Heybude Heads Up Poker Player Profile 

Welcome to Heybude's page. Here you can find information on Danny "heybude" Steinberg's poker playing career as a heads up specialist and high stakes professional.

Quick Stats

Started Playing HUSNGs:

Poker Handle: heybude (PokerStars) Mirttinur (Full Tilt)

Birth Year: 1988

Birthplace: USA

Secrets to Success: Aggression

Heybude's Strengths: Folding, hand reading

Heybude's Weaknesses: Calling, playing tight

Starting Out

Heybude got into poker when his older brother introduced him to it at a high school varsity golf camp.  "We played a $1 buyin, I think I lost money but I'm not sure.  I realized though that you could clearly beat people consistently at the game so I went and looked up poker strategy on the internet and found flopturnriver.com and read about online poker," says heybude.  "Me and my brother Max asked my Dad for $50 in an account," he says.  He continues, "We played single table sngs, dabbled in cash and didn't really get serious until one day when we satellited into a $215 buyin in tournamen ton Paradise.  I think 30 people entered it or something and we ended up winning $1000.  It felt awesome."

"I was 18 then and in school, but I started spending more time playing after that, dabbled in heads up cash and even missed class when there was a big fish to play," says heybude.

Breaking Through

Heybude's progression was slower than most people who make it to the high stakes.  "You hear a lot of stories of people winning a half million dollars in a month or two," says heybude.  "It took me a few years before I really felt like I was playing on a high level.  Of course, I thought I was good, but I always looked back and felt like 'wow, I'm so much better now,'" he says.

When heybude began to think about poker more theoretically, that's when he started to take off.

"I realized one day that there was this vast amount of theory that I needed to learn in regards to how people play hands with each other in the most efficient manner, and how to adjust to my opponent's strategies," he says.  "And when I did that, my mind just never stopped thinking about theory for years.  I don't know what it was, but I was just obsessed with figuring out how to play optimally and it was fun to think about."

(above) 2010 WSOP - Danny "heybude" (right) and Max "RunitTrim"

Max

Heybude's twin brother Max (RunitTrim) was also a great influence in his poker career and in life.  "We didn't mind sharing anything, clothes, money, whatever," says heybude.  "Having Max there was great.  We talked all the time.  We argued, we ran theories and thoughts about each other.  It was a huge boon.  We have a very good relationship, especially in regards to talking honestly with each other and communicating well," he says.

Suited-Aces

In February 2010, Danny "heybude" Steinberg and his brother Max started a blog, called suited-aces.com.  "The blog was just something we wanted to write because we both enjoyed it.  We got a lot of compliments on it, I was kind of surprised by how many people really enjoyed our writing.  I'm an honest person, and wear my emotions on my sleeve and people seem intrigued by that," says heybude.  The blog ran until May 2011 and featured popular entries such as My Battle With Isildur and The Top Five HUSNG Regulars.

PokerStars Game #14779283469: Hold’em No Limit ($2/$4) – 2008/01/23 – 22:56:18 (ET)
Table ‘Lyalya’ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: heybude ($423.50 in chips)
Seat 2: snowbank ($1061.50 in chips)
heybude: posts small blind $2
snowbank: posts big blind $4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to heybude [4c 7s]
heybude: raises $8 to $12
snowbank: calls $8
*** FLOP *** [3h 2c Ks]
snowbank: bets $15
heybude: raises $37 to $52
heybude said, “call”
heybude said, “shove”
snowbank: raises $997.50 to $1049.50 and is all-in
heybude said, “haha”
heybude: calls $359.50 and is all-in
*** TURN *** [3h 2c Ks] [5s]
*** RIVER *** [3h 2c Ks 5s] [5c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
snowbank: shows [5d 4d] (three of a kind, Fives)
heybude: mucks hand
snowbank collected $846.50 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $847 | Rake $0.50
Board [3h 2c Ks 5s 5c]
Seat 1: heybude (button) (small blind) mucked [4c 7s]
Seat 2: snowbank (big blind) showed [5d 4d] and won ($846.50) with three of a kind, Fives

Multi Tabling and Heads Up Poker

Most of heybude's success was playing heads up cash.  "I tended to skew my strategies towards exploiting someone who didn't bluff a lot and folded a lot.  That was hightly successful against most players and I was crushing 25/50 at the beginning of 2009.  I think over a 50k hand sample, I was winning 10ptBB/100," he says.  "I used timing and gameflow tells more than anyone else I knew.  I think one of the factors in my success was my drive to not just play well, but to play perfectly.  I wanted to destroy people.  I wanted to make bluffs that no one could make and folds that no one could concieve of.  It drove me to figure out how to decipher all the possible information that was presented to me."

