You need to be logged in to your Sky Poker account above to post discussions and comments.
You might need to refresh your page afterwards.
Sky Poker forums will be temporarily unavailable from 11pm Wednesday July 25th.
Sky Poker Forums is upgrading its look! Stay tuned for the big reveal!
ted's thread, innit.
I thought i'd start a little thread to have a place to vent, chat and spew innit. this wont be a diary, it won't filled with results, graphs and hand histories [though there will prob be some of that]. but it will hopefully give a flavour of what goes on in my main game: low-stake HUSNG's, hopefully it will get people interested in the format, and there'll be some basic advice on the way to help any that are interested have a running start.
i'll also drone on about non-poker stuff too. read on and chip in if you like, comrades.
---
a little bit about me:
in real life i work with the elderly, more specifically i provide activities for a residential home. this may conjure up images of grey people passively listening to a bored middle aged life-weathered carer read out bingo ball numbers, but nothing could be further from the truth. the best residential homes are vibrant lively places, filled with vibrant people who have lived incredible lives.
it's not a well payed job, but it 's an enriching job in many other ways. i had served my time as a marine engineer but i HATED working with machines all day. despised it, dreaded going to work, even if it was well paid. i knew i wanted to be working with and for people. caring for people and knowing i was making a difference was and is worth more to me than any monetary reward could be. i vowed when i left engineering that my working life would alway involve helping PEOPLE. and so far ive been fortuate enough to be able to live up to that.
a little story might help illustrate that:
last year a man came to live in our home who had painted all his life. he was a fitter on a ship yard and had the most incredible range of paintings showing maritime working life. his dad wouldnt let him give up his trade so he never gave art a serious go. i thought his story was worth telling and so we got in touch with the local paper who interviewed him and published a feature on his life and art. this was picked up by the local radio station who interviewed him on breakfast radio live from his room in the home. this was heard by the local art gallery who exhibited his work for the first time - and his old ship yard who bought a lot of his paintings to hang in their boardroom. the guy was 78 and having his work being bought, hung, discussed and displayed for the first time in his life.
making that sort of a difference is what makes my job worthwhile.
----
in terms of poker my interest was piqued by watching late night poker on channel four. didnt really understand the game, but it was fun to watch and i cannot sleep pre-midnight, so it was alway something to zone out to. i then downloaded a blackberry app that allowed you to play with play money. kinda like facebook's zynga i imagine. i got ok at it and worked up through the levels, eventually up to 2nd on their world wide leaderboard.
twas a strange place to play, filled with characters, cliques and scandal. the app published a top 50 leaderboard within the app each day. they made their money by selling chip packs for when you bust your intital free bankroll. these chip packs werent cheap but i guess allowed people to pay $20 for a few weeks play if they werent good enough to beat the game.
there were always rumours of cheating with one of the leaderboard's top players being accused of and eventually owning up to multiaccounting. the spanish contingent were caught colluding in the chat box [google translate ftw], and chip dumping was frequent between indonesian players [affectionately known as 'bingonesians' by some of the play-poo'ls dimmer lights].
as the app makers sold chip-packs you could in theory buy your way into the leaderboard. however it would cost around $25,000 to do so. but one player did just that. over and over again. he would buy enough to sit top of the leader board then, over the course of a few weeks, open shove every hand until he didnt have the bankroll to play at the top level anyomore. he would then dissapear for a week or two before re-buying and openshoving blind again. it probably cost him upwards of $100k+ over the course of a few months.
he was a south american who owned chocolate factories all over the world. he obviously had more money than sense, and spending each night looking at a phone screen and hammering the allin button for play chips was clearly an addictive way for the upwardly-mobile chocolate executive to destress. to be fair he caused havoc, with people desperately trying to get resat at other tables [table seating was automatic]. if he ran well v you you could destroy your leaderboard rating in one session. also, when people were sat deep they got really annoyed if he doubled up as he suddenly put their stack at risk and all 'poker' was suspended until he either quit whilst massively ahead or bust for the night. i was once berated for calling with AK as 'it's not strong enough to call an all in with against him' [such was the standard of play there]. obv i loved him sitting down, but missed most of his sessions due to timezone differences.
he dissapeared after the blind levels and buyins at the top level were upped and our bankrolls went quickly north to where it would cost upwards of $150,000 to buy into the top level. i guess even multi-national chocolate barons have their bankroll limits.
rich fish, multiaccounting, collusion: who says play-money is not like the real thing...
