part of me wants to just drop out of school, get a cheap apartment in vegas, and grind out a living at live 5/10 NL. I'd rather grind depressing live poker than the former option.

EDIT: I am the swing master. At about 3 AM this morning, I was down $2800 for the day. I've regained it all, making this my new Biggest Swont day ever (the record previously held by a day I was down like $2100 on Absolute, then won $3K off one guy HU).



March results thus far
Hands: 16K
Actual winnings: +$2100
Equity adjusted: +$5900

Really fun HU matches

I went to NYC on Tuesday and Wednesday with my dad. We stayed in a hotel less than 2 blocks from Times Square, which was a very convenient location. We saw the Broadway show Spamalot, which is based on Monty Python. It was really hilarious, with Clay Aiken actually playing one of the lead roles. Overall, I can enjoy the hustle and bustle of NYC, but I couldn't see myself living in such a hectic setting for any real length of time.

After arriving home last night, I logged some long poker sessions. I two tabled HU versus 2 different opponents. One player was Jaywks, an online friend of mine. He has been known to tilt bad, and I remembered him having crappy HU results... so I felt it was worthwhile to play him. I had really interesting hands against COOCHED (my other opponent), but I'll just post my hands against jaywks since I have too many hands versus him to discuss. All you need to know about my match versus COOCHED: I lost an $800 pot with 80% equity, and then lost a $1200 pot with set-over-set on the flop.

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Hand 1: Never underestimate the power of fastplaying.

At the beginning of the match, jaywks was 3 betting me with a high frequency. I decided to start taking flops in position with a wider range such as JT. The flop is a standard call. When he checked to me on the turn, I felt like the best way I would get paid would be to make a large bet on the turn and try to get him to jam an ace or flush draw. I think that he thinks I would check behind most aces on the turn for pot control. The hand worked exactly as I had envisioned.

Hand 2: Looks crazy, I know.

My flop shove was completely experimental. I watched a Leggo poker HU video where a player shoved over a c-bet on a Kxx twotone flop with QQ for value and he got looked up by TT. In this spot, players expect you to have a really polarized range. I don't want to be results-oriented and say this was definitely a great play because it worked. I would have rather done it on a twotone flop where my opponent could put me on a flush draw. Regardless, I feel like I timed it at the right point of the match where jaywks was a bit tilted and willing to make a super light call.

Hand 3: If it looks like a bluff, it is a bluff?

I thought about checking behind the turn to induce bluffs by hands that floated my flop c-bet. I decided that it would be a bad time to get too passive, and would just go for 3 streets of value. The turn feels like a pretty obvious call since his range is quite polarized with his line, and since I have the nut flush draw anyway. I knew that jaywks would usually C/R good aces and most flush draws on the flop, so the hand didn't make a lot of sense. I honestly felt like his line looks SO weird that by the time he bets the river, he probably had it (since he would be aware that his line doesn't make sense). After the match, he showed me the HH and he indeed had air.

Hand 4: Pretty standard hand... or is it?

This hand looks kinda standard given our history, but I'm still not 100% sure if my flop raise is the best. He had toned down the 3 betting my this point of the match, so I can reasonably put him on an ace a lot here. No one ever flats AK when someone 3 bets, so I figured he would not put me on AK when I raise the flop. I'm guessing that my flop raise is pretty optimal given our history, but I definitely want anyone's opinions on the best line to take.

Hand 5: Sickest value bet anyone has ever done on me.

I feel completely owned in this hand, in spite of having a really good read on jaywks. He was c-betting every hand he opened on the BTN -EXCEPT- many ace highs, so I could reasonably take ace high out of his range on the flop, heavily leaning his range towards air. I ALSO knew that he loved to double barrel scary turns, so I actually felt like the flop and turn were pretty easy calls versus him. It was a little upsetting to see him bet $105 into a $160 pot on the river (as you can read from my chat in the HH), but I went with my read and called anyway. He said later that he put me on a PP, which basically has the same value as my K-high anyway. It was quite a sick value bet. I feel like this is what poker is all about - two players both having a read on each other, and constant exploitation and re-exploitation.

Hand 6: The final hand

I was unsure about what size to make my flop raise. I decided to make it a little under 3x, which in retrospect might have been best since it gets him to shove more draws. I don't hate his play, but I definitely am curious as to anyone's thoughts on both of our plays. I was pretty fortunate to get it in having him dominated "9 ways to Sunday".

