HU Craziness/Thoughts

I've been playing a lot of HU lately, and honestly I was(and probably still am) quite bad at it. The results showed! I just didn't know what ranges were the nuts and I felt my preflop game was getting slaughtered. Once I figure those things out, everything came together.

Also I realize that momentum is really powerful in HU, especially with people who are emotionally unstable. It's really hard to assess the situation when you are down like 5 BIs and nothing is going well for you. But I really like HU, it really does take a lot of skills. I feel like even though the variance is very high, it kind of isn't because the better player always come up on top over a large sample. The biggest reason I'm playing HU is to improve my overall game, my hand reading skill to be exact. I'm already seeing its significant impact of playing just over 10k hands in HU. I'd definitely recommend others to look into it if they really want to improve. I can go ahead and say that there can be *good* 6 max players, but they won't be *great* 6 max players until they play HUs for a significant sample. And I don't mean you play HU fish, but occasionally play the regs also.

I'm planning to keep playing HU and stay away from 6 max until I feel satisfied to move up to 2/4 HU. The problem with HU is that you really need to throw your stacks around and have little regard for the money to go with your read. If you hesitate, you are inevitably losing value. Hence it was definitely a good move to have started in 1/2 instead of playing in my regular stakes.

A Couple Mistakes Worth Mentioning

These are mistakes I think almost ALL poker players fall under, I'm not exempt from this either.

1.) He thinks he is better than he actually is.

2.) He thinks he knows the game better than he actually knows.

These are traps we fall into. Usually, it won't come to hit you until you go on a downswing and see you are not as invincible as you think you are. There is just so much to learn about this game, heck I can think of dozens of questions right now that I don't have answers to. But every question answered makes me just that much better. The biggest mistake is to stop learning. Don't sit and wait for new ideas to come to you, find them yourself. Always keep your mind active and improve every single day, don't ever be *satisfied* or you'll be sorry.

Playing too Loose!

It's funny, as you understand the game more and see where all your profits come from. You start to realize that you can almost get away with murder! But on the down side, I tried to play tight this past session without a hud. My stats pretty much tell me that I didn't play much tighter than before!

I kind of like playing without hud, it's interesting to say the least. I wouldn't say it's "better" or "worse" yet because I'm still just trying it out. I'm only doing it for the sake of improving my game. I figure that I might be losing a bit of edge, so I was open to getting exploited or playing completely nitty. Though the obvious thing that comes out of it is that I'm paying much more attention to details and who's been doing what. I can see many positive gains from doing this exercise.

One obvious problem though, I'm seeing spots where the dynamics seem like villain is possibly making a move and I'm indifferent in trusting or not trusting. I guess I'll figure it out sooner or later.

Invisible Information

Every decision one makes on the table revolves around all the information given to him. There are a lot of different information, actually some are completely unheard of or unnoticed. As good players are getting better, I have to start relying on every single information I can get your hands on.

I'm going to share a few, and Most are not trivial either. Most of them are hand reading, and it's a matter of paying attention to them.

• Player's lines - This is the most obvious and it's definitely not invisible. But weaker players tend to have trouble paying attention to the most basic information given in a poker hand. Actually, as one gets proficient in it, one should not rely only on villain's lines. This is a mistake I've made for a long time.
• Number of Tables - This is something I don't do enough since Stars have the "hide" option but fish rarely use this feature. If I know someone plays X tables, I can figure out how often he'll probably pay attention to details on the table and how much I have to consider what I've done on the table might matter in his decision process. This can factor a lot in your decision making, so don't be lazy and search!
• Preflop Shown Down Hands - This is a huge problem for myself. I tend not to pay attention to this as much as I should. Every position is different, you should pay attention what types of hands people are playing from every position. Some players never play less than AQ for Ax hands UTG, it's very likely he does not have more than one pair on like AJx board. Or what is this fish cold calling in the blinds? Is it any suited hand? Very very important yet very very often ignored.
• Handreading Starting from Preflop - This is very related to the above item. Another weak spot for me in the past, still something I'm working on. I tend to handread from the flop on, not preflop to flop to turn.. etc.. This is a huge mistake because instead of working from a narrow range of hands, I would start working from practically every starting hand(minus all the 72, Q2o or whatever trash). I can get away with this very often, but this is definitely a leak.
• Bet sizing - This one is a work in progress. If you can record how someone bets their hands in a particular instance, you can get tons and tons of information about his hand. Would a good player bet 1/3 pot with a very strong hand or a draw in a certain street? There could be irregularity in his bet sizing when he has a strong or weak hand. Yes, good players will "mix it up" but how many players seriously pay attention that closely? If you have this information, even only every 1 out of 100 situations(I suspect way way more often), it's worth it. But honestly I suspect many players have huge bet sizing tells and it can telegraph their hands and motivation.
  

