PlauZee's HU SNG Poker Blog

I guess almost all of you recognized I haven’t stick to my game-management playing “only” 230-570s regularly. Recently I played a lot of the so-called “nosebleeds” as well. In a lot of the games I had the feeling having a decent edge vs my opponents, but of course not in all of them. I played against some real fishes and against some regs who sit me. I’m about even in the higher games at the moment without running pretty well or very bad – KK vs AA in a 2k game sux, though..

I don’t regret that I took a shot at the “nosebleeds” and will definitely play them again from time to time after having a nice month. But for next weeks I will take a step back to play the 115-345s mostly and will only sit higher, if a fish is in already. Please remind me of this sentence if you see me playing higher regularly before I had a decent run (like 10k) again.

My roll was about 20k and I decided to cash out most of it to make it easier to stick to my game-management. I found that I can play the “lower” games way better and more serious, if there’s not like a 20k roll behind. It’s kind of weird psychology that I’m one of those guys who don’t count in dollars, but in winning-percentages. When my roll is 3k I’m very glad to win 200 bucks a day, but can’t see the benefit when the win is only about 1% of my roll. Sounds very odd, but I know a lot of players who recognized the same phenomena themselves. Poker is all about psychology…

Another reason for cashing out almost 90% of my roll is a 250k FPP-cashbonus (worth $4,000) I ordered two days ago. I will need another 20k VPPs to clear this bonus. The 300k VPP-milestone bonus (worth $2,200 net) doesn’t seem to be far away anymore, as well.

Actual most interesting HHs:

• Playing a fish at 570

• Committing a losing semi-reg at 1k with toppair-weak kicker

• Re-re-bluffing at 1k

Actual stats: +$15,894.12; VPPs: 256k (39% rakeback for the 300k milestone-bonus)

Gl guys, let’s crush the smaller HUs!

I just played some matches against a pretty weak and losing opponent who accepted a lot of rematches. My stats are becoming even sicker every day. I definitely need a longer break very soon to realize what’s just happening.

After winning 12 of 15 games at 345 and 570 vs the  same guy mentioned above I spoke with a friend of mine who plays MTTs and has very decent stats. I staked him a while ago already and decided to do the same for the majors, tonight (3 tournies for $539). I’m looking forward to the railements Gogogogo Dennis!

Stats for the moment: +16,5k, 230k VPP (pretty sure now I’ll reach the 300k milestone – worth 2,2k!)

Gonna write/edit later. Cheers!

Edit: After being carddead and found himself in sick setups Dennis couldn’t make it into the money. That’s why I didn’t rail as much as I wanted and of course played some more HUs and was able to increase the monthly profit even more. New Stats: +$18,382.12 with 234k VPPs (after doing some calculation I’m not yet sure I can make the 300k milestone, but whatsoever, we will see..).
Graph of the month including 4player HUs (beside the 2k HUs that’s why it is so swingie):

I’m playing 345s and 570s at the moment and were doing pretty well recently – still a very small sample size, though. Here’s the graph for all 2-player (!) 345 and 570-games I played this month so far (my SharkScope-graph is way more swingy, beacuse of 4-player chops):

Yesterday I played my first 2k HU without being staked. I was running pretty well before, didn’t mean to sit at any higher game, but saw a complete unexperienced fish waiting at the 2k lobby. He played about 300 HUs before with an average buyin of 85 or something. He had won a MTT worth 30k one day before and was pretty much losing at higher SNGs afterwards. I felt pretty comfortable, but it still was a sick thrill to play that high. Nevertheless I played pretty standard A-game until we were all-in at a sick setup. I couldn’t do anything about it and I’m pretty sure I would have crushed him other way.
After losing that much I was pretty pissed, sure, but I wasn’t tilting afterwards. Some months ago I definitely would have had a lot of problems not to sit vs skilled_sox at 5k or some bs like that. lol

