Across The Table

If I had to estimate, and poker players are professional estimaters, I would say I have spent an average of five minutes outside per day this week. It has been severely cold in Atlanta, and I have been busy. It is family time anyway, so I can't complain.

I have finally sent off my first wave of applications for MFA (Masters of Fine Arts) graduate programs. For a solid two months I have been carving away at a fiction manuscript to accurately represent how well I am capable of writing. Now comes the exhalation of the process. All I have to do now is tailor my manuscript to program requirements, pay the fees, and wait. I apologize for boring you with the details, but these particulars have been, well, my entire life for a few months now.

Poker, for the first time since high school, has served me more as a distraction than a job, as I have toiled away at my writing. Of course that means I have had plenty of time to try to lose money online. But try as I might, I am showing solid profits online. On. Every. Site. Something just started to click for me one day, I suppose. Perhaps it is the disciplined lifestyle I have forced upon myself of late.

My game of choice has been heads-up no-limit, although I exclusively play tournaments all day every Sunday. I've been having more deep runs in tournaments than I used to as well. I attribute it to a confidence in my online game and the discipline to never ever ever spaz out in a pot without a very good reason. This does not mean I've been nitting it up. I play as many hands as I can justify early on in tournaments, and it's working well. Compared to the heads-up cash game regulars, even the low stakes ones, your average online tournament player is far behind the curve. They play poorly, but in just the opposite ways as live cash players. Online, they just want to bluff me every hand. The problem is that on Full Tilt, my 'Fold' button mysteriously disappears after the flop comes out. I've been meaning to contact Full Tilt about this, but like I said, I've been busy. As is, the situation has been working out so I don't mind.

Lately, I've been reflecting on the heads up matches I play every night. They are unlike any other kinds of sessions online or at the casino. At times you play just a few hands with an opponent before they quit you or 'hit and run', then other times you end up playing someone on two to four tables all night (I haven't had much of this lately). Having played heads-up semi-regularly for about a year now, I think about the format wildly differently than I when I started.

Heads-up is far more psychological than any other form of poker. You derive your edge from being able to understand how your opponent plays his entire range of hands, how those tendencies change or remain static, and sensing when you have broken the spirit of your opponent (at which point he or she either tends to give up or go fucking nuts, at least at the lower stakes). I began playing heads up as sort of an ego thing. Those regarded as the 'best' players in the world were those who reigned at the top of the heads-up ladder and would play anyone. Heads-up always made for the best stories of the poker world, too. First Durrrr, Galfond, Ivey, and Antonius (am I forgetting anyone?) wore the crowns. Then Tom Dwan issued the Durrrr Challenge and the fireworks really began. A year or so later, along came Isildur1 and dethroned Durrrr at Hold 'Em then lost millions playing Omaha. Now it seems we have a new champion in Jungleman12. Being a very competitive person, I felt the need to test myself. I wanted to see how far up the ladder I could climb. It has taken a year to climb the first rung, and beyond, who knows? I feel confident in my game, and driven to keep at it. I will surely update you as I continue on the quest.

When I play these heads up matches, I find myself wondering who my opponent is. You can't see them, which something I'm still not used to because of my background playing live cash for so long. Heads up can be an intensely personal game. My opponents have wished death upon me countless times. Usually I respond with politeness. Last night my opponent I had traded stacks back and forth for a couple of hours. Neither of us was winning much, if any. He began to ask me what I had on big hands, to which I responded, "Right, like I'm going to tell you what I had." This was after he had to fold to my shove on the river. Then, out of nowhere he began to berate me every hand, after playing calmly and solidly for two hours. His words rarely made sense. I would reply, "Huh?" He replied, "Don't listen to me." It was a strange encounter.

The part of it that sticks with me is that he played well for a long time, and if he kept it up, I wouldn't have beaten him out of too much in the long run. But skill level isn't everything in poker, and this concept becomes that much more exaggerated in the heads-up format. In the end, it really isn't about the cards, but about who sits across the table, from both ends. If you know your opponent, and also know yourself, poker becomes much less frustrating.

I'm heading to Biloxi next month for the tournament series. I'm sure I'll see some of you there. Now to finish these infernal applications...