The Final Four: Antonio Esfandiari Vs. Phil Hellmuth - The National Heads-Up Poker Championship

In my last four columns, I wrote about my first four matches in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship. With an NCAA tournament "bracket" structure, 64 players started, and after four rounds, only four remained, which is where this column begins.One side of the draw featured Chris "Jesus" Ferguson against T.J. Cloutier in a rematch of the 2000 World Series of Poker finals, in which Ferguson emerged as the new world champion after outdrawing Cloutier in key pots down the stretch. What would happen this time around? On the other side of the draw, Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari and I would do battle. This was a dream matchup for UltimateBet.com, a poker site that both Antonio and I represent, and where we play high-stakes online poker.

After beating Men Nguyen, Paul Phillips, former World Champ Huck Seed, and Lyle Berman, I was now facing a different type of challenge. All of the aforementioned players play no-limit hold'em at a reasonable speed, but I knew that Antonio would come out raising and reraising at a breakneck pace. He would try to run me over, and knock me off my game.

I was prepared for the onslaught, but I could not have imagined that Antonio would be playing as aggressively as he did. I'm not a player who can be "run over" easily, but Antonio's tactics were designed to do just that.

We both began the match with $320,000 in chips, and Antonio – after winning almost every pot, either by bluffing me out or showing me the best hand – quickly had me down to about $250,000. In any case, I was talking to myself and feeling a bit of panic, for two reasons.

Most obviously, I hadn't won many pots against Antonio in our short tournament history. In fact, before the match began, I told my wife, "At least I'll finally beat him in some pots today, and by the end of the match he'll have a new respect for me. Either way, Antonio will know who I really am." The second reason I was mumbling under my breath was that this seemingly inexplicable losing trend against Antonio was continuing, and at an accelerated pace: I had just lost $70,000 to him in short order.

I knew now that I had better buckle down, focus, and stick to my game plan of trapping Antonio by checking all of my strong hands to him and letting him do all of the betting for me. Finally, I was dealt K-Q and just called from the button. Antonio raised, and I called again. After a flop of K-6-3, Antonio bet, and I merely called with my relatively powerful hand; it was time to let him bet for me.

The turn brought a queen, and now I had an extremely strong hand: top two pair. So, when Antonio checked, I was forced to bet. At this point, I was resigned to the fact that I would be going all in with this hand; if Antonio happened to have a set, I was going to lose the match, unless I hit a king or a queen on the river. However, at this point I was feeling very good about my top two pair. Now, I simply needed to bet just enough that Antonio would call or raise me with his (I hoped) much weaker hand.

I settled on betting $20,000 into about a $40,000 pot, and Antonio raised it to $55,000 to go ($35,000 more). I then moved all in and Antonio quickly folded. Finally, for the first time all day, I had the chip lead! From that point on, I seemed to pick up quite a few hands, and I slow-played them all. When someone is running you over, it works very well for them when you don't pick up any strong hands, but when you pick up a bunch of strong hands, then it can backfire and you can win a lot of their chips quickly. In the end, my game plan worked out pretty well, but I must say that Antonio is a real handful. If you don't make a few strong hands – or make a stand with a weaker hand – he'll own all of your chips in no time.

In the last hand of the match, I just called with 4-4 on the button, Antonio raised, and I called. With a flop of K-4-3 rainbow, Antonio bet out, and I decided to raise right away for two reasons. First, if he did have a king, I would force him all in. Second, if he had a hand like 10-10, I didn't want him to catch a 10 (for "free") because I smooth-called his bet on the flop. Another reason not to slow-play here was that Antonio was down to about $85,000 after his initial $22,000 bet, and leaving him with that would be fine, as it would give me a huge $555,000 to $85,000 chip lead.

So, I went ahead and raised. Antonio moved all in with his K-J, I called, and my hand held up. This win put me in the finals against Chris "Jesus" Ferguson. Chris took out T.J. when he moved all in before the flop with K-2 and outdrew T.J's A-10 (he hit a duck), for most of the chips in the match. Chris is one of the greatest players around, but he sure has put some bad beats on T.J. in some of the biggest events in poker. The finals were now set, Ferguson vs. Hellmuth, and what a match it was.



Parts I through IV of this series can be found on our website at www.CardPlayer.com.