----
moving to real money poker:
after becoming a virtual billionaire i thought i might try to earn a few real pennies whilst playing a game i had grown to love. i migrated to sky and discovered HUSNG's
i sort of fell into HUSNG's after reading GaryQQQ's diary where he used them to build his initial roll in his 1000 points - £1000 challenge. i had £40 in my account after depoiting £20 and having sky match that. i unsuccesfully gave them a try and after burning my intial deposit whilst getting destroyed by Larson7 and tormas77 i railed those two players and learned a tonne doing so. i redeposited £40 and never looked back. HUSNG's are strategy heavy poker vignettes filled with wars within wars, phsycology, maths, skill and stone cold brute force variance on top: they are the nuts, imo.
i am a decidedly average player: better than the fish, will give decent players a run for their money but generally get owned buy the better players, but i've still had some success in these games and they have funded my spewy forays into mtts with quite a bit to spare.
if i can do it, many can is my basic message.
my sharkscope is currently blocked as i mistankenly told a mate my screenname and was congratualed by a random on winning a few quid in a tournament. i wasnt happy with my finances being discussed by this person so it's blocked for now. i'll get a graph up from my database for those interested.
-----
that's more than enough rambling for now, and i am fully aware that my tangent-factor is mega high so i'll stop myself here. this week i'll try to post up some stuff about HUSNG's, why they are great for players of all abilities and skill-sets , and also little hints on how to play them. i'll try and put an idiot's guide to nash up this week for anyone wanting to get stuck in.
i'll try to keep the graphs / results / bad beats to a minimum, but will include some on the way obv.
i'm also going include some real-life stuff in here. some rants, opinions and ramblings which may or may not be interesting to anyone at all.
ta for reading.
run well all.
i'll also drone on about non-poker stuff too. read on and chip in if you like, comrades.
---
a little bit about me:
in real life i work with the elderly, more specifically i provide activities for a residential home. this may conjure up images of grey people passively listening to a bored middle aged life-weathered carer read out bingo ball numbers, but nothing could be further from the truth. the best residential homes are vibrant lively places, filled with vibrant people who have lived incredible lives.
it's not a well payed job, but it 's an enriching job in many other ways. i had served my time as a marine engineer but i HATED working with machines all day. despised it, dreaded going to work, even if it was well paid. i knew i wanted to be working with and for people. caring for people and knowing i was making a difference was and is worth more to me than any monetary reward could be. i vowed when i left engineering that my working life would alway involve helping PEOPLE. and so far ive been fortuate enough to be able to live up to that.
a little story might help illustrate that:
last year a man came to live in our home who had painted all his life. he was a fitter on a ship yard and had the most incredible range of paintings showing maritime working life. his dad wouldnt let him give up his trade so he never gave art a serious go. i thought his story was worth telling and so we got in touch with the local paper who interviewed him and published a feature on his life and art. this was picked up by the local radio station who interviewed him on breakfast radio live from his room in the home. this was heard by the local art gallery who exhibited his work for the first time - and his old ship yard who bought a lot of his paintings to hang in their boardroom. the guy was 78 and having his work being bought, hung, discussed and displayed for the first time in his life.
making that sort of a difference is what makes my job worthwhile.