I think I would sit him next time again, if the same circumstances were given: great run before with big profit, so that the 2k won’t hurt me too much; unexperienced fish who I can definitely outplay and have clear edge against (at this buyin I need to have more “standard”-edge than at lower limits to make the risk profitable enough, cuz I’m a bit scared money).
By the way: the donk sat vs skilled_sox at 2k and 5k later and lost both games. Today he was playing three 1k HUs and sat vs me at 230 afterwards where I finally crushed him

HHs of the day (all at 345):
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4907016P
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4907207P
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4907264P (was 80% sure he has air, but definitely should have pushed at the flop! )

Even with the 2k-match I lost I’m up about 11,6k so far. Do I really need to set a new goal for November?! If so: try to be even for the rest of the month and collect some VPPs to clear the 300k milestone in some weeks

After the nice run I decided to try higher buyins more regularly, especially the 4man HUs to see how the other regs would react. It was great to see that I even get respected at 570s and got in contact with other, higher playing regs, who asked me to team up.
I played almost only 230s and 345s last days, only few 115s and some 570s as well. Most of the games I played very solid and was everything but scared money.

Some months ago I often had the problem that I played higher buyins to zero my losses while tilting. Great..! I couldn’t stand losing vs big fishes and obviously still don’t like it. But the games in which fishes misplaying their hand on every street are of course more rarely at higher buyins. Maybe, that’s the reason why I would have bigger swings in the 55s than in the 230s.
Of course, I can’t be 100% sure that I won’t tilt hard anytime again after running very bad and losing against weak fishes. But I’m very sure that I won’t play regs I got in contact with. Beside that Pstars had another very nice software update which makes it finally possible to flag the opponents. I guess it’s a very useful psychologically aspect that I can sort opponents by colored flags now. Every reg I don’t wanna play is red, every reg I team up with is orange flagged. There aren’t many regs in red left at the highest buyins, so why should I ever even think about sitting vs one of my “team members”?!
Seems like to be a very nice anti-tilt control. Hopefully I’ll handle the swings better than I could months ago. You can’t do anything against the swings, it’s kind of maths, but you can definitely affect the extent of downswings, if you find a way to master the personal game management.

Funniest hand of the day at 115 2player HU:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4902294P -Well, I have to admit, I really had no idea what he might have when he bet the river…

And another “interesting” hand vs a tilting fish at 230 2player HU after he lost already the first match:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4902857

I’m still running way better than I should and I ever could imagine. Hopefully, the downswing won’t come too fast.
Including rakeback I’m up 8,7k this month so far. Considering that I wasn’t playing first ten days of November it’s pretty, pretty sick! Nevertheless, I hope that I could make a juicy 10k month out of it. Beside that I’m considering if I could manage to clear the 300k VPP milestone (worth 2,2k net). If I can manage to play the 345s regularly it shouldn’t be a problem to clear the missing 85k VPPs. I think it’s way more important to reduce the downswings and handle with losing sessions. As a Supernova-player I got a rakeback of 28%, when I could manage to clear the 300k milestone it would be 39% clearing the 100k from last step to next one. Well, let’s see what the next weeks will bring…

As you may have noticed I played some 6max turbo SNGs recently. I just played too many HUs before and wanted to switch to another game I might have edge in. I made some mistakes and needed 3 or 4 games to get used to the differences to my standard game. But in the end I did pretty well, had a nice profit playing $60-$119 buyin SNGs and most important: had a lotta fun! An obvious fish, a Bronze-Star, wrote that he knows me from watching some HUs I played and: “..this game here has nothing to do with HUs, that’s why u r a loser!”. He wrote it when we were 4handed, just 2 mins before we were playing HU…
I can’t understand if ppl don’t see the connection between HUs and standard ring games. Best way to improve post-flop play: HU SNG! No matter which game you normally play. If you are beating HU SNGs, it’s not far to master post-flop play generally.
Btw: I was wondering that even good regs at 119 6max SNG seem to be pretty weak when it comes down to the HU. I saw a lot of them making big mistakes and guess they would even lose to $33 HU SNG regular players.

