So I guess I should explain myself and my intentions.

I've been grinding all HUSNG variants the past few years without focusing much time or energy on them and the results have been mediocre. This doesn't bother me though, I've had too much real life stuff to deal with to give HUSNGs any attention. Things are getting better though and I've decided to put in the time that this game requires. My goals are pretty simple, to be a reg at the $100s or better within a year and to have the BR to take shots at HU cash once in awhile to see if there's any upside there. I also want to be less of a jerk when running bad. There's really no excuse for being rude in poker. I also need to get better at putting in volume. This last one is a little more than a goal, it's a necessity. I'm wasting my time if I'm not putting in as much volume as I can.



I find my lifetime graph a little embarrassing to look at. Relative upswing followed by years long of breakeven. The upswing consists of reg speed action and the rest is mainly hyper results from the sporadic time I've had to put towards poker.

Anyways, I'll be starting at the 7s and 15s, trying to get lobbies first or sitting players when it looks like a good spot.

I'll try to update this thread regularly with results and hand histories that I found important or interesting.

Thanks for reading, gl everybody.

Some hand histories from my first game in.

Poker Stars $6.71+$0.29 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t10/t20 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): t1520 76 BBs
BTN/SB: t1480 74 BBs

Pre Flop: (t30) Hero is BB with A 6
BTN/SB raises to t40, Hero calls t20

Flop: (t80) 7 K A (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

Turn: (t80) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets t44, BTN/SB calls t44

River: (t168) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

Final Pot: t168
Hero shows A 6 (two pair, Aces and Sixes)
BTN/SB mucks 8 Q
Hero wins t168

Went for a river checkraise vs. his bluffs and hands he would valuebet. I was wrong and he decided to check back his weird turn call.

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Poker Stars $6.71+$0.29 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t10/t20 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): t1366 68.30 BBs
BTN/SB: t1634 81.70 BBs

Pre Flop: (t30) Hero is BB with A J
BTN/SB raises to t40, Hero raises to t120, BTN/SB calls t80

Flop: (t240) 8 A 2 (2 players)
Hero bets t134, BTN/SB calls t134

Turn: (t508) K (2 players)
Hero bets t284, BTN/SB calls t284

River: (t1076) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets t602, BTN/SB folds

Final Pot: t1076
Hero mucks A J
Hero wins t1076

Decided to value bet modestly on turn feeling the sizing might induce a jam which I would have been ok with calling. Had a spewy read on villain, 5 hands earlier he bet t960 into t240 on K 6 4 flop after 3betting. Felt sizing on river could get called by a ton of worse hands.

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Poker Stars $6.71+$0.29 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t15/t30 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN/SB): t1904 63.47 BBs
BB: t1096 36.53 BBs

Pre Flop: (t45) Hero is BTN/SB with T T
Hero raises to t60, BB raises to t180, Hero raises to t1904 all in, BB calls t916 all in

Flop: (t2192) 3 6 K (2 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: (t2192) 7 (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: (t2192) T (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: t2192
Hero shows T T (three of a kind, Tens)
BB shows 5 K (a pair of Kings)
Hero wins t2192

Villain is a spewy one indeed. Luckily I sucked out on the river vs his 3 outer. Losing this one would have been a lame way to start the challenge.

First session done. Played eight $7s, won four and lost four so I'm down some rake.

Here's some hands from the session, just picking out ones look interesting. They aren't in chronological order.

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Poker Stars $6.71+$0.29 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t15/t30 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN/SB): t1161 38.70 BBs
BB: t1839 61.30 BBs

Pre Flop: (t45) Hero is BTN/SB with Q 2
Hero raises to t60, BB calls t30

Flop: (t120) 8 A 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t76, BB calls t76

Turn: (t272) 4 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t152, BB calls t152

River: (t576) 8 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t322, BB calls t322

Final Pot: t1220
Hero shows Q 2 (a pair of Eights)
BB shows A 5 (two pair, Aces and Eights)
BB wins t1220

Villain called super fast on flop so I figured a huge part of his range was flush draws, hence bet bet bet. Even if not for that read I probably would have done the same. It turns out I was just valuetowning myself.