----
in terms of poker my interest was piqued by watching late night poker on channel four. didnt really understand the game, but it was fun to watch and i cannot sleep pre-midnight, so it was alway something to zone out to. i then downloaded a blackberry app that allowed you to play with play money. kinda like facebook's zynga i imagine. i got ok at it and worked up through the levels, eventually up to 2nd on their world wide leaderboard.
twas a strange place to play, filled with characters, cliques and scandal. the app published a top 50 leaderboard within the app each day. they made their money by selling chip packs for when you bust your intital free bankroll. these chip packs werent cheap but i guess allowed people to pay $20 for a few weeks play if they werent good enough to beat the game.
there were always rumours of cheating with one of the leaderboard's top players being accused of and eventually owning up to multiaccounting. the spanish contingent were caught colluding in the chat box [google translate ftw], and chip dumping was frequent between indonesian players [affectionately known as 'bingonesians' by some of the play-poo'ls dimmer lights].
as the app makers sold chip-packs you could in theory buy your way into the leaderboard. however it would cost around $25,000 to do so. but one player did just that. over and over again. he would buy enough to sit top of the leader board then, over the course of a few weeks, open shove every hand until he didnt have the bankroll to play at the top level anyomore. he would then dissapear for a week or two before re-buying and openshoving blind again. it probably cost him upwards of $100k+ over the course of a few months.
he was a south american who owned chocolate factories all over the world. he obviously had more money than sense, and spending each night looking at a phone screen and hammering the allin button for play chips was clearly an addictive way for the upwardly-mobile chocolate executive to destress. to be fair he caused havoc, with people desperately trying to get resat at other tables [table seating was automatic]. if he ran well v you you could destroy your leaderboard rating in one session. also, when people were sat deep they got really annoyed if he doubled up as he suddenly put their stack at risk and all 'poker' was suspended until he either quit whilst massively ahead or bust for the night. i was once berated for calling with AK as 'it's not strong enough to call an all in with against him' [such was the standard of play there]. obv i loved him sitting down, but missed most of his sessions due to timezone differences.
he dissapeared after the blind levels and buyins at the top level were upped and our bankrolls went quickly north to where it would cost upwards of $150,000 to buy into the top level. i guess even multi-national chocolate barons have their bankroll limits.
rich fish, multiaccounting, collusion: who says play-money is not like the real thing...
----
moving to real money poker:
after becoming a virtual billionaire i thought i might try to earn a few real pennies whilst playing a game i had grown to love. i migrated to sky and discovered HUSNG's
i sort of fell into HUSNG's after reading GaryQQQ's diary where he used them to build his initial roll in his 1000 points - £1000 challenge. i had £40 in my account after depoiting £20 and having sky match that. i unsuccesfully gave them a try and after burning my intial deposit whilst getting destroyed by Larson7 and tormas77 i railed those two players and learned a tonne doing so. i redeposited £40 and never looked back. HUSNG's are strategy heavy poker vignettes filled with wars within wars, phsycology, maths, skill and stone cold brute force variance on top: they are the nuts, imo.
i am a decidedly average player: better than the fish, will give decent players a run for their money but generally get owned buy the better players, but i've still had some success in these games and they have funded my spewy forays into mtts with quite a bit to spare.
if i can do it, many can is my basic message.
my sharkscope is currently blocked as i mistankenly told a mate my screenname and was congratualed by a random on winning a few quid in a tournament. i wasnt happy with my finances being discussed by this person so it's blocked for now. i'll get a graph up from my database for those interested.
-----
that's more than enough rambling for now, and i am fully aware that my tangent-factor is mega high so i'll stop myself here. this week i'll try to post up some stuff about HUSNG's, why they are great for players of all abilities and skill-sets , and also little hints on how to play them. i'll try and put an idiot's guide to nash up this week for anyone wanting to get stuck in.
i'll try to keep the graphs / results / bad beats to a minimum, but will include some on the way obv.
i'm also going include some real-life stuff in here. some rants, opinions and ramblings which may or may not be interesting to anyone at all.
ta for reading.
run well all.
