The Double Edged Sword

First, a little HU Update. I had a doubly sweet victory in the Head's Up Challenge . First off, it got me off the schnide (sp) with my first victory. Secondly, because it was against a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Now, I have nothing against Josh. He just happens to be a Steelers fan and I'm a Cowboys fan. Enough said. As usual, it came down to who got the cards and I got them at the right moment. That's the good and bad of this challenge. It's good that we play everybody and therefore can make up for any bad cards in one match. It's bad, that for the most part, whoever gets the cards in a particular match will usually win. That is not always the case. Maybe next time we will make the original matches 2 out of 3 or something. Anyways (and this is the whole point), I am having a good time participating and watching the matches. Now I will quote one of favorite lines for Kipper, Mourn and DNasty...
, , I'm coming to get YOU...
John J Rambo... First Blood

Now for the double edged sword... the chase. I would have to say that this is where I have lost the most money. Not only on me chasing my open ended straights or flush draws; but also on the other people that are doing the same thing and hit their money cards. Again, I'm not a mathie, but this is where basic math has to be part of my game. I don't have any specific examples of this so I'm going to study up a little on this and get back with my results... but basically I use the 4 and 2 rule for figuring out my odds. This is the basic rule that everybody uses to figure out pot odds. It basically states that you take the number of outs that you have and multiply that by 4 after the flop and multiply by 2 after the turn to figure out your odds of hitting your card. When you don't have the odds to be calling, then you are chasing and that is -EV overall. Sure, you might hit one or two and that is where the double edged sword comes from because now that you have one or two, you will continue to do it. In the long run, you will obviously miss on most of your chases and that will cost you.. so that is why it is so vitally important to have the right odds to call so that when you do hit your flush or straight or whatever, you will get paid.

I continued to play at UB last night and was up a little over $283 so another pretty good night. The good and bad of UB is that they don't have very many 5/10 tables so the same people are playing every night. I did get a little lucky last night; but that's poker.