Hand 2 Hand Combat -- Nate McGowan

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McGowan raises to $6 from the button with the J J. Villain calls.

Craig Tapscott: Obviously, that’s pretty standard so far.

Nate McGowan: Yep. I’m raising most buttons.
 
Flop: 8 7 4 (pot: $12)

Villain checks. McGowan bets $8. Villain calls.

CT: I’ve seen many players spew with overpairs on these types of boards. You really have to know your opponent and what he’s capable of doing: smooth-calling preflop with a big hand, check-raising a big draw here, and so on.

NM: Yes. This is always a sticky flop texture for overpairs. It’s not horrible, but you have to proceed with caution. Because he’s always reraising me with a big pair preflop but just calls, J-J is the same hand on this board as Q-Q, K-K, or A-A would be. So, I’m either pretty far ahead or way behind already, but I like the fact that he just calls. On a flop with as many draws as this, I’d expect him to check-raise me with any set, two pair, or straight.

Turn: 3 (pot: $28)

Villain checks. McGowan bets $24.

CT: That looks like a safe turn card.

NM: The offsuit 3 doesn’t change anything in my mind; I still figure to be ahead, so I put in a bet for value. This is where it gets weird.
Villain raises to $63.

CT: Sure does look weird. What could he be representing?

NM: It’s a suspicious play, given what I said about how the hands that had me beat on the flop should proceed. If the 3 improved his hand here, it would only be a hand like 3-3, or a made two pair out of something like a 4-3 or 7-3 suited. 

CT: Any reads from previous tangles with this player?

NM: He has been loose enough to call out of the blinds with hands like that, as well as continue on the flop with an underpair, so I have to factor those hands in. If the turn had completed a flush, or he had check-raised me on the flop and bet large on the turn, I’d be more inclined to fold on the turn. However, heads up, there’s enough of a chance that he is spazzing out and will give up on the river or check-call the river with a worse hand. 

CT: So, the plan is to bet out if he checks the river?

NM: Well, if I call the turn and he checks the river, I’m betting a decent percentage of the time. Reraising the turn would be horrible, as he’s folding his bluffs and some of his worse hands, and I’m generally crushed when he calls.

McGowan calls.
       
River: 9 (pot: $154)

Villain bets $128.

CT: You’re not beating very much at this point.

McGowan folds. Villain wins the pot of $154.

NM: Nope. It’s tough to fold overpairs when playing heads up, but I’m beating only a bluff, and even a bad player factors in a flush draw or even a hand like J-10, so a flush or straight is something he knows that I could have made here some percentage of the time. His bet is very strong; if he was bluffing before, he could be continuing on one last scare card, but I have to give him credit. Not every opponent knows the correct line to take during the course of a hand, so just because his line is nonstandard and random doesn’t mean that I should make big calls in the face of this kind of betting strength.
 
CT: Let’s talk about mid-stakes. What level of profits can a winning regular make?

NM: There are some good players who will make six figures this year by playing some combination of just $100 and $200 no-limit online.
 
CT: You and I have talked previously about how difficult online poker seems to be for some winning “live” players.

NM: I think that lots of recreational players who successfully play between $1-$2 and $5-$5 blinds “live” but don’t do well online attribute their losses to bad luck, donks, or the games being rigged. In reality, they’re just outmatched in skill.
 
CT: Did you go through any rough periods in making the transition to online play?

NM: I too had to learn the hard way. I’ve played stakes ranging from $5-$5 to $10-$25 live around Los Angeles. I’ve yet to play in a game at those stakes that’s harder than $1-$2 online.

CT: Why do you think the online $1-$2 and $2-$4 games are so tough? You would think there would be a lot of fish in those games.

NM: There are fish at every limit, but these are the limits where a good player can really start to make a significant amount of money, because of the ability to multitable. To beat these games, a player really has to put in the work. He’ll probably take advantage of coaching at some point, be active in the best strategy forums, be watching videos from top pros, and be evaluating his own hand histories and tendencies in his tracking database.

CT: In addition, many players simply think that because they have $300 in their account, they can jump on a $1-$2 table and tear it up.

NM: Yeah, that’s a casino mindset. “I have a couple hundred dollars on me; let’s go play poker.”  But that’s one or two buy-ins, and it could be gone in a matter of a few hands; you have to anticipate severe downswings in this game, as they’re unavoidable. It’s been said so many times, but if you don’t have at least 20-30 buy-ins for a limit, you’re putting yourself at risk of poker ruin. A recreational player won’t be as concerned with this, because he’ll just be back at the casino when he’s got a few hundred dollars to play with again. I started my current bankroll with a $200 deposit and played the $10 and $20 heads-up sit-and-gos until I had enough buy-ins to move up. At that point, I wasn’t really interested in continuing with the sit-and-go format, so I switched exclusively to heads-up cash games. 

CT: Why did you choose to specialize in heads-up cash games?

NM: Heads-up poker is far and away the most interesting and exciting form of poker for me. Most of my matches play at least 100 big blinds deep and involve a couple of hundred playable hands an hour if I’m multitabling. Every hand has the potential to get the stacks of both players in play. By comparison, most of the live games I play in Los Angeles have buy-ins of 40-50 big blinds and deal 25-30 hands an hour, and playing tight is definitely correct.
 
CT: What’s the best way to improve your heads-up game?

NM: I feel pretty strongly that every player who plays would benefit from some form of direct coaching. I’ve had two excellent coaches, Jason Su and Danny Isaacson, who crush these games and are great teachers. I learned how to play ring games pretty effectively through my own experiences and reading strategy forums, but without coaching, I never could have understood the nuances of heads-up play to the degree necessary to consistently win. Lots of players are not playing optimally heads up when it comes to the ranges of hands they are raising with and calling with; this is where a good player’s edge becomes magnified, and a coach can help. In the end, though, you are trying to beat your opponent with your observations and intuition, which are things that you can definitely develop and hone through experience.    

Nate McGowan is a longtime Web developer and product manager in Los Angeles. He’s also a successful cash-game no-limit hold’em player, both online and live.