Comments
i like a good ramble.
will try to tone it down though...
will try top keep the tl;dr to a minimum, but cant make any promises...
thanks for the well wishes.
----
i'm not setting any goals for the diary other than to try and promote HU poker. if it coincides with a sick run up the levels and world domination, so be it. meh. but i doubt i'll be logging much in the way of results except for intermittent up dates.
---
i currently play the £2 games here. i've been meaning to move up but each time i go to take the plunge i hit some bad results which knock the stuffing out of any confidence / desire to make the move. turbo's are my main game here, i play my hypers on another site where the rake is lower [and some nice signing up / rakeback bonus deals].
i dont think we have played, benc.
i played thioch for a fair few games when he was at my level, and duonross too.
PS make sure you big up TPT now and again.
this is your 6th consecutive game v villain. in the session he has raised only a handful of times, maybe 7-10% of buttons max.
we are 12bb deep in the bb.
we have A5s and are facing a minraise:
action?
ostensibly this is a clear fold. we can put our opponent on a tight range, and we are crushed by it.
or are we?
this villain, whilst rarely raising had shown up with the following hands at showdown after limping: AA, QQ, AJ [twice] 99.
when building ranges for villains it's vital we use showdown hands to help us and not rely on assumptions about frequencies. if the big hands are turning up in his limping range then we can, by elimination, take them out of his minraising range. i jammed and he called with JTs. a nice hold and its gg.
----
what of villains call?
intuitively, how wide do i need to be 3bet jamming over a minraise for JTs to be a call?
A: 22+, Ax, KJ+
B: 22+, Ax, K5s, K8+, Q7+, J9+
C: 22+, Ax. K2s+, K8+, Q5+, 78s+
answer is that JTs is a call v all 3 ranges. even against A, the tightest jamming range, calling JTs is one third of a BB better in expectation against folding.
note that there is not a single hand in range A that isnt either ahead of JTs or at least 49% against it. and a decent portion of range A - AJ, AT, KJ, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA - have it CRUSHED.
yet it is still a call.
he is calling 10bb to win 24bb so needs:
10/24 = 41% equity to break even
against range 'a' he has 43% equity: GET IT IN MY SON.
we can sometimes make some similar assumptions to the ones above regarding 3bet jamming ranges if we have seen villains flat or non-allin-3bet monsters and take AA, KK QQ out of them. then we have even more juice.
note with JTs here we will lose the hand more often than we win. 60-40 against us roughly. its a hard thing to do getting it in knowing you are probably behind, but long-term making the correct play will result in profit. there are no ICM considerations in HUSNG's, the rake is a sunk cost and we make our decisions based on pure chip equity.
dont be scared of getting it in 'light'.
---------
i did say i'd try to promote HUSNG's in this thread, so here goes. i do think they can improve people's play, no matter what level they are starting from. certainly for new players they are a cheap, low variance way of seeing plenty of flops, flop textures, how different hands play etc.
you are playing a wider variety of hands in and out of position than in a cash, mtt or dym game.
there is a benefit to simply seeing first hand how often certain holdings hit flops, what flops are good for certain hands, how often gut-shots hit etc. there is nothing like getting a feel for these things by playing and HUSNG's will throw them at you over and over. you also get used to playing tricky spots. you'll often have a second pair that becomes as third pair on the turn, or have to consider playing King high down the streets etc. since in most other formats pots eventually become heads-up anyway having the experience of seeing thousands of HU flops can really help your general game. and you can see thousands of HU flops for a relatively cheap outlay in HUSNG's
MTT players are the ones that would benefit most, however. I recently played a MTT monster, one of the sites big-hitters with a feaesome scope graph and multiple four figure scores. i braced for impact. needent have bothered he was very poor. not that his play was poor, but his strategy 10-15bb deep was ugly. i scoped him filtered for HUSNG's and found a spinnign fish bowl and a mega -%ROI. i tried to see how many 2nd places he had in relation to 1st in MTTs but couldnt do it, but maybe he isnt winning his fair share of those either. i'm a low stakes player, who is decent to slightly above average on a good day in my chosen format and flat out horrendous at MTT's. yet i think i could improve the MTT results of a serial sicko who is by far the better player and a UKOPs and high roller casher. crazy.
