So last night, I had my first ever winning HU cash game session. I owned this guy for about $52 in NL50 HU, and I completely dominated him and soul read him in a few places. I had another session today, so I don't want to waste time showing last night's hands.

I played several HU sessions today, and had won about half a buyin against 3 short stacking ppl in total, until I sat down and played a full buy in guy.

I only misplayed one pot against this guy for a buyin, but completely dominated the rest of the match. Unfortunately, doesn't help when I lose two all in pots, both times we got it all in preflop with me as a 70-75% favourite, and deck hits him in the face. But I'll show these, as well as several other pots where I owned his soul.

So some background on the match. This guy was playing very aggressively preflop. He was basically raising 90% of his buttons, and 3-betting me preflop a fair ton. I played back at him, and successfully 4bet him in good spots where it felt like a good time for him to 3bet. He did a lot of dumb stuff though, like calling preflop OOP with 75o which is just plain bad poker, and calling cold 4bets OOP with less than premiums, esp. since I in general had not been 4betting him or seeing flops with him in 3bet pots much.

The main reason that he kept doing dumb stuff lik ethis, is because I pwned his soul with bluffs in a few spots, so he started giving me no credit. However, by the end, the fact that he gave me no credit worked to my advantage, and I was able to get him all in in with horrible equity - unfortunately he runs like god and i run like crap.

So here are some

www.pokerhand.org/

So here I had not been 3betting him much, so I 3bet him with 56o. Unless he's trapping me with a monster (which he wasn't, since he always 4bet AQ or better even tho I dind't 3bet him much at all), I think he's just throwing money away because I had not shown any propensity to 3bet light. So I know he's not that strong here. He floats the flop, and I plan to generally give up on the turn. but his bet sizing on the turn looked soooo weak, like a steal or a reallyyy weak hand like K8s or something dumb like that. And my line looks super strong by cehck raising hte turn. Now I shove this bluff obv, and I think since then, he thinks i'm full of shit everytime.

www.pokerhand.org/

This is another hand that he played god awful no matter what hand he has. He check raises a drawy flop, which isn't bad, but when he bet/;folds the turn, it means he was doing it with complete air. Well on a drawy flop, does he really expect me to call flop and fold turn that often? I thought about calling turn and then calling any river bet, but I felt that he may not bluff 3 streets with worse, and I'd rather get my money in with good equity and let him stack off with say Kx if he has it.

www.pokerhand.org/

This was an interesting hand. Preflop is w/e cuz like I said, I was running pretty horrible, and hadn't gotten mcuh to 3bet. His flop call is not bad, but when he checks the turn, I feel like he is turning his hand face up as A high a few times cuz I didn't expect him to float with air, and not bluff the turn, tho Ax has showdown value. ANd I fel tlike he has pair of 5's, or any slightly larger pocket pair 88 or 99 a ton. The K is a bad card, and I felt like I'm bluffing if I shove it. But I thought about it, and thought mayhbe he would call with 99 or w./e. But didn't pull the trigger and he checks down.

So anywyas, I'm up a buyin by owning his soul a ton, such as the 56o hand. And then this hand comes up:

www.pokerhand.org/

His preflop min raise over my min raise is just god awful. If he's never folding thi shand, he shoudl jusve shove it in, because it's dumb for him to try and induce a shove from a bluff like 56s, which still has like 35-40% equity against AQ - why would he want me to shove? That's just stupid, there's enough dead money in the pot where if he wants to go broke with AQ, he should be happy taking it. Of course as usual this guy ran like god and out flopped me while I am a huge favourite preflop.

OKay so here I finally play a hand badly. Not much to say except that I didn't know it at the time, but he rarely bluff check raised the flop, and because he thinks I'm full of shit, my turn shove is awful as I don't think he's folding Kx ever. Unforunately, I don't run as good as him: www.pokerhand.org/

So at this point, my brother actually starts sweating my match. He doesn't play or understand poker too much, but I think he at least recognizes the intricacies of the game, and that I am pretty decent. So I try to explain what I can, though it's hard to teach and play (gave me newfound respect for CR instructors who need to talk while playing HU). Then this neato hand comes up:

www.pokerhand.org/

This is a type of spot I have been experimenting with. I know Patrik Antonius does this a lot HU, where he flat calls AK, AA, or KK sometimes preflop to disguise his hand. The beauty of playing say AQo this way, is that if a Q or A flops, I often have his Ax and Qx hands dominated, and he would never expect me to show up with AQ here. So when the Q flops, I decide to play it aggressively, ESPECIALLY since like I said, he NEVER gave me any credit for a hand after showing a few bluffs. I had been totally card dead and whiffing every flop, so I was going broke with this hand.

Again he makes another awful flop call. Like seriously, I had never bluff check raised him ever, yet he gives me no credit and calls with K high. And the funny thing his is turn play where he tries to outlevel himself. He floats the turn, picks up a draw, but bets SMALL. What does betting small do? He's trying to give me the impression that he WANTS to induce a raise. the Dumb thing about his play is that when I DO raise, he doesn't know if I'm doing it as a bluff or air, but when he shoves the turn with his straight draw, EVEN A HIGH BEATS HIM. So I snap call obv, and I LOVE my raise size, cuz it gives hi m room to shove with crap. fortunately he misses his draw (finally).

So at this point, we are close to even in chips, and I'm about even on the session with this guy, despite him running like god. Then the sickest thing happens:

www.pokerhand.org/

So here we are 200bbish deep. He riases, I 3bet with AKo. Now I think the only good hand he has ever seen me 3bet with the entire much was KK when he ran like god against me. Soooo he thinsk I'm 3betting crap again depsite my low 3bet frequency lawl. So he 4bets to AQ. So here I have a few options. I think calling is by far the worst play, because I'm out of position, and having to see a 36 dollar flop with like 85ish behidn or w/e is just awful. So I know I'm going re-raise and get it in. But should I re-raise to like 45 and call a shove, or just outright shove myself?

I've decided I'm not going to fold no matter what. Raising to 45 is bad in my opinion, because then I'm representing AA/KK/QQ etc. and he might fold AQ or AJ type hands. Whereas, given the aggressiveness of the match, if I just SHOVE it in, he might call with as bad as AQ/AJ or even KQ because he will never put me on AA/KK/QQ/AK here.

So I shove it in for 200bb, and he INSTANTLY CALLS with AQ - wow so god awful, he doesn't even THINK about my range here, he snap calls for 200bb.

But he ran like god. and runner runner flushes me down the drain. Meh, that's HU variance for you. I'm very happy with my play minus that QJo hand, and it feel sgood to dominate people.

Anyways, dropping about 100 in HU today, combined with dropping like 60 in omaha where I ran horrible too but played bad as well, means a -160 to -170 day. Oh well, not really a big deal, but another drawback to moving up lol. maybe i'll never get past PLO25 LOL.

With work full time, and other outside of work commitments, I don't think nor do I believe I should play far too much. But hopefully I can slowly grind up a roll - would love to be playing PLO100 once school starts again in the fall, and eventually be crushing mid stakes by next summer, since I plan to not work full time, and will pursue some ventures/.projects probably, and play as much poker as possible to save up for school.