Help an aspiring HU player (limcash)

[Watkins]

Hi all,

I've just put my name down to participate in the Mini-HULA that the micros are running. Sadly, I'm completely new to HU play so I suspect it's going to be an uphill struggle against the many more experienced players. I headed over here hoping that there would be a HU FAQ that would at least give me some starting points but I couldn't find one.

So, in short, I'm looking for some guidance on "how I can get some help and guidance". I appreciate no-one can give me the answers in a post and that posting/reading here along with playing lots of HU games is critical. What I'm hoping for is any pointers along the lines of:

1) read these articles/websites (in addition to this this forum);
2) order these books/DVD's;
3) read anything posted by .......;


For those who are interested, I'm mostly playing FR $1/$2 limit at the moment and I'm ready to move into $2/$4, I've also started working on my 6-max game. I appreciate that HU play is generally for bigger limts & more experienced players: I'm approaching this as a learning expereince that will hopefully help both my FR & 6-max play.

[Guruman]

this is by no means an exhaustive FAQ, but here are some of the links that are in my fav threads:

trickiness

blind stealing- this is from a sh forum and is a little dogmatic, but has good overall concepts outlined.

diff headsup blind structures this was a question post of mine initially, but ended up being a pretty good outline of how to approach the two diff headsup blind structures.

dealing with hyperaggressive opponents - this ended up having a kind of challenge at the end of it, but that's less relevant than the theory stuff at the top.

shillix collection - again, this is in a ring-game forum but it has lots of great ways to play wa/wb in blind steals and all kinds of creative postflop lines in it.

5 year olds - Important stuff for any poker situation. Sklansky chimes in early on.

theory of learning - I bought "Blink" based on this thread and a few others, and i'm finding that its helping my overall game, but especially the finesse part of my headsup game tremendously. You have to learn when to trust your instincts and when to ignore them.

bbbushu - do a search for bbbushu's posts. He's new but his insight and work ethic are perfect models for aspiring players.

Tommy Angelo - Tommy's a kind of tiltless guru, and his site is full of methods and reasons for tiltlessness. Often, limit headsup matches are defined by bouts of tilt from one player or another, and the ability of an individual to keep his wits about him while the cards are carving his stack up is key to survival. Tommy's site is good for all of that and should not be overlooked.

eric lindauer - you have to pay for access to eric's articles and forums, but its not expensive and well worth it in the headsup arena - specifically for the small pot and blind steal articles.

also,

review your sessions. Have an A game that's good enough to beat the person that you are sitting accoss from, then focus on playing that A game for as long as possible.

I'm prepping a long HH of a headsup match I played yesterday to post in the forum, and I'll link to it here. I'd suggest that when you come across an intersting headsup session that you take some time after the fact to calmly and objectively evaluate every decision that you made and then submit it to the group. Long things wont get read unless they're interesting, so it's probably worth the effort to either edit down to just 20-40 interesting sequential hands, or to do some other thing to make the read an interesting one. Mine will have all kinds of tilt and spewery, so that should be fun to read.

also read Dr Al's article in the mag this month.

gl!

[martial]

Hey bro,
I am in similar spot like you,it is very hard to find info about HU limit holdem.But there is what I can think of:
1)In "two plus two internet magazine" there is two articles by Byron Jacobs(playing SB and playing BB)
2)"Heads-up Limit Hold 'Em" DVD by Byron Jacobs
"Hold'em poker for advanced players"-Sklansky,Malmuth
In the shothanded section there is some info about HU.
3)"Guruman" has some exelent posts about playing agresive players.
search in HU forum for "LIMCASH 3/6 HU against super aggressive opponent"
I am also about to move to 2/4,so I am open for practice play and discussions.
PM me if interested.

[martial]

I guess Guruman did I great job while I was writing my post.
Anyway Byron Jacobs's articles are still worth reading as well as all the posts by Guruman.

[bbbushu]

guruman,

dude, i have a gf!

but to be honest, to overlook the work you've done regarding HU theory would be pretty criminal.

i'll also suggest searching for Leader and gehrig's work.

the most important thing is to PLAY, though, as anybody will tell you (and has told me).

bbbushu

[Watkins]

Guruman,

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, this is exactly what I was looking for.

All, thanks for the responses, as BBBushu says I really need to start playing. I think I'll go through Gurumans links and then try to find some low limit tables.

[fretelöo]

This is like writing a letter to the guy next door, but: This link belongs here as well...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...Number=9397136

[bbbushu]

freteloo,

how can i view that video? i downloaded it but it woent play in Windows Media Player. do i need to DL something else bc this is .avi ?

thanks,
bbbushu

[fretelöo]

You probably don't have the right codec installed. google for "Xvid" or (easier) just go to doom9.org and dl their codec bundle. Install and enjoy.

[Guruman]

the proper way to review and post a session