Heads up Cash coming along

It was a great opportunity for me to look at poker through different eyes after reading that I shouldn't be afraid of short handed and heads up play. Loosely phrased it said "In heads up there are generally fewer miracle cards, and to a very large extent the best player will win the day" and it struck a chord.

The key to what makes my game, my game is an ability to read marginal situations very well. The down side to that is that I tend to know I am good now... and put too much on that. It was very, very common for me to put someone on a draw early in the hand and hammer that pot. The pro here is it made for a bad call, the con here is that it made players that are used to deep stack play, salivate. Couple that with playing above my limits and bam, recipe for "the best break even poker player on the net" (meant in jest of course).

The math I had not done before now showed me the simple truth that hands tend to hold up much better short handed and heads up. Now, with fewer bad beats (or what I used to think as as a bad beat: anyone who called against odds on me and hit) I am more able to play my marginal game and come out ahead.

As I write this I am sitting at a full ring game table where I was outplayed on two hands nicely and was down 25% of my stack (50 cent table, so not big dollars mind you). As the table disintegrated around me, I realized I was in an optimal situation. The remaining four players, two of which were up nicely and just didn't want to leave the nice session they were having, were, I could suppose not short handed players. For the most part short handed players are a different crew and rarely will you see the same faces at full ring games.

Having realized this I put my game face on, and went to work. Shortly after the two players that were up nicely were even and I was up nicely. They left to be replaced by two more, and it kept on going. Interestingly enough I found that the full table guys, even some that I respect, were out of their element.

I am sitting there alone now. The last five players that sat down with me (short stack buyins mostly) have all gone home empty handed, and some of them with two or three re-loads.

There is a lot here to think about for my table selection, but I have had a fantastic session. All of the wins have come from the marginal hands. I have had, 0 full houses, 1 set, 1 flush, 1 two pair, and better yet no miracle rivers going either way. I have made 1 bad call for 4$ not a huge deal so my reads have been bang on.

Well I better get on my flight. The friendly West Jet agent just paged me as "the guy playing poker in front of me it's time to get on the flight :)"

I better take my quadruple up table and close it down... but I will thinking about this session the whole way on my flight.

--Felter