How to analyze a HU session?

[ElSapo]

I have a heads-up session where I got slaughtered, losing about 30 BB in 40 hands. Can someone suggest a way to sort of analyze this as a whole?

Looking hand by hand, I see plenty of spots where I bluffed at the wrong time, but I don't know if this means they were bad bluffs or bad luck. Largely card dead, but I want to find spots I could have won more or los less.

Suggestions?

ElSapo

EDIT to add... I have PokerTracker but no other software.

[MrBig30]

Sorry to state the obvious but probably the best way would be to let a good HU player (thats not me) review the hands. And I am sure you know 30BB in 40 hands could easily be rotten luck and nothing else.

[oreogod]

Thats not neccasairly being slaughtered HU. Unless u have no clue what u are doing that can happen given enough hands being dominated or outflopped.

Example: Week ago playing this tard HU (my main game is HU or 3-4 handed, 6max at the most...even then I prefer the fewer the better). In 850 hands I won 100bbs, almost busted this guy (6bbs) left, he then went on the most insane heater ever for 200bbs, I then brought him back down to 30bbs before he quit. You could say hey, I got slaughtered over a shortrun of hands, but I didnt (I mean slaughtered in the outplayed sense, all this guy had on me was variance and I knew that. At least he was the type that didnt get full value for his hands). I didnt tilt, loosened up on maybe 5 hands, continued to play wel, and knew given enough hands Id be the winner. Sure the cards sucked hard for an intense string of hands (dominated and outflopped 85 percent of the time while you are also hitting sucks).

Anyway, my point, dont sweat it. Its annoyign sure, but that is HU sometimes, other times it shoots the other way for u. (this of course matters on how comfortable with your game u are. If it has problems it could be another story. But almost any downswing that happens over a short number of cards, most of the loss is due to bad run of hands. Sometimes if u play good the swings wont be so great, but add tilt into it and it can get u spewing even more bets.)

Advice
As far as analyzing, if u know hwat u are doing HU, then go into your session. Hit game notes table. Pop open the replayer, hit the arrow that brings it back to the beginning hand of your session and play them out. While u do that, make notes in the Hand Notes box...will u ever read these again? Who knows, but by typing it out, u are doing more than saying, Hey raise that hand next time...u are putting more effort into it. Dunno, it helped me when I did it. Reviewing hands can be a pretty effective tool, and something ppl should do more often.

PS. I have no idea if this post helps, it seems kind of ranty.

[ElSapo]

Yeah, I realize that's not necessarily "slaughtered." I just look at some of the hands, some bluffs that looked right at the time, and think "ok, so maybe this loss should have been less, even if I was cold-decked."

Yeah...

[Trix]

Start from hand one and develop your read from there, you probably missed something when playing it.
Do his range through each of the hands you played, that way you will atleast figure out if your bluffs were good IF your range was right.

Like you said, look if you got enough value when ahead and didn´t lose more than you needed when behind aswell.

30BB really isn´t much HU though, so whether you got slaughtered or not was probably the cards, try to figure if you made positive EV plays instead, it´s what matters in the end.