At the first part of our introduction to Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos (HUHT) we outlined the advantages and disadvantages of this format and dispelled both most common myths, being a luck-based or all-purpose game.
In this second part we’ll look at the anatomy of a successful HUHT player and learn more about the characteristics most important to success in these games.
Anatomy of a Successful Heads-Up Hyper-Turbo Player
Success, of course, comes in many distinct forms. But having been fortunate enough to spend a considerable amount of time with some of the finest HU SNG players on earth, I immediately noticed how they were in quite particular ways.
Before researching those, however, I want to stress the characteristics outline below are all, of course, not unique to HUHT players. But they do appear to be particularly magnified in them in a manner that I feel worth a deeper exploration. So here we go! (It is suggested to try on 온라인홀덤 first.)
1) Love & Passion
Whether their motivation was driven by a love of contest, cash, or working towards mastery of a exceptional skill-set, effective HUHT players are amazingly passionate about whatever aspect of this game is most important to them.
They spend their days and nights thinking about it, about how to attain their goals, how to achieve them more quickly, and more optimally. And, of course, they need to!
To estimate Mark Cuban”you’ve got to work like there’s someone working 24 hours a day to take it away from you.”
Nowhere is this more true than in HUHTs, where there are people waiting to fight you for reception control literally round the clock. If you don’t have a similar passion for some component of the sport, whatever it may be for you, it is going to be quite tough to sustain the identical drive and enthusiasm as your competitors will throughout the long dreary times that are unavoidable in a game-format with so much short-term volatility.
2) A Willingness to Produce Study a Priority
Another trait that is very common among successful poker players in general, but one which is absolutely critical in the hyperturbo format in which leaks can be found, exploited and capitalized-on so quickly it can leave you dazed, confused and down 15 buy-ins in half a session with no idea where you are or what exactly happened. Sort of like waking up having a world-class hangover once you did not even get to get a drink. Definitely not a fun time.
Because, of course, when you don’t have the time to reassess hands, to work with a equity calculator, to see movies, to find training, how do you expect to compete against a player who does?
You can’t.
The good news however is that improving your game has never been simpler. Or more fun. When it’s through the Upswing Poker Twitch Stream, the impressive increase in caliber of poker educational video articles, or the development of incredible study tools such as pt4 and any of the favorite equity calculators, the key is to find the analysis format that’s most appropriate for your own personality and continuously work to improve.
3) Patience
This isn’t so much about locating patience within each game or perhaps session, though that is clearly important, but rather about being patient with yourself as you journey through the learning process.
In a format such as Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos where finding the optimal solution for many scenarios is as straightforward as running an equity calculation, there are infinite opportunities to find just how much you do not understand!
Mixing the inherent unwillingness to fail with a grounded understanding that the only kind of actual failure is failing to improve is an integral component of the body of a successful Heads-Up Hyper-Turbo participant.
“If you return at a’good session’ and believe you have just made 1-2 mistakes, frankly… you’re being delusional.” ~Phil Galfond
4) Emotional control
This is still another quality that is present in many successful poker players, irrespective of their preferred game-format, particularly in this time of hyper awareness regarding its significance. However, anyone transitioning to the HU Hyper-Turbo games, especially from MTTs or even cash-games, is likely going to have their own definition of a bad day at the tables redefined exceptionally fast.
It is difficult to genuinely appreciate the viciousness of variance until you’ve been on the extreme wrong end of a 200 game session at which every flip, each single cooler, every bad defeat, hand after hand, game after game, all seem to go against you in a means that can leave you questioning its mathematical possibility. And, obviously, that’s just one bad day. Downswings don’t endure a day, sadly.
Even as somebody who’d dedicated an enormous amount of effort to improving my own poker mindset and helping others do the same, I still often had to double and triple it while enjoying heads-up hypers. Luckily, having to spend time with such a powerful group of successful professionals, I managed to see firsthand that, barring a select few notable exceptions, having emotional control was not about never experiencing negative emotions, but rather about never allowing the impulses that those emotions activate take hold.
The very best on earth still swore in their track such as the rest of us, they still complained after an especially bad month or week, they , on occasion, questioned how big their advantage. But while they were at the table, when they were in the throngs of this grind, not one of that sound existed.
You can see it in their eyes, hear it in their voice; you can feel it if they’d sit up in their seat following a demanding beat and scoot closer to the screen in a gorgeous subconscious statement of elegance and optimism. They may be experiencing sub-optimal emotions, but those feelings are constantly utilized to fuel their fire in a way which allows them to keep on chasing their dreams, not move them further away from them, as is frequently the case once we lose control.
5) Bankroll Management Skills
I know, I know, you don’t need yet another poker player stressing the importance of not blowing your roll in a single session but in such games particularly, the allure of chasing losses from doubling-down (aka going up in limits), or perhaps just by clicking the rematch button a few too many times against a”bass” who may or may not actually be a highly talented and well-trained reg seeing throughout your play like Neo in one of the best movie endings of all time…
Luckily as you work to develop your emotional control at the table, you will quickly develop a certain”space” from the harmful emotions which are at play when you are tempted to make a poor decision which will allow you to think about the bankroll consequences of your activities and make a smart choice about whether to give up the session or keep playing.
6) Balancing — Consider Your”Opposite” Range
Since this list is somewhat theoretical in character, I wanted to include a minumum of one tangible concept that you could walk away with now and instantly apply to your game, so here it is.
Quite early on I discovered that if I asked for feedback on a hand out of one of those incredibly talented poker players, the very first question I would hear, together with near perfect synchronicity, was a variation of”What value/bluffs have you got in this circumstance?” , in which the question was always asked about the other side of the activity being discussed.
Therefore, by Way of Example,when looking at a flop check-raise bluffing chance, the very first question will always be:
“What do you check-raise for value?”
Or if discussing the sustainability of a flop continuation-bet:
“What do you check-back there?”
When I asked myself why this question in particular seemed to be the launching point for everybody else, the answer soon became clear. By defining our”reverse” range (not a true term!) In every circumstance, we specify exactly how wide we can be without risking becoming exploited. Because if the answer in a specific place, for example, is”I never/rarely check-raise value here”, then you can probably find better a spot to bluff also.
And as you can see from this example, before considering hand choice, stack dimensions, opponent type, or any of the other thousand and one things we can ask about before determining how to move, we were instantly able to achieve a solution and save a significant amount of time and psychological energy we could be using to extract max value in a spot we may have otherwise missed on another table.
Easy game, right?