After my great run recently and reaching a nice so far 5k profit this month I checked the USD/EUR change. I’m pretty sure the change of 1.48USD was best what I could get for the next months and decided to cashout half of my roll. Another possibilty to get rid of the problem of the decreasing USD-change could be a call option warrant for the USD. Depending on the type of the call option warrant it could neutralize the decresing-effect or make it even profitable. I did some daytrading years ago, but I need to get way more information before I even think about buying such an option warrant. I guess, taxes for warrant-winnings could be huge problem. On other european poker-blogs I couldn’t find anything about it yet and it seems that nobody even think about the problem. Typical gambling community.

After cashing out some funds I somehow wanted to try something new and just logged into my FullTilt-Account, only too see the great roll of $0,32. I deposited 600 bucks and sat down at the 115 turbo HUs. Something new? Yes, it is. Doesn’t seem to be different to Pstars, but it is fur sure! Different blindstructure, dealing cards is way faster and the game itself is way shorter than on Pstars. But the basics are the same and I did pretty well having a very nice winning-streak at the beginning. I haven’t played much last months on FullTilt and only did it when I was somehow tilting. Checking my stats I’m a pretty big fish at turbo HU SNGs (-1k) and the regs obvious couldn’t see any reason why not sitting vs me. I had a lot of fun crushing the guys and loved to get respected even with my aweful stats. I told them who I am and after one match most of them didn’t want to play another game. Most, but not all of them. One of them didn’t buy my story and sat vs me 4 times in a row. He lost all of them and was really pissed in the end. He wanted to report me, cuz I was “obvious not the guy who is owning the account”. He reported me for sharing accounts and told every of my oppenents that they shouldn’t trust me, my stats and that they have to report me as well.
Well, I really hope they will. Maybe that’s the way to finally get a rakeback-deal. I would definitly play some more games there, but without a good rakeback-percentage it doesn’t make sense to me so far. In the end I was up about $550 playing a ton of different regs at 115.

Pretty nice November so far

I can’t remember winning so many matches like I did recently. Sometimes, you really have to love the variance!

Results of last 100 games look so sweet:

The increasing bankroll reminds me more and more often of the aweful USD/EUR change. Looks like I’m gambling on the dollar-change while gambling poker. That’s sucks! I gonne write more about it pretty soon, cuz I think it’s one important aspect for European when talking about bankroll-management. How the hell should I build up a sweet bankroll without cashing out too early when I see the dollar decreasing a lot every day..?!

But, hey, the day was great. I don’t wanna sound too sad about a pretty sweet 3,9k monthly profit.
Goal of refinancing my Cuba-trip is definitly reached!

I gonna post more HHs, stuff about bankroll-management and the aspect about “gambling on the USD/EUR change” pretty soon. Stay tuned! Gl guys!

I had a very great start first two days after I came home from Cuba. The next days I ran pretty cold and burned about 1k while tilting vs a pretty weak fish at 345s. In the meantime I cleared the 200k VPP to buy a very nice $2,000 milestone-bonus for 50k FPP (it’s only a 1,2k bonus, cuz u normally receive 800 bucks for the 50k FPP).

Last sessions, even before Cuba, I played some higher HUs from time to time when I found a fish (most worse then -10% ROI) waiting for an oppenent. I haven’t cashed out for a while and have a very sweet bankroll atm. If there’s a fish at 570 and I know I’m playing my best A-game I’m ready to play him, cuz it doesn’t make big difference for me playing 115 or 570 anymore. I can run over a standard losing player at higher HUs and I love to play vs complete unexperienced fishes at higher games. Variance and table selection are the only factors I have to keep in mind.

Last days while losing and tilting some games I should have stayed away from higher HUs or just should have made a break for some days. Even though I knew I didn’t play my A-game I played higher games. Standard mistake of players who doesn’t take their game seriously. I forgot about my rules of game management and can be pretty lucky I finished the week somehow even, playing only B-game most of the time.
The bonus (worth 1,2k net) is the only reason why I’m still in the black. Time for a short break and to crush the 115s soon.

Gl guys, ttyl.