First things first, answer to my quiz.  Rocket science it may not be, but when you shove 98s in a HUSNG over someones wide button range, you are looking for a fold.  However this time we are called, and our chance of winning the all in when called by AKs is 37% and K5o 48%.  But given our plan is to get folds, we need to make sure he folds enough to make it profitable.  We thought he would fold a lot to shoves, but AKs was still a hand we didn’t think he’d ever fold.  But, we also didn’t think he’d call with K5o.  If he calls with K5o, he’s calling with practically all kings, all aces, and probably plenty of other hands.  This is a wide range of calling hands and really bad for 98s, as our fold equity shrinks down to not much, and since we are rarely favourite when called still, we end up in a -EV situation.

So the answer is K5o is worse for us, because we shouldn’t be shoving 98s if he will call with a large part of his button raising range, so we have made a long term error, regardless of our all in equity.  Getting called by AKs can be frustrating, but you really need to get over it.  We can’t win every hand, we can only attempt to make +EV plays.  And part of making some +EV plays is losing when villain has the top of his range.  If you never make a play because you could be called by better hands, then you’ll probably end up getting slaughtered in HU, and any other form of poker for that matter.

So far HU has been very good to me.  I’m trying HUSNG’s, and am crushing over a short sample, but I must admit my heart is longing for HU cash.  I often run to the cash tables and play regs, which is stupid really, but somewhat entertaining and hopefully educational.  I’ve been a bit lucky a couple of times to get dealt a couple of big hands just when I’m starting to get really stuck, and that’s really helped with my moods when quitting.  So far I’m up a decent amount in both forms of HU, and really feel like my skills are improving.  I’ve been 2 tabling HUSNG’s, but can’t really do that in cash yet for some reason.

If people were interested in the quiz let me know, otherwise I’ll just keep this blog to things that are on my mind.