Some casual HU

My bankroll is in transit, so just have my Pokerstars bankroll. Still I'm getting ready for a HU SNG grind, so took it as a deadly serious night. Won a few dollars, and felt like I played well. My highlight was losing with AQ to AJ (71% favourite) all in preflop for the SNG, and fell to 360 chips. I fought back to win, hitting some cards, but still playing a lot of hand after, so just kept patience.

Pregame Goals:
1. Work on peoples preflop/flop tendancies
2. Question what to do more in spots

Feeling: tired mainly, a little distracted.

A couple of things that sprang to mind while playing
1. A certain move is either weak, thin, value, bluff, balanced, anything.
2. Before making a bet, know what you are doing to a raise/call.

Firstly, working on preflop/flop tendancies. I'm working hard at establishing an opponents style early, and exploiting that later. An ineresting thing. When I first played $55 HU SNG's, I was happy to get it in with A5, as is stood to be the best hand in HU. Now I'd get coolered by AT or QQ occasionally, and got it in good occasionally. However, my style is massively different now. Very much a post flop game. It's slower, but I think it's where the money is. So anyway, I'm looking closely at what to do as early as button preflop bet to have a standard game plan. Like I want to find a range of hands to raise with, which I know from how ofte he folds pre flop, 3 bets pre flop, folds cbets, calls cbet etc. If he's seeing a lot of turns when I'm raising I bring back my starting range to value hands. Or if he's forcing me out of pots by the turn a lot, I go back to a value range. If he's letting me win by the turn a lot, then I will run over, and even try to exploit the BB the same way.

The question what to do is sort of point 2 of my notes, which is another podcast idea Samoleus said. It went along, most things in poker are flexible except one rule "Only bet if you know what you are doing to a raise." The idea is say you get a marginal hand and cbet it, and are called. In your mind you have a range he's on, and you think your ahead, so you cbet turn too. Now he raises. Now if you are thinking about calling or folding, you've already made a mistake. For example, if he doesn't bluff much, then it's probably a fold. But if he bluffs a lot, you have to factor that in. But you really need to factor it in before you bet. For example, a better idea might be to bet the river if it's such a hard decision after you bet the turn. Or you might want to bet the turn and call a raise, but at least if you think about it first, then you've given yourself the best chance. I'd like to have that idea as often as possible, and I certainly don't have the best plan often yet.

Note 1 was interesting. Lets say a player donk leads. You look at the dry board, and wonder what he does that with. You raise and he folds. So he was bluffing most likely. He does it again, again you raise, and again he folds. So it's clear he donks quite weak, so do what you do against a weak range when playing your hand. Another player gets to river, and bets big on river. You missed your hand and fold, he does it again, and again. Now all 3 times you couldn't call, but just by law of averages, he has to be bluffing here sometimes, so write down that it's a bluff with question marks. Basically, there are only so many set moves people like to make outside the normal, so just work out which are important, and the "frequencies" as it's been quoted. Frequencies I guess referring to low frequency meaning it's a big value bet, medium meaning it's probably a thinner value bet or value bets with more bluffs, and high frequency meaning there must be quite a lot of bluffs. It's not quite that simple, as someone donk leads just a few flops, it doesn't mean it's with a lot of value necessarily, they may just have a move they like on a certain board.

Signing off the session.