In an MTT the HU battle involves the biggest pay jumps, the juiciest bounties and, lets face it, the sickest brags. it's the ultimate bubble and i think many MTT regs would do well investing in a bit of time to play it well. in a £22 MTT the final two are essentially playing a £200-300 heads up sit and go, where often neither of them has played a dozen £1 HUSNG goes. certainly the guy i played couldnt beat low to mid-stakes HUSNG's* yet was regularly battling in £200-300 ones when he got to the final two of a MTT.
having a few hundred HU battles under your belt can't be a disadvantage. get on em, kids
*i actually just skoped the lad i was talking about and his HUSNG graph is now heading in the right direction and he's playing and beating bigger stakes than i'll likely ever play - he'd be the one teaching me a lesson. but when we played he was pretty meh, even by my standards
----
on friday we lost one of the good uns: tony benn. a beautiful man who loved the people, challenged the status quo and generally fought a good fight. i was heavily into socialism in my late teens, and was one of 'those' people that would man stalls in shopping centres extolling the virtues of socialism. i would attend marches, planning meetings and vigerous discussions in various seedy cafes in liverpool. tony benn was a real hero of mine.
i had the pleasure of attending one of his last public speaking tours. he would hold court fielding questions and spoke passionately and knowledgeably always. it made me sick seeing the anodyne assimilated beige of the current triumvirate of politcal leaders paying their carefully toned tributes, all sounding alike, looking alike and thinking alike. i no longer vote as i cannot bring myself to endorse any of the parties. the biggest differences in policy occur within parties now, not between them. a real shame. the fact is any of the three could form a coalition with any of the other three without compromising too much on policy. we are all blairites now, he convincingly won his political war.
clegg in particular is a real greaseball. scared of speaking his mind and rarely committing to an original thought. and the euphemisms. these really do my swede in. my favorite one is 'difficult decisions' when they mean CUTS to either pay jobs or services. once it's pointed out i promise you will hear it everywhere: 'we have taken difficult decisions', 'we will take some tough decisions' etc. do they think we are stupid enough to not know what it means? too sensitive to be exposed to plain speaking? just say what you mean, you diseased wretches... ahem.
anyways, i dont think tony benn would have used these mealy mouthed sentences. his agenda, wether you agreed with it or not was clear. if you disagreed with him, you at least knew what you were disagreeing with and could debate it accordingly.
he had five questions that he would ask of the powerful, i quote:
“The House will forgive me for quoting five democratic questions that I have developed during my life. If one meets a powerful person--Rupert Murdoch, perhaps, or Joe Stalin or Hitler--one can ask five questions:
what power do you have;
where did you get it;
in whose interests do you exercise it;
to whom are you accountable
how can we get rid of you?
Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system."
good luck waiting for camcleggbland to say summat as original and incendiary as that.
as an aside upon meeting a politician i'd add one more to that list:
"why are you lying to me"?
goodbye, comrade you will be missed
Just read your initial post, i just had to respond lol
Good on you for doing a job you like/ enjoy/ is rewarding.
You really were mashing the free play game! shame you couldn't sell your success to a rich choclate business man...
Have to say that is one of the craziest poker story i've ever held!
Re, Poker, you have done really well with the Hu sit and gos. You have a really good game and know a lot more about ranges and the like than i do for HU games. I just usually go by instinct.
The standard is no different between 1/2/5, it is the same player pool. Continue crushing and good luck with the blog that's not a blog:)
Loads that I could comment on but I'll go with the poker stuff.
Insane that someone playing £2 games can write the above.
There are regs @ £20 here who wouldn't be able to read that post let alone write and understand it.
