PlauZee's HU SNG Poker Blog

Harthor is going to mess with the best. He’s going to challenge SkaiWalkurrr (real name: Rachid Ben Cherif ), 6tabling $200 hyperturbo (former surperturbo) HU SNGs starting today, Wednesday the 14th. They gonna play best of 1,001 games with a $5k even side-bet.
If you are interested in side-betting, just have a look the the 2+2 thread which is full of offers, mostly with 2-1 odds against Harthor. He’ll have a very tough time against SkaiWalkurrr who is playing hypers exclusively and used to 6table them a lot. Harthor often proved he became one of the best HUSNG players recently. He’s still not that used to hypers at 6tables as SkaiWalkurrr is, so 2-1 odds against him seems pretty decent. It’s still tough to bet against the dutch…

Harthor		SkaiWalkurrr

Here’s a short chat after Harthor gave up right after half of the challenge. Grats to Skai who proved once again how sick he is…

[15.12.11 00:46:13] SkaiWalkurrr: i won
[15.12.11 00:46:29] SkaiWalkurrr: 274-231 he gave up
[15.12.11 00:46:38] Fishenzon:
[15.12.11 00:46:43] Leon Vichman: nice
[15.12.11 00:46:48] SkaiWalkurrr: (happy)
[15.12.11 00:47:29] jackstack99: lol
[15.12.11 00:47:29] jackstack99: skai
[15.12.11 00:47:33] jackstack99: you took 10k from the kid
[15.12.11 00:47:37] jackstack99: how do you feel about urself
[15.12.11 00:47:41] SkaiWalkurrr: i ran too hot
[15.12.11 00:47:52] jackstack99: did you really
[15.12.11 00:47:56] SkaiWalkurrr: obv
[15.12.11 00:47:59] jackstack99: do you feel you have big edge
[15.12.11 00:48:00] jackstack99: on him tho
[15.12.11 00:48:04] jackstack99: or small edge
[15.12.11 00:48:05] jackstack99: or what
[15.12.11 00:48:11] SkaiWalkurrr: smaller than on most regs
[15.12.11 00:48:21] jackstack99: so hes good in ur opinion
[15.12.11 00:48:27] SkaiWalkurrr: well yeah

Stats of the challenge

One month ago I wrote about my goal climbing down the ladder and sticking to the $60-$200 HUSNGs  which felt like micros after playing $300-$1k levels regularly with bum hunting up to $5ks – lol, and even the one and only ever played $10k HU SNG of course… It felt absurd being back where I kinda started like two years ago, but I was pretty sure it would be the only way grinding HeadsUps regularly without getting too much commitment to the game and staying away from bigger swings. I just read what mersenneary wrote about the ego of HU players and that he questions there even exists players who played $200 HU SNGs regularly and go back to $50s instead of quitting grinding poker. As proved, there are some of those, but he’s still damn right about the problem with the ego. It was so fkn hard in the beginning to take those “micros” seriously, not to tilt too much because of dumb plays by the opponents which you probably never see at the nosebleeds, to forget about those insane numbers of winnings per day in the past and to give up reaching Supernova Elite once again (until July I was pretty much on pace, but after my summer break I will finish the year with 650k VPP only).

Well, back to the topic… Reviewing the last 30 days I think I did pretty well, not only talking about stats and winnings, but about my mindset as well. It’s weird, but after playing so many games at mostly $60 and $100 buyins, it feels like “taking a shot” when I play one of those rare $200 HU SNGs. Now, I’m just where I was hoping to be again: A successful $60-$100 HU SNG reg playing A-Game most of the time, taking the sweet buyins as serious as I took those at $1k+ and most important: I don’t have any problems to stick to my “new” buyins or feel the need I would have to climb up the buyins again. Sure, I don’t make that much money as I did in the past, but my hourly is still pretty decent since I two- or even three-table most of the time.

