Hi,
I really want this! I've hardly ever taken part in community promos/freerolls, let alone won anything, but I think the time has finally come!
about me: I've been studying philosophy at uni for a couple of years, living off poker for the last two after starting with the $50 starting capital here at pokertrategy in 2008. I've played mainly NL SH and FR, and some HU.
My poker career has been very messy with a lot of ups, downs and round-abouts, and I've never really got out of low-stakes despite showing promise, namely having a better understanding of NLHE than low-stakes regs and being more creative.
Maybe my biggest weakness has been my mental game, but HU has also been a huge problem area for me. I've attempted to beat low-stakes HU a couple of times, as I think HU is the way forward in poker both in terms of improving and of profitability, but I've always run into huge problems sooner or later. Your vids opened my eyes to what it was that was going wrong in HU and how I was approaching HU in the wrong way: I try too hard to use my creativity and understanding of the game, thinking on several levels about ranges etc, and things quickly get messy and out of control. I don't have the confidence or skill to out-think my opponent all the time, so sooner or later I make some huge mistakes. This makes the dynamics really complex, plus it simply tilts me.
but more to the point: I think a big part of what goes wrong is this: My decision-making based on the ranges I assign is fundamentally different to yours: When I think villain has, say, some kind of weakish, wide range, like some weakish hands with SD value, some weakish draws, some floats, then with some kind of made-hand I'm likely to conclude: 'Oh, I should check here, can't valuebet vs that range because he'll probably fold his weaker pairs etc, and If I check he can bluff/semi-bluff because my range looks like ... because ..., bla bla', and I may well start barrelling or check-raising if I have complete air. Whereas it seems to me that what YOU think will be something like: 'his range is quite weak, let's just bet and he may well try to bluffcatch or float or make some random mistake', so you just bet instead of getting into a C/C guessing game, and maybe C/F with air instead of hoping villain folds his weaker hands.
I've been trying to apply this at NL50 and 100, and it really seems to be effective and give me a kind of huge, hidden advantage over the standard opponent type who is constantly taking weird lines trying to level me, worrying about every simple situation. But I still often find myself in a retarded spot on the turn or river where I think 'omg, why didn't i just bet the previous street?'
limit would be NL100.
edit:
after playing a bad session yesterday in which I reverted to my old habits of making huge bluffs/catches in not very good spots, I thought for a while and I think I realised something important, kind of the essence of the aggressive, simple style: don't try to read/level your opponent all the time, instead you force him to have to try to read/level you. As in: just be super aggressive for value and let villain play the levelling guessing game when he has weak hands. If he's wrong and calls, you get value, and if he folds then it's effectively like you ran a successful bluff. So it's a kind of win-win situation, plus it's uncomfortable/tough for your opponent to handle.
