During the early stages of my Sunday tournaments, I was also playing a few cash tables, and ended up getting into a very interesting heads up match. The other guy was a decent player, reasonably aggressive, and in it for the long haul. In many circumstances, I’d actually prefer to play a long, deep-stacked session with a decent player than a short session with a complete moron, though the latter are much more common. At times, we were as much as 300 BB’s deep, and though I generally got the better of him, he really handed it to me on this hand:
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Seat 0: blingbling MF ($1076.10) – 
– 
Seat 1: urbandb888 ($1737.20) – 
PRE-FLOP:
blingbling MF posts small blind $2
urbandb888 posts BIG blind $4
Dealt To: urbandb888
RAISE blingbling MF ($12)
RAISE urbandb888 ($47)
CALL blingbling MF ($47)
FLOP:
Pot: $106
CHECK urbandb888
BET blingbling MF ($77)
CALL urbandb888 ($77)
TURN:
Pot: $260
CHECK urbandb888
CHECK blingbling MF
RIVER:
Pot: $260
BET urbandb888 ($163)
RAISE blingbling MF ($952.10)
FOLD urbandb888
UNCALLED blingbling MF ($789.10)
blingbling MF collected $573.5 from main pot
SUMMARY:
Total pot: $574 Rake: $.50
Final Board:
Seat 0: Js 7c Tc As 6s: ace high. – Net Gain/Loss: ($276.5)
After I folded, the guy showed me 5h 3h. Even as I was betting the river, I was thinking “what a great spot to bluff raise.” The trouble is that even most players don’t even know how to recognize a good river bluff raise spot, and even many good players don’t have the cojones to try it. This guy’s prior overbets had always been strong, and though I used up my time bank, I did end up folding. It’s really annoying that UB doesn’t have time banks the way FTP and Stars do, because with some extra time to think it through, I’m pretty sure I would have called. The thing is that the Ace on the turn is already a good bluff card, and if you also pick up a flush draw, then with these stacks, a bet is pretty much mandatory. The turn check just makes it very unlikely he has a flush.