Holdem Manager 2 still can’t handle 4mans and I guess that’s the reason why the stats are that much off from the actual stats shown by Sharkscope. In the beginning I ran hotter than the sun, way above my personal EV (not just allin-EV) and even won almost every flip when chopping with others regs. The downswing I had was kind of big, but after winning every chop I lost almost every chop at 4mans falsifying the stats of Sharkscope a bit. But, no matter how big the up- and downswings were the overall stats are pretty nice and I hope I can reach on overall ROI of 7%+ while two- and three-tabling those turbo games.
As a sidenote: even months after release an official re-presenter of Holdem Manager just advised HUSNG players still to stay with Holdem Manager version 1 instead of buying version 2…
As following my actual Sharkscope stats which should tracked correctly filtered for turbo games and the some-how-what-ever-HM2-tries-to-calculate-overall-stats, both since Nov, 10th:

Sharkscope stats	Holdem Manager 2 stats

Geman HU SNG Pro and Supernova Elite grinder Martin Finger, better known as “0Piggybank“, wins EPT Prague for 720,000€ after making a deal in the HeadsUp. As far as I know, he sold about 50% of his action, still taking home an insane amount of € which he’ll probably invest in his next epic party nights in Germany. How come PokerStars didn’t pick a winner like him as new HeadsUp SNG Team Pro Online member…?!
Read the full story on PokerNews.com.

Congratulations to Martin, a student of mine and another friend of mine who both had decent amount of his action! m b f n!

Here’s the official interview by PokerStars with EPT Prague winner Martin Finger, “0Piggybank” – sry Piggy, but it reminded me a bit of interviews with Lothar Matthäus…

Piggybank wins EPT Prague - by PokerNews.com

lol… obv didn’t realize HU SNG reg Patrick, bandano, Renkers was very deep at EPT Prague as well. He finished at 9th place – busted with QQ by…. Martin, “0Piggybank”, Finger’s AK who is chipleader going into tomorrow’s Day 5. Read more on Pokernews.com.

GL BRO!!!

The hand in which bandano busted got discussed all night long in the HUSNG skype channel by treezer, bandano, Piggybank, skaiwalkurrr and some other fishes. This key hand is pretty interesting regarding the ICM factor what makes the call with QQ and bandano’s bigstack look like “ICM suicide call”, but the history of both as well, knowing Piggybank is a very agressive and active player…

Here’s a short part of the skype discussion – I deleted the part where the fishes talking about plans buying liquor for the night…

[02:24:02] 0Piggybank: Do you want to explain me the Aks hand
[02:24:07] pistons87: YES
[02:24:08] pistons87: plz do
[02:24:09] Skaiwalkurrr: ur play was normal
[02:24:31] 0Piggybank: ft begun and i was openraising and 3bet most of the time on the table
[02:24:37] treezer: yeah ur shove is good
[02:24:48] 0Piggybank: already 5betshove 64s showed or fold to 6bet
[02:24:50] 0Piggybank: so bandano knows i can x bet pretty light
[02:25:16] 0Piggybank: than the cl opend
[02:25:22] 0Piggybank: i sat next to him
[02:25:29] 0Piggybank: and he is a good player
[02:25:36] 0Piggybank: so i dont wanna get a 4bet from him
[02:25:43] treezer: what position?
[02:25:44] 0Piggybank: because he thins i gonna 3bet a tonne
[02:25:56] 0Piggybank: because i dont wanna get it in with Aks
[02:26:04] 0Piggybank: so i flat
[02:26:10] 0Piggybank: bandano squeezed
[02:26:17] 0Piggybank: and if i just 4bet small
[02:26:24] 0Piggybank: maybe he shoves hand like
[02:26:25] 0Piggybank: 99, TT, JJ
[02:26:35] 0Piggybank: its like a suicide icm for me
[02:26:51] treezer: how deep was bandano
[02:26:58] 0Piggybank: i coverd him small
[02:27:06] treezer: in BBs?
[02:27:15] 0Piggybank: i dont wanna go for a 5betbluffcatcher with my AK
[02:27:25] 0Piggybank: its icm suicide
[02:27:36] Skaiwalkurrr: ya
[02:27:43] treezer: obv ur hand is std
[02:27:43] Skaiwalkurrr: noone doubted ur play
[02:27:45] 0Piggybank: 55bb
[02:27:51] treezer: but dont like the 3bet call with queens tho
[02:27:59] 0Piggybank: he snaped
[02:28:12] pistons87: omg
[02:29:13] Skaiwalkurrr: |-(
[02:29:34] pistons87: piggy
[02:29:41] pistons87: u should have told him u have aks
[02:29:53] 0Piggybank: cmon
[02:29:59] 0Piggybank: he should openfolds his qq
[02:30:05] 0Piggybank: against me
[02:30:27] pistons87: ya
[02:30:30] pistons87: and he snapped
[02:30:30] Ankush Mandavia:
[02:30:38] Skaiwalkurrr: yeah when u guys got all in u both shouldve like done something to make ur hand dead
[02:30:39] treezer: yeah its kinda sick
[02:30:40] Skaiwalkurrr: and chop pot
[02:30:52] Skaiwalkurrr: (y)
[02:31:26] Conor Shelly: ept final tables work like cash games
[02:31:29] 0Piggybank: i took my 1time…

German HU SNG pro Martin, “0Piggybank”, Finger is 2nd in chips at EPT Prague with 31 players left. Day 4 is starting soon, follow him at the live ticker at Pokernews.com and let’s hope he’ll get a nice position for tomorrow’s finaltable.

