HU15: Done

Screw heads-up poker.

I'm going back to my regular 6-max and full ring 5/10 NL games after failing to get close to becoming a winning heads-up player.

I certainly don't like admitting that I'm a HU fish, but it's the truth. It's a big relief returning to the games I know and feeling like I have a positive expectation in any game I sit in.

So what went wrong with my heads-up efforts? Why couldn't I break through?

As far as I can tell, my biggest problems were that I had a hard time evaluating hand strengths against wide ranges, and that I didn't have a good sense of the pacing of the game. That led me to time my bluffs poorly and call too lightly.

Now that I've decided to return to my regular games, I'm pretty happy. I'm letting myself listen to music again as I play, and I'm fine playing four tables, compared to the two I limited myself to HU.

In all, my heads-up challenge cost me about $11,000, according to my records. That's not nearly so bad as I perceived it to be, but it still leaves me with some work to do. At my high point, I was up about $4,000, and it's been all downhill since then.

I hope I don't sound too negative about this experience because I learned a lot about the game and I took a chance in a format that had great profit potential. I won't swear off heads-up entirely, but I don't intend to play HU much now.

A few footnotes:

_ Heads-up play does have incredible profit potential for those who are good at it. My opponents owned me and repeatedly got me to put my money in bad. My only problem is that I wasn't good at it.

_ These HU efforts strengthened my overall game. I steal much more, my 6-max and full ring VPIP has increased several points, I'm more confident playing out of position and I'm better postflop.

_ I have a lot of respect for players who are able to master HU, or any form of poker for that matter. It's not easy, and even a concentrated effort won't necessarily pay off.