I played the $20+2 NLHE Heads-Up Shootout Tournament on Stars. The way this tourney works is that 128 start, and you randomly play an opponent. As soon as you lose your game you are out, and if you win you wait til all the other games of the round are over and then you advance to play a new opponent. In other words, it works the same way March Madness does. I'll talk about some of the more interesting hands that I played against each opponent and my thought process behind what I did.

Round 1: 1500 starting chips, blinds start at 10/20

My first opponent was unpredictable but not very good. He would go through moments being hyper-aggressive and then other moments where he would become a rock. After about 20 hands the first big one comes up. I'm in the SB/button (1600) with [9s], blinds are 10/20. I call. He raises to 75. I call. Flop comes [7s][8h]. He bets 225 into the 150 pot. Now after playing about 20 hands with him I figured out that he would slowplay any big hand and bet big with mediocre hands. I wasn't gonna fold my overs/OESD but I didn't want to turn the pot into a monster so I smooth-call. Turn brings the and we check through. River is a meaningless 4 and we both check and he has A3o for A-high. I take it down.

The next big hand happens when blinds are 15/30. I'm in the BB with 1990 and he raises to 95. I call with the [Td]. Flop comes [7d][2d]. He didn't raise that often preflop but when he did he would ALWAYS bet the flop, so I checked planning on checkraising any bet. He bets 150, I push all-in and he folds immediately.

From here on I bully him a little bit until this hand. I get [Jd] in the SB and raise to 90. He calls. He had been folding to most of my preflop raises so I put him on a real hand. Flop comes JJ9r. We both check. Turn is 7. He checks again. I bet 90 into the 180 pot. He checkraises all-in and I call. He has KJ and MHIG.

Round 2: 3000 starting chip, blinds start at 20/40

On the fifth hand I get T6o (3040). I call in the SB and opponent raises to 120. I call. He's raised every hand preflop so far so I make a stand and call. Flop comes 247r. He checks and I bet 160 into the 240 pot. He minraises to 320. I minraise back to 480. He calls. Turn brings a 5 and he check-folds to my 600 bet.
*Thoughts on this hand: I will call a preflop raise with any two in the event that I have position and I feel my opponent is trying to bully me. The blinds are so low that I have a lot of room to try to outplay postflop. As far as my flop bet, he showed weakness by checking as he had played straightforward on the flop thus far. When he minraises I'm not letting my hand go with position. I still have him on highcards because with a big 7 or an overpair he's either betting out or checkraising bigger. He might have a 4 or 2 but I'm not worried then. The turn can bring 14 different cards where I can semibluff a two-way straight draw or make the best hand (3 6s, 3 10s, 4 5s, 4 8s), and 8 more where I can semibluff a gutshot (4 3s, 4 9s). I can't call his minraise because he will almost certainly bet out on the turn, whereas for just 160 more I gain control of the hand and almost certainly take it down on the turn with a good chance to make a draw or a pair.

Few hands later I have QT on the button (3700). I complete and he raises to 120. I call. Flop comes KT8r and he bets 80 into 240 pot. I contemplate raising but smooth call. Turn brings 6 and he bets 160. I call again. River is a J and I check-fold to 240. I wasn't sure if he had a King or not but the small river bet all but told me I was beat.

He's been bullying a bit and I'm down to 3080 when I get 82o in the BB. He minraises and I call because I've been folding preflop a lot. Flop comes T53r and we both check. Turn is a 4 and I semibluff 120 into the 160 pot. He calls. River is a 2. I check and he bets 200 into 400 pot. I had his style down pretty well and put him on a bluff because he was generally making really big river bets when he made good hands. I call with bottom pair and he shows K9. MHIG. I was proud for making a good read and although sometimes I will be wrong in this case I was playing the player and felt very confident in my read.

I get J7o in the BB when he raises to 120. I call. He has been bullying again and I'm at 3080. Flop comes 764 with two hearts. I check, he bets 160 into 240 pot and I cr to 440. He raises to 800 and I call. Turn and river are two threes and we check the rest of the way. He has 88 and HHIG. I played this one horribly so you can spare the comments. Right play would be to fold preflop, then fold to his re-raise on the flop. Oh well. Can't play them all right.

Two hands later I get K2o in the BB (1960). He minraises to 80 and I call. (Notice a pattern? He minraises quite a bit with junk but raises more with real hands). Flop comes [Td][2s] and I check. He bets 80 and I raise to 240. He calls. Turn is an offsuit 7 and I lead for a half-pot bet of 320. He calls. River is the , putting the flush out but giving me the boat. I bet 600. He minraises to 1200 and I raise my last 120. He has [3d] and I double up. The river card was obviously perfect for me but he should have folded on the flop AND on the turn. That's what you get when you draw to a baby flush with incorrect odds.

After that hand I get trash for a while when this hand occurs. Blinds are at 30/60 now and I get [8d] on the button. I minraise to 120 and he calls. Flop comes AA3 and he leads for 120. I call. Turn is 2 and he bets 400. I call. River is a 5, putting three clubs out. He bets 60 (wtf?) and I minraise to 120. I played this one really weird. I couldn't put him on a hand but checking the hand history he apparently had K5 and was trying to bluff me on the turn. I did think that raising the turn would be stupid for obvious reasons, but I'm not convinced I played this one right. Comments would be welcome.