Gl Piggy – Don’t party too much this time please 8) !!

Piggybank at the police station

Last week I didn’t play much, mostly because I was sick and couldn’t concentrate much about anything. Even 2tabling russian fishies at $60 HU SNGs seemed to be too hard to be profitable. There were some of you who asked me about coaching who I haven’t answered yet.

Fishenzon - #1 of 2011

Sorry about that, but we can definitely find suitable time very soon. Please contact me again if I haven’t received any answer yet due to my “downtime”.

I got asked very often why Bjoerni89 might have been chosen as new Team Pro Online member and not one of those HU SNG guys with way way better results than him. Sure, guys like FisFarFar, Fishenzon (#1 HUSNG winner of 2011), mtvdeuem, janekaaa, Serkules, la_gâchette and many others would have deserved it much more, especially talking about great results etc. But Bjoerni89 might reach a new VPP record this year which was kind of guarantee for becoming Team Pro Online last years. And he’s a well-known member of the German PokerStrategy, most important affiliate for Stars who pushed CharismA3, the other German Team Pro Online member, as well already. There are many HUSNG guys who think the way this guy did: “If you ever plan to become (PokerStars Team) Pro, sell yourself to an affiliate, become rakeback pro, pay as much rake as you can and they will pick you (as Team Pro Online member) no matter how bad your stats are, it’s insane!“

Hand of the month - "WTF I had flush!"

Well.. to be honest, the main reason for this blog post is that I needed something more attractive on the top of my site than Bjoerni89. Nothing against him or anything, but I saw his face way too often last days… 8)
So, there were basically three things I could have posted to pimp my blog:

• 1st: hot chics – like Gaëlle Garcia Diaz (not the link to my photos with her this time)
• 2nd: hot looking winning graphs and funny handhistories
• 3rd: photos of fast and great German cars…
  I recently decided to finally buy my 1st car, a BMW 1er. I drove and borrowed one very often recently, but was kinda lazy to get my own one. Winter sux, so it’s about time. I won’t buy a new one, but an employee’s car which is way cheaper but with almost same quality.

Ryan will soon realize my idea of a leaderboard “most hated HU SNG regs” which will be lots of fun to see. When I sent him my top3 names at least the first one was pretty easy: ScottyBCash – who else?!
I met the sad little kid at the PCA this year when Primo introduced me to him, spoke with him and it didn’t seem there was any problem anymore and he forgot about his disrespectful manners he had before. Just until he was back at home and online starting insulting me and a lot of other regs more than ever before. If there’s anyone who deserves to win the golden most-hated-HUSNG-reg-strawberry, for me it’s definitely him even tho he doesn’t play anymore.

Cheers!
Chris

/Edit: ah, great! looks so much better now!

After months of consideration German Heads Up SNG Bjoerni89 specialist is finally approved as newest member of PokerStars Team Pro Online. Even tho most might know we have little history, I’m very glad about the news and wish him all the best!

Björn "Bjoerni89" Schneider

Bjoerni89 achieved already more than 2,7M VPPs and probably will get a new VPP record by end of the year (official VPP leaderboard). He 6-tabled isildur1 at 5ks regularly and made more than 600k VPPs in a single month only. His stats, with losses of $83k and -0.3% ROI, shown on the right by PokerOptimizer aren’t 100% correct, but even with that chart he’s up a lot considering his insane amount of rakeback.

After stevesbets has been Team Pro Online member two years ago, Bjoerni89 is finally the next HU SNG pro and member for the very elitist PokerStars team. I’m sure Bjoerni89 will do way better than his forerunner did and hopefully will benefit much from the new status.

Bjoerni89 stats by PokerOptimizer

The official news by PokerStars can be found at their blog: “Bjorn ‘Bjoerni89′ Schneider joins Team PokerStars Online”

Matt, mjw006 is another HU SNG specialist who is considered to become member of PokerStars Team Pro and hopefully will be approved soon as well.

Let’s hope we will have two members of the HUSNG community very soon!

Gl to both of you,
Chris