A Firm Belief

I realize I don't update this blog as much as I should. I'll try to update it more often. I do keep another journal, but it's mostly for my private need, so it has all kinds of things mixed in, including poker related thoughts. But I'll share something that's poker related yet it's not. Honestly, this is the answer and nothing outweights its importance. I'm reluctant to share but I will anyways. This is something I firmly believe and honestly I was naive to not believe this before.

In the Western culture, everyone have this belief that "you can achieve whatever you like as long as you put your mind into it". I believe the same thing, but with a little intelligence, I always thought that is my biggest edge. I don't need to try as hard as anybody else to achieve the same thing, that's what I really believed. I doubt these beliefs will shock anyone reading this because I imagine a lot of people believe the same thing given the type of environment you grew up in.

This is where I'm going with this. I believe firmly that if you want to achieve what you want and outmatch your competition, you need an edge. An edge can be anything that gives you a slight or large advantage over your competitions. One of my biggest fault for the longest time is to believe my "talents" is going to get me to where I need to be without any type of effort. Basically whatever I want is going to be hand wrapped, shipped right in front of my doorsteps. If you really think deep down, it makes no sense that one can outperform another just doing basically nothing. Sadly, I think a lot of people still believe this.

I actually spend a lot of my free time really studying some people who have achieved what I call "excellence". These people are like Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, etc.. You get the point. You hear it all the time, they get to where they are not by chance but through intense hard work and dedication. If what you are trying to accomplish is so easy that it will be practically handed to you, will you really get a satisfaction out of it? Will you look back and say "Wow, I did it!" and feel you've accomplish what you've always wanted?

Your potential is pretty unlimited if you are willing to work hard and let nothing get in your way. I'm not saying you will always achieve your goals because many have failed even trying their very best. But will you look back and say "hey, I really did tried my best and I have no regrets"? Or will you be the typical who makes up some petty excuses for why they did not achieve their goals? One cannot depend on these "natural talents" or "luck" to achieve goals. They must do something MORE and/or BETTER than their competition to have an edge.

Please don't believe you have an edge without making more of sacrifice than your competitions. People who believe their talents can get them "there" are the same people who believe in luck. I'm not saying there is no such thing as talents or luck, I'm saying some people put all their stock in them and believe nothing or little can be changed because of them. Basically those artificial things dictates one's life and when things don't go your way, it's very easy to blame it on things you have no control over. Please don't be that guy(or gal).

I believe this problem arises because of the books, media, tv shows, movies, etc that we are so often exposed to. You see the main character always achieve whatever they want and be talented in every skill imaginable. It's not real, guys. In the real world, people sweat to get what they want.

I am by no means saying I'm perfect, actually far from that. The fact that I'm so flawed is the reason why I need to realize what I need to do to change. My perfectionist personality wants me to hide all my flaws, and make petty excuses also when I don't succeed. But the fact that I put the time to understand myself and open my own eyes on what is truly important. That's when I make progress as a human being. I understand I must accept my fate if I don't maintain my edge and do my part to outmatch my competitions. Luck does not control me, and won't stop me. As long as I'm on the path, I will get there.

Good luck on the tables guys.