During this project I learned a lot about my skill at the game of poker and how much I still need to learn.  The project started out as me attempting to learn the heads up portion of a poker match where the last two remaining participates of a tournament must play in a high stakes lightning round version of the game.  However, after believing that I had the fundamentals of the regular game of poker down, I had a rude awakening once the competition increased in difficulty.  I found myself having extreme issues just getting to heads up, and when I did, I would lose within seconds to the other player.  I realized that poker is not just about the cards in your hand, it is about your position on the table and when your turn is during the hand.  If you are the last person to play and you have nothing, you can still win the hand with a huge bluff, forcing every other player to fold or call a large amount.  When you are in the final position you are most likely to win the hand compared to if you are in the first position.  If you bet a large amount in the first position, many of the players will see the bluff and call.  However, if you are in the final position, other players have already thrown some of their chips in the pot and may not be willing to give anymore for fear of losing their entire stack.  They will most likely fold as a consequence.  I also learned that in online games of poker, blinds increase extremely fast and can quickly overwhelm you if you are trying to play conservative and slow.  The solution is to tactically go all in, when you have good positioning and a good hand to pick up the large blinds from the other players.  Just watch out for people in front of you doing the same thing.  If you have a good hand, then call but if not, fold instantly.  I feel that due to my inexperience, I was not yet cut out for the fast paced stress of heads up, and I should focus instead on learning the true fundamentals of the game before I search for harder players and game types.  It is because of these failures that I feel that I have actually improved as a player.  Thankfully, I had my dad holding me accountable for my actions in the games and teaching me as I made mistakes which was helpful in determining my limits at this time.  If I were to do anything differently, it would have been to start smaller.  I feel like I bit off a little more than I could chew when I tried to specifically learn the hardest part of poker after only a small amount of practice.  If I had realized that my techniques were far outclassed by everyone, I would have started to improve my basic skills for this project instead.  However, after coming to this conclusion I was able to make a lot of progress and I was even able to earn a spot in a large tournament from a satellite match I played in.  Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come.