Two Plus Two Newer Archives - 5k: Heads Up Play Analysis

If you told me when I signed up for this site that I would reach 5k posts in less than one year, I'd have laughed at you. I would have been skeptical at posting that much in my entire career. I'd have also laughed at you if you told me how much money I would have made from playing poker on the internet in less than one year's time. Well, things turned out rather differently from what I thought, and very much to my benefit. I'm just glad to be able to give back a little of what I've received. I thought about putting this in SSSH, but micro is where I got my start. I owe it to you guys.

I had been pretty good at doing something worth reading for my milestone posts, but I did wimp out at 4k. While promised to do something for 5k, I had been coming up dry. What spurned this idea was when I was prodded by another poster to put my year in review in Jax's thread a little while back. When I was writing that, which was essentially a review of my entire career as a poker player, I remembered what I hadn't thought about in a long time. The amount I learned in two 100 hand HU matches was probably greater than or equal to all the poker knowledge I had acquired up to that point.

I've felt for a few months now that my learning in poker is stagnating. I'm posting a lot on the boards, but I'm not learning as much as I could be, or at least have been. One of the things I enjoyed most about my early poker experience was just learning new concepts. I love learning things. It's why I'm a grad student. It's a big reason behind why I started playing poker. Hell, it's a big reason why I took up ballroom dancing (yes, little known fact. True confessions of the Wookie). If I lose the learning, I lose a big part of the enjoyment I have for the game, which makes it harder to sign on and put in hands, even if I do have a monetary incentive.

Rather than continue to slip into the dulldrums, I've decided to do something about it. HU play has already revitalized my play twice, and I'm going to call on it again. By the power of Greyskull, I'm going to challenge 5-10 or so micro posters to a HU match. Here are the rules:

1. Stars 2c/4c tables unless they're all full. Then we're on Prima play money HU.

2. We play 100 hands.

3. After the match, each of us will take the HH's from the session and annotate them with our complete thoughts, both what we were thinking at the time, and what we think of our play reviewing it now.

4. Upon completing our own critiques, we send the HH's with our notes to each other. Each then adds their own notes and critiques to that of the other.

5. We swap back, and continue discussion ad nauseum.

This is a lot of work, and a lot of time. Not only that, it's time you're spending away from the table against bad players at higher limits. If you don't feel committed enough to do all this (be honest with yourself), then don't tell me you want to play me. However, there is no way you can complete even a single match like this and not feel like a radically improved poker player. It's also a lot of fun.

Here's the thing. I'm not going to play all 10 matches tonight. That would cause my head to explode. I'm not even sure if I'll get to a single match tonight or if I'll go out drinking after running some errands instead. I'm not even going to do something like playing the first 10 people to respond to this. Instead, post in this thread if you're not just interested, but committed to playing your best poker and doing your best analysis, and post your AIM name. I'll just call on people on a quasi-arbitrary basis based largely on who's around when I have time and desire for a match over the course of the next 2-4 weeks. Don't be afraid if you're somewhat new around here. I definitely want to get in a match with at least one or two very new posters to help bump them along. This system also lets you see who else is interested in doing this. No need to pair up with me. If you want to, grab someone else who's posted in here and take them on. Do, however, try and follow the format I outlined above [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img].

Thanks for indulging me, guys. I look forward to this.

AIM: MrWookie47