Getting Paid in HUP Games

Not been playing much at all lately, then find myself offsite with work and with little to do towards the end of the week and being locked away in my own office with unlimited internet access, with my reputation! Full tilt poker is quickly installed but because I have to get up every hour or so to check the test teams are not in need of assistance I decide to play only points games.

Of course I go on an immediate tournament tear and win two 54 man 50 point tournaments and one 180 man 20 point tournament! I unregister and keep the points, and have decided to make a run at the full tilt poker table in the online store, I have 12,000 points so only need another 240,000!

Eventually though I do decide to play some HUP, first game is a $110 HUP match, I get dealt pocket jacks first hand and flop trip jacks and extract 700 chips eliciting a rather nice check raise from my opponent on the flop with air by making a lovely strong is weak lead bet on the flop. Next hand I’m dealt AK and raise and oppo is dealt AQ, no help and it’s an easy win against a cold decked opponent.

I then play another $110 game against a really tough opponent, Shakey hands or something and it’s a very long game and neither of us ever seem to take a decisive lead. I eventually make a good call with top pair shite kicker on a draw heavy board and my oppo tables middle pair which fails to improve, at this moment my Director walks in to the office for a chat and I close the screen down, pheww.

My Director leaves after a couple of minutes and I reopen full tilt to find the game ongoing, My oppo had been left with 10 chips, had won two mandatory all-in’s and then stolen himself up to 700 chips whilst I was way, he raises again to steal and I shove in. He insta calls and show AdKs, shite I have 72 off! Flops comes Jd 9d 4d and im bang in trouble, turn is a blank and the river a non diamond two! Lucky boy!

I’m working hard on my headsup game, following the example of livb112 (Olivier Busquet) whose sharkscope graph at the top of the page is just mind boggling and shows what rewards concentrating on one facet of the game can bring. The biggest challenge im finding is in the methods required to get paid on big hands in HUP games. I’m not talking about meta game considerations but the actual nuts and bolts of getting an opponent to pay off my monster hands.

A good example of this would be the last game I played, I raised on the button with 4c5c and get called, flop comes A, 2, 3 rainbow. Now in full ring or six max 70% of the time I’m going to lead into this, Im pretty sure my opponent will have to try and raise the flop after calling and if they have the A in going to get paid handsomely. HUP though this would be really poor play, my oppo’s range is much wider and I need to let them catch a piece, any piece so the check’s the option. Thing is I though keep forgetting the differences and I’m prone to some truly horrible HUP plays.

To improve my over all play I’m trying to adapt a much more ‘rhythmic’ style of HUP poker, this involves trying to find my opponents groove and work counter too it. It’s rare to find a passive HUP player so it’s a matter of finding how often they will raise and the optimum number of out of position attacks I need to make and then figuring how much pressure to apply to ease them out the hand when I’m behind and how much I can extract when ahead. Overall though you just have to be prepared risk and accept outdraws in HUP poker and adept to your opponents patterns to ensure you get paid as often as possible when your strong.

I’m thinking about only really playing HUP NLHE as other formats boar me so much, I will concentrate on HORSE cash and tournaments.

Not had much time to do any writing lately, I’m thinking about opening a sister blog for the Poker Bibley I started writing earlier in the year, If I do it will be here;

http://pokerbibley.blogspot.com/

Still really enjoying life, Jobs good and life in the South West is everything I hoped it would be, last week for the frist time in longer than I care to admit my weight dipped under 17 Stone. Mind you this nearly got me into trouble last week at IBM Greenford, I was carrying a heavy old style laser printer about waste height when the paper tray started to slip towards me, not wishing to lose momentum I tried to push the tray in with my groin. My knackers literally got trapped in the tray and then because of the weight loss my trouser's started to slide down. I was lucky nobody saw me as I don't think I could have recoverd from 'IT manager caught having sex with laserjet Gate'.