August results:
 


 
august graph [hypers only]:
 


 
i dont class myself as a winnning player and i'm struggling with some people even at the micros, but here's some thoughts on hypers that i've had over the last month:
 
Variance
 
was running really well in august but then had a brutal two day downswing, including a 13 game losing streak. had opponents all in whislt holding the better hand in eight of those game, but just could not finish a game. these games can really test your mental mettle during a period of run-bad. saying that there is a little bit of ego-centricity in these spots, as when you make a 10bb shove with JTs and outdraw your oppenents AQ you bury the beat as simply the correct play spiking a good card. When you get 'winning' hands cracked you can make all sorts of excuses as to why your are just soo unlucky and never run well. run-bad is unavoidable; tilt isn't.
 
Shove / Fold and Stack Depths
 
12bbs is a deep stack, 15 bbs is a monster stack. this is summat you have to just get your head around. playing exclusive shove or fold at the 12-15bb level is bad. you have a ton of options available to you at these depths. nash is not god here. consider KJs. sure it's an inexploitable shove, but there are hands that we dominate that will fold to a shove but will happily reshove over a frequent minraiser [eg J9s]. i prefer to have a balanced minraise range at these depths whilst also shoving and even limping hands here. nash is -ev above the 7bb level from the small blind anyways. some passive players simply flat too much and i'm inclined to shove the weaker parts of my min-raise/call range against these players and open-fold more hands to keep my min-raise/fold range stronger for when it is flatted. thoughts on this?
 
Frequency from SB
 
i'm trying to play closer to 100% of my buttons. the problem i have is that against decent opponents and some fishy ones i'm just not good enough post-flop to be able to do so, so im keeping my ranges stronger by folding the junkiest of suited hands even. i know this is bad, and the best players ive played against play close to 100% from the off, and start folding only when met with aggression or shallower stack depths. one thing i'm mega aware of is the fact that folding a hand is -0.5bb ev straight off. playing a hand has to do worse than this to be a fold. i'm sure that my skill set cant save 72o from that fate so i chose the lesser of two evils and fold. but a decent player might be able to achieve -0.4bb ev, readless, in position with the bottom 10% of hands. that means he loses  0.1bb in expectation everytime he folds a junk hand readless. if he is folding the bottom 10% of his range then that's 1bb/100 hands is it not? which is a pretty big part of his win rate, non?  being good enough post in order to play more buttons comfortably and profitably must be a goal.
 
Aggression / frequency from the BB
 
Nittyness OOP is bad, folding more than 50% shows an instant profit for your opponent, and that's before you've even take a flop OOP. you have to play hands, take frequent stabs, look for good barrelling spots and 3bet frequent raisers. even if you're not super comfortable doing these things you just have to do it anyway. i'm really working on this part of the game. any thoughts about non-all in 3bets 25bb deep? do we really want to see flops with our KQs? do we keep Ace-rag in our flatting range to keep it balanced on A-high flops, or shove em knowing it's less likely our opponent is holding an ace and hence calling?
 
Marginal decisions and why k-high is the new A-high
 
if you're not regularly considering calling k high and even Q high your probably folding too much. heroing rivers is a messy business but you have to make some difficult calls with bottom pair, weak kickers and occassionaly q-high air. 
 
All-in-monkeys
 
some people are just ridiculously aggressive, 4 bet allin with KT or Ax is done for value against some players. this is where hypers can seem like a lottery, but it's more being confiddent in your range vs your oppenents ranges and tendancies: things that you need to be uber-focused on
 
basically these games are the nuts for me. love playing em, and even if it costs me £10 a month to do so i will just for the enjoyment. they have more depth then people credit them for and i'm enjoying learning.
 
cheers,
TEDDY

september results
 


 
september graph [hypers only]
 
ok I had a really good september, and beat the level i am playing over the whole month, apart from the last 4 days where i ran into some bad spots. some thoughts for the month, please feel free to chip in, innit.
 
variance part deux...
 
again ran into an extended spell of losing more than my fair share of all-ins. hard to say how much the upswing at the beginning of the month had to do with running better than expected in those spots, probably lots. selective memory would certainly hide those spots from my mind's eye. had some really terrible players win all-in after all-in against me, mainly when they were all-in too. not winning a decent share of your oppenents all-ins is like having titus bramble marshalling your defence: you're going to find it hard going winning a game. unfortunately it's something out of your control largely. ho hum
 
stack depths
 
last month i said that 12bbs is a big stack and 15bb a monster. i'd now like to revise that, even. i've started messing around with non shove or fold ranges down to 6bbs. there's tons of playability / stategic options available at these so called shallow depths.
 
bb aggression
 
still haven't got a handle on this regarding non-allin 3bets / isolating limps v  shoves. might be due to the fact the level i play at is full of people who just love to see flops. i still don't have tons of confidence post flop to be taking inflated pots oop against some opponents. some players i think i have nailed in regard to making unexploitable +ev shoves. but i'm always less confident about non-allin moves from the BB. guess i'll have to take the plunge and experiment more with them next month.

 
playing bad players v playing good players.
 
can be a lot more fun, and in some situations easier to play better players. certainly there are spots where you just know your oppenent cant have the ace he's repping and can play exploitatively accordingly. the same can't be said for some players who just click buttons. funny to note also that good players who have an aggressive bb strategy can make you fold buttons, as can a spewy loose passive player who wont ever fold a bb. in both cases i want to take a stronger range to the flop. or maybe i should just be barrelling the loose passive players and winning chips that way. 
 
chubukov
 
ok this blew my mind. there are stack depths for any hand-holding where you can profitably shove even if you turned your cards face-up; your oppenent can play perfectly against you and still not be able to profit long term. this is great for hypers. it doesn't tell you the best way to play a hand [shoving AA 30bb would be bad], but it does help construct ranges. i aim to have a play around with chubukov at some of the weirder stack depths and see if i can do better than i am now playing shove or fold.
 
moving up
 
at the begining of the month i made the decision to start open sitting the micro stakes. big thing for me as i was all over the place results wise, but i felt fairly confident as my b/roll got a nice boost from a couple of MTT binks and i was improving a lot. i went on a big heater for most of the month and earned a little spinnning star on scope for 500 game ave profit in HU micros, 500 games that included a 13 game losing streak. i want to move to the £2 and £3 tournies now. problem is i have had my backside spanked at that level, albeit over a short sample. also the last few days i've not been wining and feel like i've stalled a little in terms of progress. so i'll probably still play micros for the main, whilst adding in a few £2 games if i see value
 
here's my results by buy-in

if i get back onto consistant winning ways in the micros i'll be taking a little shot at moving up. at the moment confidence has been slapped down by a bit of run-bad / play-bad
 
cheers,
TEDDY

the variance shit will even out with volume, but...
you still nees to be able to handle short-medium term run-bad. losing 20 out of 25 all-ins is not unusual and there will be times when every 60/40 seems to go against you. can be very fustrating if you're easily tilted. feel free to post results in this thread, we're playing similar stakes. i'm a very new and barely average player but will be happy to discuss spots.
 
best of luck man.
 
cheers,
TEDDY

***DELETE***