Tinker is back in town

Hi there....I am back. Egypt was great. Nice weather, nice hotel and nice food (maybe the food is a beat now :-). I spend a day more in Hamburg and now I am back in Berlin.
I have to go into my office for a couple of hours due to my colleague will go on vacation next week and has a seminar beginning on tomorrow. Maybe I can play some poker in the evening I would really love to check-out some stuff what I have learned from Collin Moshman's Heads-up book. This book is really great and should have read it from begin on. I recommend to read it in case you start playing heads up. I saw some videos drinking cocktails on the beach and enjoyed the advices from Primordial, Rypac and Crog laying in the sun with my earphones and watching them playing on my ipod. In general I make some hugh mistakes in Heads-up play I have figured out and hopefully will avoid that in the future. The good thing is that I am a very aggressiv player at HU but very often I have not chosen the right spots for my aggression and should give up some hands earlier to avoid trouble in the beginning of a match. The mainly second big leak is to give players credit and even a fish could have good hands and surely a big mistake by new HU players....position, position, position. Collin's book explaines a lot details in calculating pot odds and equity and I really have to focus on that, too. I look forward to manage those leaks in the future. So have to got to work now...See you at the tables...stay tuuuuned.

Holiday!!!!

So all...that will be my last entry before going on holiday. Yesterday I cashed in the 24$ HU Tourney on FullTilt (thanks to BBU for railing and your great support). I played a few HU SnG today and it went well. I am not that winning player as I would like to be but I'm learning in every game. Hoepfuly it will work better after reading Collin Moshman completly during my holiday. I will drive to Hamburg tomorrow and will fly on Tuesday very early. I decided to get some coaching in December and hope that will also improve my game. OK, take care all and see you next week. In Egypt is about 34°C so I hope to get a nice teint :-). Stay healthy and good luck at the tables. Bye, bye...Tinker

My first posting at HUSNG.com

Hey all, I posted the first time at HUSNG. Check it out here http://www.husng.com/node/1418

Getting help from HUSNG Members

To be a HUSNG member has a hugh benefit. For sure to have the access to a lot training videos and secondly not less important to get feedback from a lot of HU SnG players and coaches who understands a lot of the game. I met by chance a HUSNG member on a 10$ HU table and both have decent HU stats and need to improve our game. I sent him my HH of that game and he gave me a good feedback of my leaks and that he had exploited me very well. Another member who plays the 100$ HU SnG limit offered a free HH review in the forums and of course I sent him HH from a game where I had some difficult decisions, maybe some bad play and again to analyse me leaks by an experienced player. But for sure I can't forget my "colleagues" from Pokertips...they are always a very good community where you can ask all poker and non-poker related questions and there are some very well HU experienced players, too. I only played 3 matches yesterday...nothing to say about that except that I lose two games versus a big fish. I am very careful with that word fish but in this case he surely was one. However, in that two games he crushed me by hitting so well and playing so strange. I was wondering that he declined to play further games maybe he realised that his luck will not stand :-). I am currently thinking about to blog on HUSNG in addition or as primary blog. The design is not so "nice" as here but I think the content is much more important. The only thing is that I really miss the link function to other blogs. I think this is very nice to gain your network. I will discuss this with Bryan...maybe his webmaster has a solution^^.
So thats a briefly note what happened the last days and I can't wait to see the HH review of my match being analyzed....so stay tuned ladies and gentlemen.

I hate to be break even

I currently read a forum entry at HUSNG and a member posted that he has a ROI about +15% between 20$-50$ Limits over 1000 games. I am a bit disapointed because I play IMHO very good Poker and I get my chips in as a favorite and get coolered and coolered again. Thats not fair...btw I love that song by Lily Allen :-). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwLLyM3jMMY&feature=related The funny thing is...no it isn't funny I win against good players and lose against bad players and I'm getting frustrated. I had a break even streak over 20.000 Hands at 6max tables, but I must say I played about 15.000 Hands a month, what is not very much and got crazy. I hate the advices stay calm be patient it gets over...grrrrrrrrrr. Waht is a blog worth...my own blog....where I am responsible for...where I can scream and shout but nobody hears me. Ok, things could get much worseI...dont lose...but surely I will not lose, I will not be break-even I will win. What does a player think to go allin in with 98 OOP and he calls my 4bet shove with about 40BB???? What does he think I have? ...it doesnt matter what I had due to the fact the flop came 998....grrrrrrrrrrr. OK I should get down now....The best way for a women is to go shopping....so stay tuned :-)