A few hands later I get [9s] on the button (3560) and minraise to 120. He calls. Flop comes [8h][7h]. He checks, I bet 180 into 240 pot and he calls. At this point I put him on any pair, any 9, or any heart draw. Or a combo pair/draw. Turn is the giving me Top Two but putting 4 to a straight out. He checks and I bet 240. Probably should have checked behind. He cr to 720. I call. RIver is an offsuit 5 and he moves in for 1420 RIGHT AWAY. Pot is 2040. I call for Time and run it down all the way and call. He had [7d] and it's over.
Comments on this one would be welcome. Checking on the turn might be better but anything I had read him for on the flop is still behind to my hand. If I was gonna bet I should have bet bigger though. Hearts had good odds to draw, same with diamonds. The speed of his all-in on the river convinced me that he didnt have the straight since I think he would deliberate more. There were also plenty of missed draws and I didn't think he would have called my flop with a jack (gutshot). I'll be wrong here plenty of time but with pot odds it's a good call if I even win 1 in 3 times, which I more than expect to do.

Round 3: Starting stack is 6000, blinds start at 40/80.

On the second hand I get 98 in the BB (5920). He raises to 240 and I call. Flop comes QJTr and I check. He bets 240 and I raise to 640. He raises to 1040 and I move in thinking he got a good piece of the flop (AQ, KQ, QQ-TT, etc). I wanted to make him pay the max to draw out on me and if he has AK, so be it. Well, he had KQ and turn and river brick.

Two hands later I win when my AJs holds up to his K4s. He only had a couple times the BB at that point.

Once you win your first 3 games it's down to 16 and everyone is in the money.

Round 4: Starting Stack is 12K, blinds start at 80/160.

A few hands in, I get AK in the BB (13040). He completes and I raise to 480. He calls. Flop comes 667r and I check. He bets 320 into 960 pot. I'm pretty sure my hand is good here but I don't want to call and see a scare card hit. I minraise to 640. I should have raised more. I'm not sure what I was thinking. He calls. Turn is 9 and we both check. River brings a K and he folds to my 1K bet.

I get AQo in the BB and he completes again. I raise to 480 and he calls. Flop comes 567r and I bet 480. He calls. Turn is a T and I check. He bets 640 and I fold. This hand wasn't big but this type of situation comes up a lot when you are heads-up. My hand could easily be ahead but I can't really call the turn since I most likely have to check the river and fold to a big bet. I could raise but again with my turn check I feel like it's hard to represent a big hand. His bet is so small that it reeks of weakness but I don't want to put in 3K to find out. Thoughts?

Blinds are now 120/240 when I get [9d] in the SB. I raise to 600 and he calls. Flop comes 933r and he checks. I bet 600 and he calls. Turn is a 4 and he check-calls my 1200 bet. River is a King and we both check. He has A4 and MHIG. Did I miss a bet on the river? I don't think so but I guess a value bet could be okay. He's not very tricky so showing strength = strength and showing weakness = weakness regarding his play.

I get [2s] in the BB and he completes to me. I check and the flop comes [Js][6s]. We both check. Turn is an offsuit 3 and I bet 240 into 480 pot. He calls. River is an offsuit 2 and he calls my 480 bet. MHIG. Checking h.h. he mucked [6h].

In the second to last hand I get T2o in the SB (20800). I call and he checks. I usually fold these but I'm glad I didn't, cuz the flop comes JT2r. He check-calls my 240 bet. Turn is another T and he once again check-calls my bet of 240. I could have bet bigger but I wanted to keep him in. River is an Ace and he folds to my 1000 bet. Bummer.

Next hand I get 88 in the BB (21520). He calls and he only has 2240 after his call. I put him allin and he calls with A5. Flop hits an eight and it's over.

I felt some semi-important hands out but generally there wasn't a whole lot of postflop play once he got shortstacked halfway through.

My last two games were really long and tough so I'll do them tomorrow. Comments are appreciated.

great to have you back playing some poker. I was impressed by your reads on some of the hands like the one in round two with T6, your 82 hand as well as the 9T hand that ended one of your matches. Good job making the money and can't wait for the next one.

So before you started this you said that you thought the report would help your play - do you think it has?

In terms of hands, in my opinion you are very passive heads-up. That wouldn't be my strategy (not that I'm a good NL player...), but it seems to work in this particular case. For instance, J7o - I believe - is a raising hand preflop - and anything better would be reasonable for a raise as well.

Care to discuss this portion of your heads-up game?

/d

starstealer,

Thanks for you response. I used to be a lot more aggressive preflop but have since learned that keeping it on the passive side works a bit better for me. The reason for this is because a lot of headsup players that I play against online are simply unbluffable and do not go away easily when I overplay marginal hands. Raising hands like J7 preflop generally isn't a great idea because I believe my main advantage in headsup play is my ability to outplay my opponent postflop - if the pot gets bloated preflop and on the flop there isn't much room to maneuver and I often have to risk a large portion of my stack with medium pair or draws. Ideally I like to wait to hit my big hands and get paid off since most people don't know how to fold headsup. Occasionally when I do come across a tight player I will raise almost everytime in the button and bet any flop, but you just don't run across these types of players too often.