[Editor's Note: This is a 3 part series, part 1 can be read here and/or part 2 can be read here.]
Now we are at heads up play. I checked my statistics for the first time in the whole tournament, and they weren’t bad. We had seen over 250 hands in the tourney and I went to the flop 22% of the time. My showdown win rate was at 67% with only 18 showdowns. I started heads up in 1st place and started to play a VERY aggressive heads up match. I raised the pot on every small blind and bet every flop, no matter what I hit. That strategy worked for the first few hands, but the other player finally caught on.
At this point I switched gears, which every player should be able to do. I started only betting when I had something and only raised the pot pre-flop with big cards. I think this confused my opponent. I made one bad call and one bad fold during the heads up match. During the early part of the match, I folded middle pair with a good kicker to an all in bet. My opponent showed his hand and had NOTHING. Had I called the tourney is over and I win $2300, which flustered me and caused my bad call. In one hand I flopped top pair with and average kicker, which caused me to bet the flop. My opponent called the bet. The turn came a blank for both and the action checked around. The river was a king and my opponent bet pot, which was around 300,000 chips. I thought about the bet for about 15 seconds and made the call. I lost to two pair on the river. This set me back to about 450,000 chips to his 1,000,000+ chips.
I worked my way back to even with some good slow playing. I noticed that if I checked the flop, my opponent would bet the turn no matter what he had. By catching onto this fact I allowed my opponent to bet into me on the turn when I flopped big. My calls usually forced my opponent to check the river, giving me the opportunity to bet and take the pot uncontested. I worked back to the lead and shrunk his stack to around 400,000 chips.
The final hand! I was dealt 6/9 off suit in the small blind. I raised the pot 3x the big blind and my opponent called. The flop came 6, 9, A rainbow. The pot was 102,000 and my opponent bet pot with first action. I thought about what hands he could have and I put him on an Ace with an above average kicker. I went into slow play mode and let my game timer run down to about 3 sec and smooth called. The turn was a 4 that ruled out any flush draw possibilities. My opponent bet out for 150,000 chips, which was about half his stack. I thought for about 10 sec and raised him all in. My opponent thought for a while, which stressed me really bad. I stated to doubt my read and considered the odds of my opponent having something like A9 or A6. He called the bet and turned over A8. The river came a blank and I don’t recall what it was.
I had a moment of excitement followed by a long moment of shock. I sat in front of my computer for about 10 minutes not moving. The realization of what happen finally started to sink, but I had no way to vent the building excitement seeing as it was 4:45 in the morning.
I’ve learned a few things fromt his tournament:
- Anything is possible
- Tight play is the way to go
- Pay attention to the players at your table. Learn their traits and habits, there is lots to be made be seeing this.
Stud Cowboy is a consistent online winner in Stud and is always interested in discussing the game as well as finding those tables/sites that are especially ripe.
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