Heads Up at Aussie Millions - Final

News / John Tabatabai / 06 March 2009 / 1

Wooooow, yet again I have been slipping and didn't post up the final v Alec in the HU champs in Australia.

"This affected Alec and he seemed very tilted that they could screw up a final of one of their bigger side events, I was quite happy to see him affected and hoped that I could take advantage of this."

The match started off pretty normal, each of us opening on button and folding from the big blind, then after a few minutes of this Alec started calling a bit OOP to play some flops and I opted to not overdo the standard 100% c-bet v him as I knew he was itching to outplay me and this would just make it too easy for him. I also limped a bunch to see how he would react, as I saw in his previous match he raised a ridiculous amount from the BB when limped in the SB, unfortunately he didn't do this much at all.

Anyway, our first key hand was when I limped with A6o in the SB, blinds 100-200 and both approx $20,000 stacks. He made it 700 total, and I obliged. The flop came 10-10-8 2 spades and he c-bet 800. At this stage I was trying to work out how he thought I would play big hands and how he thought I would make moves. Here I just didn't think I would get much credit for raising trying to rep a 10 or 8, also the other problem was that because it was the first round I thought he would be more willing to gamble and make big plays trusting his instinct, because if he was wrong there was still another round to make up for it.

I opted to smooth call, as my A is best a bunch and it keeps my options open on later streets for various plays depending on what cards drop off. The turn was an innocent blank 3 I believe, he checked and here I checked behind thinking it was too standard to float flop and stab at turn, also I still thought my Ace was good anyway so no need to open myself to a check raise. The river came the 9 of spades.

The board now read 10-10-8-3-9 , the 9 completed straight and flush draws, also paired a lot of straight draws such as J-9 and 79. This I thought was a pretty bad river for my A hi to maintain still being good, but Alec now bet out approx 2100 and for some reason it didn't feel right at the time. I felt like he was value betting a rivered pair, q9, J9 etc as this is in line with his character of being a high stakes cash HU player, to balance and value bet thin.

Now, the only information he has on my hand is that I flat called the flop and checked the turn, thus, draws is a huge part of my range as I wouldn't want to bet them on the turn and get blown off them by a check raise. So I decided to stick with that line and make a value looking raise to $7200 repping the flush. I was pretty certain this play would work, but somehow Alec looked into my soul and called with Q8dd!!! Not quite sure how he made that call still, but he owned me hard.

Anyway, after this hand I decided to not bluff him much as he seemed way too willing to call down light, so I adapted my game to keeping pots small and just value betting everything.

After another ten minutes or so of play the tournament director decided to change over the chips we were using for championships chips, basically they looked a bit prettier, that's all. After thirty minutes or so when I had the chip lead I thought I had a commanding lead as I had $34,000 in chips and Alec's stack didn't look quite right. I asked him how much he had and to my surprise he had something like $18,000!

At this point, we did some complex university algebra and worked out that there was more than the $40,000 chips in play! Obviously that is standard practice for a final event. Anyway, the only thing we could do was to restart the match in its entirety. Clearly when they did the changeover of chips they put in too many chips. Great. Anyway, this affected Alec and he seemed very tilted that they could screw up a final of one of their bigger side events, I was quite happy to see him affected and hoped that I could take advantage of this.

I was quite fortunate to flop a bunch of pairs between top and 3rd pairs and I stuck to my plan of value betting everything on 2-3 streets and I was getting paid off a lot. The main reason it worked I think was because he was slightly agitated by the situation and more importantly that I couldn't keep flopping a pair in HU, I also continued to value bet when scare cards would drop thus making my hand look more bluffy by trying to rep the turn or river card, which in turn would obv make him think I was bluffing and call me lighter than what I was betting with.

The good thing for me was that with this format there isn't a great deal of time to adjust and his frustration combined with me flopping hands saw me win 2-0 and take down the title of Australian Heads Up Champion!

Finally!! Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice

Sorry this is posted late, I had taken a few days off playing poker to be honest and Dave messed up:), I also wanted a little break especially after a few days of heavy losing at Omaha. What a game!!

As soon as I find a converter for ipoker I will post some of the hands, truly some hilarious ones. I won my first ace hi pot the other day at Omaha for $6k when all in on the flop. I didn't even know it was possible with that many cards but someone told me they have won pots with J hi in Omaha for a few 100bbs. Got to try that.

Now I just have to work out how to win again online, will worry about Omaha another time.
Gl all

kunku

Find John at the Betfair Cash Tables

'.$sign_up['title'].'

'; } } ?>

(1)

amatay | 07 March 2009

nice one fish. Update more innit