FCP Heads Up Tournament Match Against 84jr-Match 1

For those who might not know, the guys and I at Full Contact Poker decided to put together a heads up tournament in the image of the NCAA March Madness bracket. We got 32 people together to put up $25 a piece, in addition to the mobneys made in the matches. The opening rounds were to be decided by a best 2/3 contest, and the finals would be a 3/5 match. Since this was the first tourney of it's kind for us, the seeds were drawn randomly and I drew a relative unknown to me by the name of 84jr.

All I knew about him going in was that he was also a veteran poster and while I didn't recognize him, he had joined the forum the same day I did and seemed to be fairly active. That told me that at least he cares about his game enough to hang out and try to improve through the strat forums, which means he's at least fairly competent heads up.

Early into match 1, I was fairly certain I was favored. I really felt like I would be able to take out his legs with small pots early and as long as I controlled the pots as the blinds rose he would eventually lose patience and I'd get his money in with him in bad shape.

There weren't a lot of significant hands in match one, as I had hoped there wouldn't be. I chipped away at him and we went back and forth until the following hand happened...

Pre-flop, I had been concentrating on varying my play quite a bit. I felt as though I was up against someone who was probably at least acceptable as an opponent, so treating it as a regular heads-up sng (where I would raise almost every button and bet every flop, just running over the donk with aggression and outplaying them without worrying too much about the readability of my own play) was out of the question.

I tried to give an almost even distribution of raises (always 3x BB), calls, and even folds on the button. It was effective I feel, because I would limp with suited connectors but raise with the trash, limp with big hands, raise with suited connectors, fold with trash, raise with big hands, etc. It was all pretty random so I'm pretty sure he never got anything from my pre-flop button play.

I picked up the on the button, and I liked the raise for the obvious reasons. I made it 90 to go with blinds at 15/30. He called. His call was fairly standard, a lot of the time we went to flops, but rarely past that unless we checked down the entire hand.

The flop of was obviously yahtzee for me, and now I had to make sure to get the maximum value out of the hand. I figured, the way the match had been going, that a check on the flop would look more suspicious than betting out, and although I ran the major risk of him just releasing his hand, I felt that he would stick around with just about any piece of the flop, as he had seemed to be pretty solid. The flop was pretty draw heavy for him, with the clubs and possible gutshots and an open-ender, so I bet out half of the pot, as I had just about every time I raised pre-flop, or every time he checked the flop on an unraised pot. He called.

His call told me he had a piece, which was good for me. I prayed for a matching card on the turn and got one in the . I was about 80 percent positive that this card hit him, as it really hit just about any hand that he's got here. Whatever he was holding, there was a pretty good chance that he wasn't too scared of the 7, and there was a good possibility that it hit him hard.

He bet out 200 on the turn and I just about popped a hard-one thinking this match might be locked up already! I decided to just call it hoping that he had a hand like 78 or a pair and a flush draw, and that he would either make his hand on the river, or if he had already made it would decide to go with it on the river regardless of the card.

The river came down which I was very happy with. There was always the chance he only had something like a bare 7 or 6 and the 5 would scare him off, but the fact that I called the turn told him I was around the wheelhouse on that board so it was possible he was afraid of the flush and the offsuit 5 would give him some confidence.

He bet out 350, just under half the pot, which was very good for me. It screamed strength to me, and I felt like he really thought he had the best hand. I considered making a small raise, less than our whole stacks, thinking it would be easier for him to call, but I ended up deciding that the push would look more like I was trying to take it off of him with the busted flush draw and a pair or something to that affect, and I would get called by the straight or even the long shot of a boat. I paused before pushing, and it took him awhile before he finally laid it down. I figured he probably had a bare seven like 7-10, and I found out later he had 7-5, and had flopped the gut-shot and turned the pair with the 7, exactly the type of hand I figured was most likely, but was hoping he didn't have as it wouldn't be able to stand the heat from my re-raise on the river.

After that pot, I was well in control of the match and took down small pots until the end. I did suck out on the last hand with my 82 over his Q5 all-in on an 8Q4 board, but that ended match one.

I'll get to match two a little later, it's not very interesting, but you will get to see me playing like absolute shit.

Ni hannnn sirrrrr,
Jesse