August was actually pretty decent.  First, we did China for 4 weeks. China is awesome. Like, really awesome. Put it on your to-do-list and go there one day. You will not regret it.

Being a pokerplayer in August wasn’t all that bad either. As some of you alredy know, July was my worst month ever. In August i managed to repair some of the damage, but I’m still a couple of buyins away from all time high.

Actually, that was a lie. I’m like 30 buyins from all time high. But hey, who’s counting? The important thing to remember is that I bounced back a little, and that felt awesome.

I’ve also been trying to learn heads up NL with some mixed results. I’m still trying to figure out some preflop problematics, but I think I’m settling with min-raising 100% of my buttons as my standard strategy. Of course, I will adapt vs some random fish or whatever, but that’s what I start out with. There are many benefits with minraising, but the main ones are that it makes your defense against 3bets a whole lot easier (since it’s not as expensive to call, you implicit odds goes up aswell as the value of position. This will help you defend enough of your button raises without making your calls -EV). The second thing is that it forces your opponents to start calling a whole lot more out of position, which some people are really uncomfortable with. Getting people out of there comfort zones can do quite amazing things, especially if you start running good aswell.

Another way of putting together a preflop game might be raising slightly less than 100% of your buttons, but with a bigger size; like 3x. That’s the standard way of playing it I guess, or at least the “old” way. Many from the old guard still opens to 3x, but in my opinion that might be a leak since it makes it so much easier for the big blind to defend with 3bets (If you have trouble grasping this concept, think about how big the 3bets actually get with 2x- and 3xraises and what that does with to your calling/4betting ranges, your implicit/direct odds etc). Just thinking about random stuff like that can actually really improve your game, especially if you lack some theoretical knowledge.

All in all, I think I’m getting a feel for the whole concept of Heads up Poker. It’s quite fun since you play such wide ranges all the time. Makes room for some fun psychological games aswell as valuebetting super light and really owning people. Or getting your ass crushed, but shit happens.

I’d like to stick my head out there and recommending some videos aswell. I’ve actually been able to learn a lot from theese, even though I generally think personal coaching works better. The vids I’m talking about are Phil Galfond’s Philisophy series on bluefirepoker. Go check them out, they will probably do wonders for your handreading and open up your mind a bit. Paying the initial sign-up fee might be a bit expensive for some lower stakes players, but if you try to see the long term profits – it can easily be justified. Galfond is one of the best players alive, and he was the only one Durr said he wouldn’t play in  the Durr-Challenge.

I’m continuing with some heads up this month, and I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. Any recomendations on stuff to read/watch? Here’s my favorite grind-song atm. I can’t seem to get enough of it. Enjoy and take care,

WalmartBrat