8 posts / 0 new
Last post
jmaranha's picture
An Hobbie with an objective

Hi all. I'm an engineering student with a hobby, poker. I've started to play poker about 5 years ago. At the start i thought that it would be easy, I put 20€ on my account and play tournaments on Stars (without any bankroll). Off course that didn’t go well. I did that process a few times and the results were always the same, no money in my account. Then I start to read and try to know a bit more about the game. I started to play SnG 6max micro stakes (I don’t like 9seats tables too much people) but now with bankroll I play that for a while but this time I break even, no profit and no wins.

One day a friend of mine asked me to play a HU tournament on stars, I told him I was bad at hu but I would try. For my surprise I won the tournament (18$ profit i think) from that day I started to play HU. I never thought i was good at something in poker but when i played HU that feeling disappeared and my confidence start to rise. Now I play on Fulltilt. I don t like stars that much, although they have better tournaments they have higher stakes that I can t afford.  I put some money in my fulltilt account and started to play just micro HU. Started with 0.50$ and in 97 games i have 9.28% of ROI (i went a bit tilt on the end) now I’m playing 1$ my tag count is 40 and my ROI is 24.2%. I know the sample is not big enough and reasons are simple i don t have much time to play, i play regular and i only play one table at the time (when i played 6max i would be comfortable to play 4/6 tables at the same time). I don t like playing microstates that much, people don t respect the game at this stakes. If you like HU poker don t play 1$ HU regular on fulltilt, 70% like to do all in pre flop all the time just because they want money. Sorry for the long text. I have images to show but I can’t, don’t know why. I've seen the video but the button browse server doesn’t appear.

I join this site for the information and the learning. I want to evolve a lot. I know I have good instinct and for now that is enough but it won t be in the future. My question is what you recommend for me to read, or to watch, or even just to spectate so that my game will improve. Sry for the long and boring text but had to be done

RyPac13's picture
For pictures, just hit that

For pictures, just hit that picture icon, paste the URL of the picture (means you have to host it somewhere else like imgur or something) into the URL box, hit ok and it will show up. I think that browse server thing only works for my administrator account, so I need to fix that video probably.
The low stakes games I don't mind so much, opponents are never worse than in those games, though they can be tough to read at times. You just have to make the right decisions vs crazy spewy ranges, and know that while they can show up with AA or 72o in some spots, if they're bluffing 25% of the time you're going to make the call and it's very profitable (just random generalized example).
So, with engineering, what sort of work do you do?

jmaranha's picture
First off all thank you for

First off all thank you for replying my post
I'm studying electromechanical engineering. I'm on my last year. I don't like playing low stakes, people don't respect the game and it's hard to find a good opponent. But I have to start somewhere, and for now my bank doesn’t allow me to move up from 1$. Since you were the only one to answer me. I'm going to question you directly. I want to learn more about the game. I search for information here. I only seem to find videos on hyper turbos. Where can I find general information about the HU poker? Do you recommend any book? Any articles at all? In my country there aren’t a lot of HU poker player. I try to find them and search for their blogs to follow. Is there any good blog that you know? If there is somebody is that want to answer these questions or even more feel free to do that 
I have exams now but I still play a bit every day I notice that my game has gone a lot worst, my ROI felt dramatically and I’m trying to get better results but seems I’m on tilt. How HU player react to bad results? It s very different from tourneys or even SnG. I feel a lot of pressure to get good results. Is there any advice to counter that? When you have other important things going in your life you should play at all? How can i find mistakes from my sample of hands? I have a lot of questions sorry 

cdon3822's picture
Here's a good
RyPac13's picture
I was going to recommend the

I was going to recommend the same thing as Cdon.
Also, in the free videos forum, there are plenty of videos that cover turbo speeds (applicable to regular speed too), not just hypers. There are some heads up cash videos too. But if you're playing turbo HUSNGs, go over turbo videos first, but don't be afraid of looking at the better hyper turbo content, it's very valuable for the 0-25bb game, which turbo speeds get into a lot and you can increase your edge there a good amount too.

ImGen1us's picture
Like Cdon and Rypac told you

Like Cdon and Rypac told you the Mersenneary hu ebook is a very good place to start off. Then you can also watch free video for the game you choose to play obv and you can pretty find some article around the internet and here if you stay update of new thread and reads some Hand histories. 
How HU player react to bad results?
Well its all much depends on each single player obv, some tend to care a lot (like myself :S should work on this) and some just know its a streak either bad/good and they just dont look at the result and base their decision on is it +ev or not? When they have a good enough sample they can find some conclusion but most of the time people dont have this big of a sample size to analyse.
It s very different from tourneys or even SnG. I feel a lot of pressure to get good results. Is there any advice to counter that?
Like i said before, you got to base your move on all information you have at the moment and make the most +ev play in the situation. There is not that much pressure for good result you just have to take it easy, play your own game, put hours to study and talk strategy here and ask question, there is a lot of player who is involve here and they can provide you an answer in almost all situation your ask yourself should i do this or that? what is better expectation? Remember this is not a sprint but a marathon!
When you have other important things going in your life you should play at all?
If you means University and Girlfriends things etc, well i think every top poker player have or should have a well balance live. For the top pros poker is a job and to perform no matter what your doing in life you have to be well balance (Lifestyle, family,friends etc.) you have to enjoy each moment of what your actually doing and focus on your goals. Even for recreational player who wanna put some volume and make a side income i think we all need to be balance, its good to have a certain goals and chase them but having no social life lets say and not eating healthy for example can change a lot of the aspect even in your poker side income goals. 
How can i find mistakes from my sample of hands?
Well you could mark some hands you have trouble with and post right here on the forum, bunch of grinders love to think and analyse those and will open up some useful information and thinking process or lines to play a specific hands. The more your study and more you will become better at doing you own post game analyse and we are our worst critics so dont hesiate to post here and share with the community!
Gl for the University, i will finish myself in college (between highschool and University here in Quebec..) as a electrician and industrial software programmer.

Dont Let Variance Affect You!

jmaranha's picture
(hope the image works) Hi.

(hope the image works)

Hi. For two months i didn't play poker. Now last weak i start playing again. Because of university and sports still didn't have a change to read the book (although i need it). I'm playing a few games a day. Still on FT and in 8days i got the edge bronze and enter the leader board and the month had already started, so i'm glad for that because i'm only playing 0.50$ stakes (i'm rusty need to beat them again). 

I have a question for you guys. The image i uploaded (hope so) is from HM2. And my question a bit complex, so let's start. In HU 0.50$ the fee is 0.05$, and i think that HM2 doesn't knows that. So when i see my results in the 0.50$ it says the net winnings are 11$ but that's not truth right? Cause if HM2 doesn't count the fees and i've played 212 that's 10.6$ in fees so my profit is acctually 0.4$. I'm right? Can somebody help me? If this is true it means that my ROI needs to be way better to see some profit. Please help me, i'm confused 

Dipl.Komp.'s picture
if you know how many of the

if you know how many of the 212 games you´ve won, you can easily calculate if it´s correct.