Hey I thought it was about time i wrote one of these as its something i always meant to do this but never got around too it. Basically just going to tell you my story so far in poker and progressing through the stakes and my goals for end of this year and i am happy to answer any questions to anyone regarding husngs.

I got started in poker through my friends as they had a regular home game every Friday night, I played it just because I liked the social aspect of it, all your friends around the table playing a game and hanging out. I immediately loved the game and did everything i could to get better, I started with sngs then moved to cash and mtts, in between i would sometimes play husngs and did reasonably well but at the time I was more interested in binking a mtt for a big score so husngs didn't interest me as much at the time.

I have always been competitive and I love games in which you have to try and outthink your opponent or solve something better or faster than they can using your brain power and creativity. I always hear players asking pros what makes a good poker player and think there is some magic secret or strategy out there the pros must be using and not telling anyone but I think the core reason and the boring truth is that all good poker players have better analytical skills and come up with solutions and better decisions than your average person and in general can learn new things faster and soak up information better.

I have always found people that i consider to have high common sense do a whole lot better in poker than most people, even people with lots of qualifications and degrees who you would assume to be smarter. Although I think that's because poker is different from education in the fact that modern education is more a process of where you are repetitively told what to think to the point you have to memorize it and eventually after you learn so much you become an expert at that subject. Whereas poker is more a way of testing your natural brain power, instincts, creativity and coming to the right decision in game with your own skills and thought process. Sure you can learn online from video training sites and learn a more successful effective way to play but when your 1 on 1 and in a tough spot its you who has to come to the right answer and trust your read. That doesn't mean you cant learn and get better with coaching and experience because you will, I just think the naturals like isildur and antonious who never read poker books or watch training videos have a big head start and advantage as they are already thinking on a very high level that regular players cant comprehend or it will take an awful amount of time to get too, I guess some players are lucky and just born with a lot of talent and others have to work a lot harder to be good.

I like most players myself wasn't naturally good at poker at first i was a losing player but once i understood the game better and learned the basics I started to win. After playing mtts, cash games and sngs I thought about getting more into husngs as i think it is the purest form of poker and the one with less variance and more skill. I saw a husng stake and applied for that. I was already beating the 15s but I had to start with 7s and each level required 1k sample size with EVROI targets, within 6 months or so i went from 7s to 15s to 30s to 60s and 80s without ever needing a reload.

Maybe its luck or maybe i have developed a pretty solid consistent style but one thing i do know for sure is that my game has come along way in a pretty quick time this year. Every hand I play I am always thinking about my opponents style and ranges in every spot and what he thinks about my hand/ image or maybe he is just playing his hand in connection to the board, in that case I can get away with a lot more and don't have to be worried about being face up in certain spots when value betting. I think once you start thinking like this you will notice a vast improvement in your game and hand reading skills and hands your involved in should no longer be boring as your brain is constantly thinking about your opponents range and your perceived range aswell as the dynamics of the game and the mood your opponent is in and how he may feel he needs to adjust to you.

The big difference with a losing player and a winning husng player is that he is thinking about your range and acting accordingly, his actions just aren't based on his hand strength in relation to the board. I see so many people losing chips by folding out his opponents bluffs as they just get excited when they get raised and reraise their monster holdings not realising his opponent has just polarized his hand with a checkraise and the fact he has for example say top set on a dry board, there is very small combinations your opponent is raising for value so the majority of his range in that spot is just air that missed the board that needs to bluff to win the pot. Learn the way ahead way behind concept and once you use that effectively you will starting winning all those chips you may of been folding out.

Id advise anyone who is serious about poker and improving to surround themselves with poker friends who live and breath poker the way you do, talking to them day in day out will speed up your progression and watch as many good coaching husng videos as you can. But, be careful, i have seen some guys offering terrible advise on certain sites and doing horrible plays like its standard that will end up doing more harm than good to your game.

Id recommend finding someone whose style and teaching you like. I myself loved mersonarys videos the most with how simple and fast he could explain his thought process about a hand or concept he was going over, maybe its just me but if you can explain something in 2mins don't take 20mins dissecting a hand beating it to death boring people when you could of just gotten to the point a lot quicker, some of these new coaches i feel on sites are way too much into their math and there seems to be less emphasis on the instinct / read on hands anymore which really good players can pick up on and its always fascinating to me to hear their thought process about why they did a creative play or made a hero call which doesn't seem standard at first. Other videos i liked are Hokies, Phermc, PrimoAA BernardC and Big tuna fish aswell.

I now run my own stake on the side which I find satisfying helping my players get better with guidance and talking to them about hands etc, at first it was just something i did for friends when they approached me then I thought I might aswell try and expand this as poker is something i love and coaching and staking is something I want to get more into as i find enjoyment out of helping people.

Any questions you guys want to ask i am willing to reply too when i come back on every now and again. As of now I am transitioning into hypers and started quite well but i am still playing 60s and 80s turbos on the side when the lobbies are free ( which isn't as much when you get to 60s, dame those regs), small sample of close to 200 with 15% evroi, i don't expect that to stay that high but my goal is be playing 100s and 200s by December so even if i have half of that evroi by 1k games that will be enough to start 100s. I will try and update this every so often, ask away and thanks for reading gl

ps if there is an interest i may print some pt4 pics and some videos vs regs and maybe go over some marked hands explaining my reasoning behind them

might be cool, just block yours and their username out.

would be interesting to see some vids etc
cheers