An almost poker free weekend

Had a lot to manage due to my upcoming holiday so that I couldn't play a lot of matches and met some friends to take part of the non-poker world again :-). However, I played some HU SnG's with the intention to implement my tarining. Had some good reads on the villains and exploited some very well. Againts a station I was a bit unlucky to go Allin with AQo vs A8o effective stack about 20BB and versus the same villain run into AA with KK about equal stack sizes. Thats variance. I did went on tilit because I had the feeling I played very well. The best game IMHO was against a very strong winning player. He made a lot of pressure with 3bets and I decided to limp every button and let him lead out. Every single time he raised OOP and I had to fold. I didn't changed my strategy and therefore I limped with AK to reshove his 3bet...he had A8s and 3 hands later to limp with JJ and he shoved 99 with about effective stack of 15BB. I won that game and he chatted that I was a starong opponent and had a good strategy against him. I do not know if that strategy was so optimal but it worked out against him. Maybe it was good to do not play usual ABC HU poker. Under this circumstance I really was looking for a concept to "fight" back at him and remembered that intermediate concepts of PrimordialAA. That was so cool :-). I also played the 26$ HU MTT at FullTilt and the 10$/5$ Turbos again without success. In every tourney I reached the 3rd round. Someday I will cash in one of these tourneys I hope. I viewed the last two Videos of Primo's advanced concepts and will go on with other coaches from a beginners view.
Today I have to get my new passport and have to buy some stuff for the holiday as a rechargeable cable for my ipod, suncream and so on. Oh well I assume I haven't wrote that I travel with my best friend to Egypt. I will post some picture when I'm back. I have some comments in my further blog and will erspond to them now and add some blog links. Later on I will play some mtaches but I think today only a few ones. So, thats it for today...to be continued and stay tuned.

Learning from HUSNG videos

Hey all...Yesterday was an educational day. I watched some videos and as I wrote I will try to comment on some coaching videos from the perspective of a student. I realy enjoy the videos from PrimordialAA. I have finished the intermediate concepts, too. I like the concepts of seeing some slides with detailed explanations and implement the currently learned into the game. The videos are quit a bit tricky to handle when you instantly go in a match after watching. The explanations from the coaches sounds always very reasonable but it is not so easy to figure out in which situations you can compare it. That sounds a bit strange but you have to remind that every villain has different skills and every hand is diferent depending on the board structure and agian on the nature of your opponent. However, the important thing is to adjust your game and allways keep the basics in mind. That is one of my leaks in the past. I usually play the first games very concentrated and my tendency is to get casualy the more games I play. My second big leak is that I am always in trouble after geting a cooler, sucked out or a realy bad beat. I always say to my self "thats the part of the game" but can't live that really. So, what I have to change? First of all I will play not so long sessions anymore and quit a session after I have the feeling to not really focus on my game. Secondly I will make a break after getting coolers etc. for at least 10 minutes (get something to drink, post that hand in the forum and so on). I will write down a checklist with some reminders and some requirements to always have a look if something went wrong.
One advice what I never have done is to get a handhistory replayer and analyse my one game. I started that yesterday and wow I saw some big mistakes what I did during my game (gave free cards, didn't value bet my strong hands, going for check-raises when the board was so draw heavy and so on).
I am really thinking about to take some coaching lessons after my holiday. BBU_3001 from the pokertips forum currently told me that this has a hugh impact on your game. I still have my some of my 6max bankroll and have to decide if I will make an investment into coaching. Today I will see the two videos from Primo regarding the advance concepts to have the series complete and then switch to another coach to have a comparison. I will check out to get some beginner videos to start and of course I have to see the matches between PrimordialAA and BBU_3001 and the review video thereafter. So, take care and good luck to your own game and stay tuuuuuuuuuuuuuned :-).

Considerations

First of all I would like to explain why I am writing again in English and will continue to the most of my future postings. I am not a poker player who gets lot of interests because of my play for sure but anyway I get a lot of chat when I play at FullTilt Poker from observers. Thats great but yesterday I had to switch of my chat due to it distracted me of my game. However, please feel free to leave a comment in this blog or try to get me on tinkerbell1980@hotmail.com via msn.
Todays headline is "Considerations". What does that mean? For me it means that I considered for what a blog is and very important for whom. Many blogs are related to the success of a poker player, to post stats, hands, graphics, how the bankroll increases and so on. Is my blog different from any other blog? No, its still the same. Now, I am thinking about how to make my blog more interesting and how I could manage that. The blogs I read in the past was of course the blogs from the big poker pros and the great winning players. They did it great for sure. Of my interest was; how they started? did they had ever the feeling that the game is beating them and not backwards? Have they ever thought to quit the game because they were unsuccessfull? Sometimes you can read the career history briefly but not in detail step by step. One of my favourite blog is the blog from Thomas (http://www.headsup-sngs.blogspot.com/).