After his success at heads up cash, heybude played a few heads up sngs and found that all the players were terrible deep stacked.  "I thought to myself, 'These people are just way behind the curve, I can crush these.'  So I decided to switch," says heybude.  "I think that was a mistake, I should've switched to 6-max or continued to play heads up cash, because that was where I built up my knowledge base."

It took awhile before heybude felt like he was a profitable player in heads up sngs.  "What I didn't realize, is that the playerbase in heads up sngs did not tailor to how I skewed my strategy," says heybude.  "These people would bluff a lot and not really fold very much.  And it took awhile to break my habits and learn theoretically how to play vs them well.  I had to stop folding as exploitably as I was used to and not bluff as much."

Consequently, playing became somewhat boring to heybude.  "That's basically why I started multi tabling," he says.  "I never felt like I had to think that deeply.  I just had two thoughts 1. Don't bluff and 2. Does the opponent have a lot of air in his range?  If yes, call," he explains.  "I felt like I could do that pretty well over 5-6 tables.  I certainly didn't play up to my own standards playing that many tables, but I think it maximized my winrate."

Heybude also had goals of breaking the VPP record on PokerStars, as well as a sponsorship from the same site.  But mass multi tabling eventually stopped being fun to him, so he decided not to do it anymore.

Thoughts on Regs

Heybude didn't have a system for multi tabling.  "I just tried to figure out the games of all the regulars so that I could auto pilot them," he says.

He had some pretty sizable "reg wars" over the years.  In 2009 heybude took nearly $100,000 off of Daniel "Jungleman12" Cates and immediately afterwards rented a limo and took his friends bar crawling to celebrate.  He also had another $100,000 day against aguskb, playing $2,000 and $5,000 buyin heads up sngs.  "I got lucky," he says, "but he was one of those players that I matched up well against, he played straightforward and folded sensibly."

Heybude felt Skates was another one of those players too.  "He played theoretically solid, but in a slightly exploitable way that I was used to exploiting," he says.  Asked about Skates complimenting him as a top heads up sng player, heybude says "I think people tend to make absurd judgements about how good or bad a player is based on a few matches or one match.  You really can't judge as well as you think you can based on that little information.  Who knows if it was an off day for an opponent or if he just matches up well against you?  I certainly think I played well against Skates and we played a lot, so surely Skates was in a position to make that judgement.  But I wouldn't say I was the best heads up sng player at the time."

Heybude continues, "Speaking of bad judgements, Isildur is a perfect example of people completely misjudging a player.  He's not bad at all at heads up sngs, he just made some degenerate plays at times.  I eventually realized his spewing didn't make up for the superb aspects of his game and stopped playing him."

Leaving Poker

Heybude left poker because he got an offer at what he describes as an amazing trading firm.  "It was basically a dream come true.  I talked to the firm about what I would be doing there and it was exactly what I loved about poker: thinking about theory and developing strategies.  Except, I'd be doing it with trading," he says.

Heybude also says he probably would have left even if black friday did not happen.  "To be honest," he says, "I got a little sick of poker.  I worked on not being affected by monetary swings for years, but I don't think anyone can not be affected by it."

Heybude has been working at the firm since June 2011.  "I've been working for about four months now.  The only thing that I really miss is the freedom of poker.  And not waking up at 530am every morning.  It sounds like hell and was for awhile, but I'm getting used to it," he says.  "But the weirdest thing of all is not being in 'the poker world' anymore.  It probably sounds cliche to everyone, but playing poker really is a world that encompasses everything that you do.  It's nice to go home from work and just have fun and have a strong separation of work and play."

Heybude's goal now is simple: To be the best trader in the world and to understand the market better than anybody else.  "I probably will never accomplish that, but that's what I'm striving for," he says.