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Poker Stars $6.67+$0.33 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t10/t20 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): t1720 86 BBs
BTN/SB: t1280 64 BBs

Pre Flop: (t30) Hero is BB with T K
BTN/SB raises to t40, Hero raises to t120, BTN/SB calls t80

Flop: (t240) 5 6 3 (2 players)
Hero bets t134, BTN/SB calls t134

Turn: (t508) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets t284, BTN/SB calls t284

River: (t1076) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t742 all in, Hero calls t742

Final Pot: t2560
Hero shows T K (a flush, King high)
BTN/SB shows 2 A (a pair of Threes)
Hero wins t2560

Everything here is pretty standard except the river check. I was putting a lot of floats into his flop calling range. On turn he could have a huge range of hands but I still think betting accomplishes enough. River was an easy check for me because at this point in the hand I was pretty sure he thought I was fos, plus the obvious straight draw is there to rep.

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Poker Stars $6.67+$0.33 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t10/t20 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: t1713 85.65 BBs
Hero (BB): t1287 64.35 BBs

Pre Flop: (t30) Hero is BB with T 9
BTN/SB raises to t40, Hero calls t20

Flop: (t80) 4 2 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t40, Hero raises to t129, BTN/SB calls t89

Turn: (t338) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets t189, BTN/SB calls t189

River: (t716) K (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t360, Hero folds

Final Pot: t716
BTN/SB wins t716

Sometimes I'm just not good at poker.

So first day in I played 17 or 18 games and won a small amount of money. Kind of realizing that the reg speed and turbo HUSNGs are severely lacking in traffic compared to the hypers ainec. I can get decent action at the low stakes for regs/turbos but after moving up I'm just going to be burning money waiting around for those games to happen. I think the best way to move forward is to just grind hypers. Volume will be consistent with these and I'm going to get much better action, the only trade off is that variance will be higher.

Hypers are much more mechanical than the deeper stack variants, which I don't like. I think I'm going to wait until I'm rolled for 25c/50c HU cash before I start to give any focus to deep stack play. It shouldn't take me long to be rolled for those games playing hypers, and who knows once I start playing cash I might move up quick enough to make this switch +ev in time saved.

One of the downsides of switching to hypers is that I'm going to have very few hands to post since pots are really shallow and I just don't find them interesting. I'll try to update with summaries of how I'm doing and what my plans are. I'm thinking of possibly streaming my hyper action on twitch, something I probably wouldn't do with regs/turbos since there are things about my deep stack game I don't want to share. Also I was thinking about my long term goals and I've decided reaching $30k is a good one to shoot for. This would allow me to take shots at live poker games in Vegas. I live in Canada and I've always found the Vegas poker scene interesting. I would have a lot of fun grinding there.

Anyway here are some hands I played on my first day.

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Poker Stars $6.71+$0.29 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t20/t40 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: t1445 36.12 BBs
Hero (BB): t1555 38.88 BBs

Pre Flop: (t60) Hero is BB with 7 5
BTN/SB raises to t80, Hero calls t40

Flop: (t160) K 8 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

Turn: (t160) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets t102, BTN/SB calls t102

River: (t364) 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t273, Hero raises to t1373 all in, BTN/SB calls t990 all in

Final Pot: t2890
BTN/SB shows 8 9 (two pair, Nines and Eights)
Hero shows 7 5 (a straight, Five to Nine)
Hero wins t2890

I coolered villain on the river but my line allowed me to get max value vs the hands he doesn't raise river with that are also strong enough to call a check raise.

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Poker Stars $14.29+$0.71 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t20/t40 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: t983 24.57 BBs
Hero (BB): t2017 50.42 BBs

Pre Flop: (t60) Hero is BB with 4 J
BTN/SB raises to t80, Hero calls t40

Flop: (t160) A 5 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t80, Hero raises to t240, BTN/SB folds

Final Pot: t320
Hero mucks 4 J
Hero wins t320

Villain is a reg and had just lost a 22bb pot the hand before. I felt like this is a spot where he doesn't expect me to get out of hand. It just looks like a really credible check raise.

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Poker Stars $14.29+$0.71 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t20/t40 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: t1441 36.02 BBs
Hero (BB): t1559 38.98 BBs

Pre Flop: (t60) Hero is BB with J Q
BTN/SB raises to t80, Hero calls t40

Flop: (t160) 8 T 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t80, Hero calls t80

Turn: (t320) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

River: (t320) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets t179, BTN/SB folds

Final Pot: t320
Hero mucks J Q
Hero wins t320

Spots like this come up all the time heads up and against the right villain under the right circumstances you can win a lot of chips with these river leads.

