WCOOP Event 38: $530 Heads Up NLHE

Round 1

My first opponent was a guy I didn’t recognize from China. Before cards were even dealt, he typed “lololol pro so cool”. Based on that alone, I predicted that he was going to give me no credit and try to outplay me.

Picking up JJ on the first hand was a dream come true. Blinds were 25/50, and he opened to 150. I made it 550, and he shoved for 7500.

This wasn’t precisely the result I wanted. I generally prefer not to play big pre-flop pots in these tournaments when I’m up against someone I expect to have an edge against, because in deep-stacked HU NLHE, edges can be very big. Based on his pre-flop chatter, I expected that he would be spazzing here a lot and dominating me rarely to never. It’s unfortunate that some of his spazzes are near-coinflips against me, but I’m on the right side of the coinflip, and even a 5% edge in a 300BB pot is pretty significant. He could also have some pairs that I dominate. So I called and won a flip against KQo to win the match on the first hand.

FWIW I probably would have folded AQ, not because I expected to be behind, but because I’d expect to find better spots.

Round 2

In the second round, I faced off with a Greek who was pretty easy to play against. I took him off a lot of small to medium pots. The first big one I won by catching him a 3-barrel in a 3-bet pot:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 25/50 Blinds (2 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) (t7781)
BB (t7219)

Hero’s M: 103.75

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9♣, 10♦
Hero bets t100, BB raises to t275, Hero calls t175

Flop: (t550) J♠, 2♦, 10♠ (2 players)
BB bets t315, Hero calls t315

Turn: (t1180) 6♣ (2 players)
BB bets t630, Hero calls t630

River: (t2440) 4♥ (2 players)
BB bets t1615, Hero calls t1615

Total pot: t5670

Results:
Hero had 9♣, 10♦ (one pair, tens).
BB had A♣, 7♥ (high card, Ace).
Outcome: Hero won t5670

This wouldn’t be a bad spot for him to go for three streets with a hand as weak as KJ, but I’d already seen him play some pot control with one-pair hands, so I discounted the more thin of those value bets. I also thought his sizing was weird, as he bet a larger percentage of the pot on the river, when all the draws missed, than he did on the flop and turn, when draws could still be in either of our ranges. Again, that didn’t seem like the way he’d play a one-pair hand. So with so many draws missing and my perceived value range for him very thin, I picked him off.

I won the next big pot with a bluff of my own:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 25/50 Blinds (2 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) (t8530)
BB (t6470)

Hero’s M: 113.73

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9♠, A♥
Hero bets t100, BB raises to t275, Hero calls t175

Flop: (t550) 6♣, 8♣, 6♥ (2 players)
BB bets t305, Hero calls t305

Turn: (t1160) 4♣ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t555, BB calls t555

River: (t2270) 5♦ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t1555, 1 fold

Total pot: t2270

Results:
Hero didn’t show 9♠, A♥ (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won t2270

My hand is about as weak as it could be on the river, and while I might value bet as wide as JJ or QQ on the river, I think even his perceived value range for me probably includes all trips as well as flushes, straights, and full houses. I also think it’s extremely unlikely he has better than AA, so it just seemed like a good spot.

I ground him down to the point where I was leading 5:1, then got the rest in with 88 and beat his ATo.

Round 3

This is where things got tough. I drew Shawn “buck21” Buchanan, who has several big live wins as well as a WCOOP bracelet and some high-stakes cash game experience under his belt. It was a hard-fought match, though he got off to an early lead from which I never really recovered:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 25/50 Blinds (2 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) (t8149)
SB (t6851)

Hero’s M: 108.65

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6♠, 3♠
SB bets t121, Hero calls t71

Flop: (t242) 2♥, 6♣, 10♣ (2 players)
Hero bets t188, SB raises to t476, Hero calls t288

Turn: (t1194) J♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets t665, Hero calls t665

River: (t2524) 3♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets t2199, Hero calls t2199

Total pot: t6922

Results:
SB had 4♥, 5♦ (straight, six high).
Hero mucked 6♠, 3♠ (two pair, sixes and threes).
Outcome: SB won t6922

I didn’t love it when he bet so much on the river, but I felt I had to call him. Fundamentally of course it’s a cooler, which him hitting a 3-outer that also happens to give me two-pair.

He played a very unconventional style that it took me a little while to adapt to, though I think eventually I had a handle on what was going on. I clawed my way back to even after picking him off with K-high on the river:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 50/100 Blinds (2 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) (t4401)
SB (t10599)

Hero’s M: 29.34

Preflop: Hero is BB with J♠, K♣
SB bets t224, Hero calls t124

Flop: (t448) 4♦, 3♥, Q♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, SB checks

Turn: (t448) 4♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets t298, Hero calls t298

River: (t1044) 4♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets t698, Hero calls t698

Total pot: t2440

Results:
SB had 10♣, 7♣ (three of a kind, fours).
Hero had J♠, K♣ (three of a kind, fours).
Outcome: Hero won t2440

I couldn’t hold on to it, though. He pushed it back to a 2:1 lead, and then I flopped QT on a T25 flop and got it in on an 8 turn against his KK. That probably sounds like a cooler and it kind of was but based on what I knew about him I may actually have been able to avoid losing my ass there. Oh well, I’m not going to beat myself up over it too much.

Tomorrow will hopefully be another long day, with the $200 NLHE starting at 8 and the $1000 NLHE at Noon.