Is there another shot @ £3/5 games on the horizon soon? It's only a matter of time until you break through.....
Agree with Ben you would have a very nice ROI at the fiver games, 7-10%.
We've played quite a few games and you are one of the strongest opponents i have played at HU sit and gos.
every time i've set a date to 'take a shot' i hit mega variance, and ideally id like to do it with confidecne BLARING. and it is a confidence issue with me, i constantly doubt myself.
i'm down 13BI's in £3 hypers this month after only a hundred odd games just by running horribly in the end-game. i've made that back with some to spare in turbos, but my Broll is not something i can 'top up' from real-life funds, and 13 BI's at £5/10 i would inevitably measure in 'hours i have to work to earn that kind of money' lol
i've read about the kelly criterion and fluidly moving up and down levels, and i think 'sectioning off' a chunk of my roll and doing that is the way forward.
I know I cnt really talk as I'm in a similar position with moving up and kakking myself.
But that's because I dnt really believe 100% that I can do it.
You must believe you can crack £5 and then £10 HU's! turbos, especially.
If it'd make u feel better how about being staked by a group of people who have a small interest rather than 1 person with a big interest?
I'd be interested for sure, I was thinking the same before chikn mentioned it.
Could be a fun (and no doubt profitable) community sweat thread, I know this kind of thing happens on other forums.
The return wouldn't be great for for investors, but easy money risk free is easy money risk free right!
Maybe when you're crushing skaiwalkurrrrr, jungleman and my old mate (yes I knew him!) 147 star @ $500's u can return the favour and help me graduate from £10s to £20s. lol
We can create a monster. Lets gooooooo.
but i will be cracking on, promise! BR nittiness is nothing to be admired, i know.
real life concerns are more the thing, but i know laregly its a cop-out.
rationally, i know i should be taking WAY more shots.
Run well sir!
+ 2.
Don't think I've ever played you HU but I know Thoich said you have a solid game and by the looks of your posts they seem to back it up. Will be following the thread with interest anyway GL.
For a bit of perspective a month ago, maybe a bit over that, i stopped playing as many turbos and was playing a lot more hypers. £3 hypers, 2 tabling. Ended up heatering and making a load of profit, the last few weeks i'm probably down from playing hypers. The variance in them is just so massive.
Might be woerthwhile for the time being just sticking to Turbo's where the skill edge is greater.
It was a really good idea of Benc, Nickd nad thoic playing a certain amount of games, 800-1k at one level before moving up to the next.
You'll soon be playing fiver games and crushing.
If you ever want to do a sweat session, or go over some hand histories i'd be more than happy to do that and i'm sure some others that have commented so far would also be up for it.
played 21 £5 games and finished six BI's up. nice to run well when taking a shot i can tell you. [at my winrate at the £2 games it would have took me around 100 games to win the same amount].
had a meh start, and got sat by a diamond starred HU beast in my third game of the day. terrific player, fortunately i hit every draw / flop and won the crucial flip.
after a HUSNG you are offered the choice of challenging for a rematch or decling any potential offers.
a funny thing can happen in the rematch box when you play someone you dont particularly want to have a long session against [2 matches would count as a long session for me against him, and i certainly didnt want to start my first session warring against that sort of player]. obv you dont want to hit decline and look weak, likewise you dont want to provoke a potential decline into a rematch by challenging the cat.
sometimes they feel the same way, so you both sorta let the box time down, and mutually back out of the room without being the first to blink.
often when it happens like that, it reminds me of that scene in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, where tom goes to hatchet harry's office with two unloaded guns and faces big chris weilding an axe. tom had to respect the fact his guns werent loaded and chris had to respect the possibility that they were. they both back out without appearing to blink...
in todays games, i was the one holding the two unloaded guns. i had to respect the fact i was lucky enough to have had the cards to have been able to check raise and 3 bet a top player often; he had to respect the fact that i might be good enough to do that to him light...