Heads Up Practice
 

Would anyone be intersted in some regular headsup practice (not for cash).

If a few people got involved we may be able to got some good fast games and training going, as well as to test out various ideas.

What we would need is a platform that offers free heads up games for play money. It wouldnt necessarily have to be a recognized site, but could even be an open source program that sits on your computer or web applet etc.

Let me know what you think.

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

Its not a bad idea, but I wouldnt take it seriously if it wasnt for money. Even if we just did $5 or $10 HUSNGs, that'd be okay. The problem is registration. There are so many people trying to register at those levels that it becomes hard to register with a specific player.

If you can think of a practical way to do this, I'd listen.

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/

They offer a good amount of play money games, including heads up play.

I think it's a good idea. Like you said even though it is for play money, it might be decent practice. I'd be willing to play you there if there was a set time.

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

UB has a waiting list facility, you can either add yourself to it and play first come (as normal) or challenge a specific player. They do $5 and up HU (no HU play money).

I'd be interested, but am in UK so might be difficult timing wise.

Cheers,
RH

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

I'm in for play money.

And why can't you guys take it serious with PM, when you can take a post here serious? I don't see the big difference, you do both for training...?

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm in for play money.

And why can't you guys take it serious with PM, when you can take a post here serious? I don't see the big difference, you do both for training...?

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally I could, but most people have a mental switch in their brain which does something like this: "...it's only play money, f**k it, I'll play this crappy hand all the way...". Doesn't matter if the money is not significant to them, it drastically dims the switch.

Also it's more difficult to find a site with play money HU SnGs where you can guarentee to play a particular opponent.

RH

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

It's pretty much a guarantee on the ESPN Poker software. If anyone is interested I would play them there for practice.

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm in for play money.

And why can't you guys take it serious with PM, when you can take a post here serious? I don't see the big difference, you do both for training...?

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally I could, but most people have a mental switch in their brain which does something like this: "...it's only play money, f**k it, I'll play this crappy hand all the way...". Doesn't matter if the money is not significant to them, it drastically dims the switch.

Also it's more difficult to find a site with play money HU SnGs where you can guarentee to play a particular opponent.

[/ QUOTE ]
How about if somebody ran a "ladder" system like used for online gaming. This way, even though the games are for play money, then their is still an incentive to play properly and take it more seriously?

You could even have a few ladders (eg: deepstack play, shortstack play, etc), but I guess this relies on finding some software to run the games on where you can set parameters like this.

As far as software goes then I wouldn't be surprised if somebody has already written some simple freeware app that could be used/adapted for this purpose. If not, it really wouldn't be hard to code up some fairly simple Java app to do this.

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

Never heard about a ladder system, but do you mean like a tournament? Because that would be great IMO, then we could play for being the best in the HU forum [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

[ QUOTE ]
It's pretty much a guarantee on the ESPN Poker software. If anyone is interested I would play them there for practice.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm interested, but not sure if we'll be able to schedule. I'm in the UK and play late evenings only, say 21:00-00:00 GMT (about 5 hours ahead of EST I think so that'd make it 16:00-19:00 EST). Are you (or anyone else interested in HU practice) playing at this time of day? If so please PM me.

Cheers,
RH

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

[ QUOTE ]
Never heard about a ladder system, but do you mean like a tournament? Because that would be great IMO, then we could play for being the best in the HU forum [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]
A Game Ladder is kinda like a never ending competition, where you each play to get the best position in the "ladder" (a bit like a league table).

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Case's Ladder (because I used to play a game called "Close Combat" which had ladders run their for Gamespy players). I'm sure their must be a free version somewhere, or some freeware PHP code to setup a free HU ladder of our own.

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

Ladder and tourney great ideas. Best of all would be ELO style rankings - ive seen this work many times before, and it would definitely give you the best players, as it does for chess, backgammon and other games.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system )

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

[ QUOTE ]
Ladder and tourney great ideas. Best of all would be ELO style rankings - ive seen this work many times before, and it would definitely give you the best players, as it does for chess, backgammon and other games.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system )

[/ QUOTE ]
If people are interested in this, then I don't think it would be all that hard to get something like this going (perhaps even the whole thing could be browser based?).

The only two things I can think of that would possibly put people off are:

a) Playing lots of hands for no $ (but since its for practice anyway, I can't see that being such a huge problem).

b) Honesty reporting the results and playing out the games (if it was all browser based, then this wouldn't be a problem and could be handled server side).

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

EDIT: It might even be possible to adapt the PokerSource Server & GTK Client code to do this without much effort.

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

Juko that sounds like it could be a lot of fun. Do what you can. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Also roundhouse, that's the early evening here in Los Angeles. Looks to be a good time for me as well. Hopefully we can set something up.

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

You could post a few key hands in the game here, so other players can discuss it, and we can hear some thoughts from the players. It is not often you hear both sides of the story (atleast not for me).

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

Im willing to play HU, but I'd prefer to do it for cash (low stakes). Is this possible?

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

[ QUOTE ]
Juko that sounds like it could be a lot of fun. Do what you can. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]
I've X-Posted in the software forum (see here) to see if they have any extra ideas/input, but overall I think this could potentially be a pretty interesting/useful project to help practice/learn HU and as soon as I get some time, I'll look into implementing it.

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

I'll help if i can! (time permitting)

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

you could probably use pokergraders HULA system. check it out here: http://www.pokergrader.com/hula/?hula_id=5

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

What about this? http://games.cs.ualberta.ca/poker/IRC/

It says here that this is how Chris Ferguson learnt to play Heads up ... can't be all that bad then!

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

I would be up for this for practice and fun, pm me if you want, playing on espn poker would be fine with me.

Re: Heads Up Practice
 

TheJoe lets make it happen, I'm there right now.

A nice alternative...
 

I was thinking about starting a new post for this but decided to put it here instead.

Tribeca recently introduced micro heads up tourneys with standard rake. Specifically they have:

$0.5 +0.02 $1+0.05 $2+.10 $3+.15

Tribeca traffic is low enough that 2 trouts could easily co-ordinate amongst themselves and both register for a tourney without some random donk joining.

Incidentally, the random donks who do join these things are huge morons who call potsized bets with bottom pair in a heartbeat which is also sexy.

Oh, if you see Slappy001777 sitting at one of these tables kindly leave me alone. I play these for money and I WILL CHECKRAISE YOU OUT OF YOUR SEAT.