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Poker Stars $14.29+$0.71 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t15/t30 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BB: t1479 49.30 BBs
Hero (BTN/SB): t1521 50.70 BBs

Pre Flop: (t45) Hero is BTN/SB with 6 4
Hero raises to t60, BB calls t30

Flop: (t120) 5 2 J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t76, BB calls t76

Turn: (t272) T (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t152, BB calls t152

River: (t576) A (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t322, BB folds

Final Pot: t576
Hero mucks 6 4
Hero wins t576

Turn and river get really bad for a lot of hands that are calling flop and sticking around on turn with. Discretion is huge when picking spots to triple barrel bluff. At this point in the match I had played enough hands with villain to decide I could bluff here.

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Poker Stars $14.29+$0.71 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t10/t20 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BB: t1190 59.50 BBs
Hero (BTN/SB): t1810 90.50 BBs

Pre Flop: (t30) Hero is BTN/SB with 9 7
Hero raises to t40, BB calls t20

Flop: (t80) A 8 6 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t51, BB calls t51

Turn: (t182) T (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t116, BB calls t116

River: (t414) 3 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t314, BB calls t314

Final Pot: t1042
BB mucks 7 J
Hero shows 9 7 (a straight flush, Six to Ten)
Hero wins t1042

Hands like this happen a lot in heads up. Sometimes you're on the right side of it, sometimes you're not. A lot of games are won and lost like this. You can't really give it much thought unless you feel like you made a mistake somewhere.

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Poker Stars $6.67+$0.33 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t10/t20 Blinds - 2 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: t1343 67.15 BBs
Hero (BB): t1657 82.85 BBs

Pre Flop: (t30) Hero is BB with T 8
BTN/SB raises to t40, Hero calls t20

Flop: (t80) K 2 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

Turn: (t80) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t60, Hero calls t60

River: (t200) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets t152, BTN/SB calls t152

Final Pot: t504
BTN/SB mucks 4 Q
Hero shows T 8 (a flush, King high)
Hero wins t504

Leading here is to ensure I get value from hands that will call a river lead but wont bet. For some villains it's very common for them to check back river with top pair on any board with a possible flush and even boards where no flush is possible. They're just too worried about 2pairs and better. Leading here can also induce weird plays by villain, and that's just gravy.

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Hopefully someone found these interesting. GL everyone.

Just quit for the day. Didn't really play much but it wasn't an unproductive day so that's ok. 19 hypers down and I'm up a few buy-ins. I don't think posting hands is necessary, like I said the HHs aren't that interesting unless you like 10-25bb stacks shoving on eachother. No responses to the thread yet though so HUSNGs must be super uninteresting, either that or I'm just boring lol.

I'm giving more thought to streaming, someone out there must enjoy the swings that come with these games. Not too many HUSNG streamers on Twitch though so maybe I'm completely off base thinking that. Watching them play out is probably a lot more entertaining then reading the HHs though.

Anyways, it seems this thread isn't reaching many people, GL to anyone reading this though. Gunna leave you with some Shad.

Hypers are turning out to be a lot more interesting than I expected. There's a lot of nuance in them and I feel like I'm going to be able to develop a substantial edge. I'm playing 3.5s and 7s but I'm rolled for shots at the 15s. I wont be able to play much until after April 1st though as I'm moving apartments and have other stuff to deal with that interferes with poker. This was all expected though so I'm not discouraged by my volume so far at all. Sadly though I wont be able to put much volume in at HU cash once I'm rolled because of the rake increase. It's just not worth the time.

Well that's all I have to post. Here's a sick Jay-Z concert for any hip-hop heads reading.

I'm back on the grind again, finally. It took me about 2 weeks longer than it should have to get set up in my new apartment. I couldn't really play much poker during that time, and it was depressing getting back into the grind yesterday and today knowing how much time I lost. Today was the first day in awhile that I could put in a meaningful session. I played 50 HU hypers at the $3.50 level and won 12 buy-ins. That's a good result. I also got familiar with Sharkystrator. If things continue to go well the next few days I'll move up to the $7s. I'm rolled for $15s so at any time I can jump into those if I'm feeling confident. I'm going to aim for a minimum of 50 games a day. I'm feeling very good about my play, I don't think it will take long to move up the stakes.

I'm going to continue my habit of including music. Here's some Nujabes to wrap things up.