Ironman's Battle $$ Boost Blog

Several people have pointed out Bat357's contest blog to me and suggested I put myself in the running so heres my entry for what ever its worth.

My Father and Grandfather taught me to play poker when I was about 11-12 and for the vast majority of my poker playing years I didnt really have any thing you could call a heads up strategy. In fact I played very little heads up, most of my play was live home games and we usually played until it was so late everyone had to leave for work or sleep, then we would drop what ever limit we were playing under and play 2-3 hands of no limit until 1-2 players had most or all of the cash in the game, then call it a night. So I never played enough heads up to really think much about heads up.
That was then.and before Texas Hold em and on-line gaming pretty much took over.
For a veryyyyyyyy long time heads up was by far the weakest part of my Hold em and on line game, I developed a reasonably successful skill set that got me deep into more games then not and had a really hard time with having to stop doing what was working for me, and switching to what was going to work for me at the finish.
I am very competative, especially against my self, and going deep often but rarely finishing first just wasnt good enough. So I was more or less forced to figure out what would work. So as much as I love to learn by doing, It just wasnt teaching me what I needed to know. So I stepped back and started studying, What were the players who were finishing strong doing? What do the books suggest and why? And I learned some really solid concepts.Things that seem so simple now like, You dont need as strong a hand to beat one player as you usually do against 3 or more. Chip stack strongly influances your range of options, Huge chip lead allows ME to dictate a lot of their options and pick when and where I want to risk chips,criticly small and I have to pick something and push with it period.Against a full table I need to play with deffence in mind, protect against being blind sided or ganged up on. Heads up I just need to beat you and need to shift into a much more offensive mind set.. and on and on.
All of that has been a HUGE factor in my current end game, but if I had to pick the one biggest influance it would have to be some of the things passed on from the true giants of the game. The Great Amarillo Slim, The living legend Doyle Brunson, and several others. From studying their shared knowledge and studying their actions I have learned more then I ever could/would have in a life time of personal trial and error.
Doyle recommened in an interview once that any serious poker player study the "Actual Odds Of A hand being a winner heads up" and they are more then a little surprising. Heads up A-K suited will win 50.247% of the time against pocket 2's winning 49.753% of the time.... Q-7 will win 51,777% of the time against all possible random hole cards. and on and on, The single most inlightening thing I ever heard Doyle say was "Pocket aces are still just a pair, and pocket 2's have the exact same chance of catching its trip as Ace's heads up, and A-K is just a high card without help" And then he backed it all up by winning 2 back to back WSOP bracelletts off of 10-2's (at least one off suit) All of this combined with Amarillo Slims statement that "Poker is what you play to get all the money in front of 2 players so you can get paid and go home"taught me that Heads up is something you want to get done before it gets done to you.

I personally agree with Slim about Heads up not really being poker, and I will never enjoy it like I do a full table, but I think I do understand it a lot better now. I play it aggresivly, I work on getting as much money in the pot every time I think I have a better then 50% chance at it. I work to assure that I steal more blinds then you do. and I do pretty damn well with it finaly.

I really hope this is what you are looking for because I would love the chance to turn this stake into enough that I can share it like you are to give others a chance to play and enjoy the game I love so much.

No matter what ,I think this is a great thing to be trying to do and hope to see others follow your example and give a little from time to time

Thanks Bat357 Ironman