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Poker has still been rough for me, as I'm about even for March thus far. However, I feel like I played my best HU session ever last night. I felt really confident in my read of both players, and I was very focused. I'm really itching to play poker in general right now, which is nice because I have the next 3 days to focus on playing.


Off-topic: I purchased a mountain bike yesterday. I haven't had a bike in literally 8-10 years, but I want a form of exercise that I would enjoy doing. Running is really unenjoyable for me, and biking around my house seems really appealing.

Fun happenings during spring break

I've had a pretty fun past few days, so I'll keep you guys updated on whats been happening.

I drove home on Friday, since spring break takes place now for University of Pittsburgh. To celebrate my 21st birthday, 5 of us went to Borgata in Atlantic City and partied. We went to two venues within Borgata: Gypsy Bar, and Mixx. Gypsy Bar is a really chill atmosphere that had good cover bands, lots of people standing around and socializing, and a little bit of dancing. Mixx, on the other hand, was a really loud and exhilirating club atmosphere. It was hard to socialize with people since it is so loud, but the environment was really fun for dancing and just enjoying the music. They had a DJ playing really awesome remixes of hit songs, along with a drummer whose energy was nothing like I had ever seen. Mixx is an ideal place to go with your friends and/or girlfriend and dance, while Gypsy Bar was a good place to relax and socialize. I had a lot of fun at both.



Yesterday and today, I hung out with Tim, known as IHaveAStrong9 on 2+2 and Full Tilt. He has extremely impressive results playing 5/10 and 10/20 NL heads-up on Full Tilt. We've been talking online for a few months after I saw he's from the same area as me (Philadelphia suburbs), thanks to 2+2. He stayed at my home, and we discussed lots of poker theory. It was extremely fun to discuss advanced poker with someone face-to-face. We then decided to play a live HU match, both playing our A-game. There were some really interesting spots, and I probably learned more from the match than I have from any previous live session. Hanging out with Tim was really cool, and I'm hoping we can find more successful players from the Philadelphia area to network with. I've done a good job of becoming friends with virtually all of the good poker players in Pittsburgh, but I know I'm leaving Pittsburgh once I complete college.

Tomorrrow I'm heading up to New York City with my dad, where we'll be visiting for the next two days. Should be pretty fun, as I haven't been there in about 3 years. If I stay in NYC too long, I end up getting burnt out from the crowded feeling... but being in Manhattan is a blast for a few days. I probably won't go clubbing with my dad, but should be fun nonetheless.

Keep ur head-up, son

I was having a good start to the month, but in a poor decision I decided to 2-table versus a good HU regular last night, and I lost 4 buy-ins to him. It's amazing how many times in the past few months I've allowed myself to just dump money to the 2/4 NL HU regulars.

My HU game isn't as flawless as I used to believe it is. I ran hot and won like 8 PTBB/100 over 50K hands, but I think my results are coming back down to earth now. I definitely want to work hard on my game though, I really enjoy HU and know I have lots of room for improvement.

By the way - I definitely need some lifestyle changes, particularly with working out. I get zero exercise at school, and it is definitely affecting every aspect of my life. I get a good 8-9 hours of sleep a night and I'm still tired all the time, I don't have good concentration during poker or classes, and I have a lot of tension built up that comes out (negatively) through my poker game. I think I'm actually gonna go for a run right now.

February Results

Well this month sucked. I should count my blessings for not having a losing month, but it is extremely unsatisfying to fluctuate between even and +$4K for an entire month. This is my worst month since May 2007 (a point where I was simply a small winner at 100NL).



To be honest, I did not play very well in February. Until just recently, I believed I could crank out wins without a strong effort. I was RARELY deliberate about decisions in big pots, and I did little to improve my game outside of just playing. I decided now to buy my first poker books in about 2+ years, purchasing Tommy Angelo and Bill Chen's books after getting recommendations on both. I also have become a member of Leggo Poker, which I think will help my game out a lot. The Leggo instructors seem awesome for mid-stakes NL.

I'm gonna shoot for 30-35K hands this month, which should be doable since spring break is coming up, and I dropped the most difficult class I had this semester. I'm going to be visiting Atlantic City, and then NYC during spring break, so this month should be fun.

Honestly, I just want the harsh Pittsburgh winter to end. Nothing makes me happier than driving down the country roads (back home... not in Pittsburgh obviously) with my windows down when it's May, 70 degrees and sunny out.