Why? I clicked on every blog link from HokieGreg and came on Thomas blog. In the beginning he wasn't such a great poker player and struggled a lot with what game is the best for him and played on different sides and different poker styles. He had success and he had very bad downswings. The read such honest postings was fresh air for me and I could find myself in the same spot now as he was some years ago. I read every posting from him since he began to blog.
Now I have the idea to use my blog to show and descride the stony way from a noobie to a pro. I must laugh at myself to read the word pro and relates it to me. My interpretation of a pro relating it to me is to control/dominate the game. I have my sure outcome with my job and I am not allocated to any poker winnings (now I must laugh again...which winnings :-)). I can't give any guarantees that I will manage it but maybe the blog will show up some thougth processes some feelings after bad session, bad play etc. and of course my traning plan/concept over the next few weeks. Ok, that was a long introduction.
What was yesterday? Not much. I had to work and could only played 5 games between going to sport and bying an ipod touch :-). Yes, I bought one and was searching for a program to convert the HUSNG Videos into an ipod version with success. I will be on holiday on 19th October for one week and will not miss me training videos. The converting takes very long and the files for the ipod are hugh. Together with Collin Moshman's HU Book I have a lot of educational fun during my holidays :-). So, in my next post I will come back to PrimordialsAA scratch beginner videos. He explaines very well the basic concepts of HU SnG poker. I will do some reviews of the training videos and post ist here, too. Of course not to critize the content rather than give a feedback how the training video was performed and if I have the feeling that it improved my game. So, stay tuned.

The Tinker Concept of learning - From the ground up

Yesterday was a very bad day for me. I don't really know why due to I felt very confident in my play. Ok, in some spots I made very bad decisions and in some spots it only was bad luck.
However, it seems that I need to work hard on my game and on my skills. So, how can I make that? As stated in todays headline the "secret" could only be training, training and more training to get better.
As David Slansky says for poker that "it takes minutes to learn poker and a lifetime to master" that relates of course also to Heads Up poker. What I did in the last couple of days was that I upgraded my five-pack member ship into a full membership at HUSNG and downloaded all videos. Until now I have seen all HookieGreg Videos and they are great. As HokieGreg also goes into deeper advance concepts in his videos I tried some moves and thought to crush the lower limits SnG games. It might be sucessfull some times but now I have to admit that I made the fifth or forth step before really learning the basics. I remembered how I startet my NL 6max games. Comparing how I startet HU SnG's that would be as to start with Balugawhale's 1000NL 6 max Videos what I surely haven't done. I started with so called series as "Baby Steps", "From the Ground up" and "Coaching Tree" at deucescracked to learn the 6max play from the ground up. I haven't done this with HU SnG's. I saw the free HokieGreg video and thought I have learned so much to play that game. The truth is that I have learned minimal from watching one video. That means I have to do a break. Not a break from playing but a big break from my thinking and my education.My ambition is to learn the game and not only to play the game. So I categorized the Videos on HUSNG into small stakes and medium and high stakes and identified that there are many series from the coaches. I started with PromordialAA's beginner Videos (Scratch 1 &2) and will stay at the small stakes videos where I belong to. Step by step I will not move up the limits with poker but will move up with the videos. I think that sounds very reasonably. I have played 213 Games so far and won 108 and lost 105 so I realy believe that I am not so bad in that game at all without really understanding the game. It took approx. one month to realize that but now I am so ambitious to implement my "Tinker Concept" for sure. I will still play some matches but my traing will have priority for the next weeks. I am sure that will improve my game. So stay tuned to my critical undeavor.

Heads-up is like a Rollercoaster

I got some comments via instant messenger that I should write more posts in English as I promised. Here we go :-).
I played some decent games last weekend. As usual I got some suckouts but I played pretty well. I wanted to play more games but unfortunately I got a cold beginning on Thursday so that I couldn't
play long sessions. I jumped from sleeping, watching TV and playing poker in my bed. I also played three HU Tourneys on FullTilt (22, 10 Turbo and 5 Turbo). I would love to play more HU Tourneys but they are rare on the Pokersites. My Tourney play was not so successful, but however it makes fun and comparing to 6max or fullring MTT's you dont have to change your game, only play Head-up as usual and get so far in the tourney as you can. Overall I could say that my game is improving and I am hoping that it will have an effect on my Bankroll in the future. I didn't scoped myself yesterday but I think I have now 200 games played and I am break-even or slightly ahead. It not that big sample size to make a realistic evaluation of my game.
Thank you Thomas for railing a HU match yesterday and making some comments on my game. Check out his blog from my link list, if the things goes fortune for him he might become a very good professional HU player...watch out Hokie^^. It meant realy much too me as one of his comment was that he had played every hand where he saw a showdown same as I did. Hopefully that gives me confidence to my game in future. I'm still reading Moshman and watching HU coaching Videos. I wish all guys a good start in the new week whatever you do :-).