Card Player Pro

Game $300 buy-in, $100,000-guaranteed no-limit hold’em tournament
Opponent Unknown aggressive player
Blinds 6,000-12,000 with a 1,500 ante
Stacks 651,939 (his); 1,118,061 (mine)
My Cards 10 9
My Position Big blind

Playing heads up at a final table can be nerve-racking. With tens of thousands of dollars at stake, you really need to play your A-game, as a single mistake can cost you the tournament. In this column, I’m going to review a hand that I played at the final table of a major online tournament, and discuss the tough situation that I faced.

We were down to heads-up play. To this point, my opponent had been playing very aggressively, and applied frequent pressure after the flop. To win, I knew that I’d have to trap him in a bluff.

In this hand, my opponent opened from the button to 28,000. With the chip lead, I defended my big blind with the 10 9. Remember, heads-up poker is primarily a game of aggression. You need to be willing to mix it up with a variety of hands, or good players are going to run you over.

The flop came 9 6 2, giving me top pair.

I checked, and my opponent made a continuation-bet of 27,000 into a pot of 59,000. Normally, I would just call in this spot; I am very likely to have the best hand, and a raise runs the risk of him folding all worse hands and calling only when I’m beat. However, I had a read that my opponent liked to “float” check-raises in position [call a bet with nothing to bluff on a later street], so I check-raised my hand for value. I made it 58,888 to go. My opponent called quickly.

The turn was the 4, adding a flush draw.

I checked again. Remember that in my original strategy, my goal was to trap the aggressive player. By checking, I give him the chance to bet his flop float, and make my hand look like a bluff that is now giving up.

Rather quickly, my opponent bet 85,000 into a pot of just over 176,000. I called.

There’s really no point in raising this turn bet, as he either is bluffing or has a better hand and is never folding. With just a 10 for a kicker, my hand isn’t strong enough to play for stacks just yet. Besides, if he is bluffing, I want to give him one more chance to fire.

The river brought the K — not a good card.

I checked, and my opponent thought for a few moments, then bet 210,000 into a pot of nearly 347,000.

This is a tough spot. At this point, all I beat is a bluff. If my opponent had been bluffing with king high, he now has the best hand, and if he had a big pair to begin with (J-J+), he’ll probably bet again for value.

However, in tough spots, it’s always important to break down what you think of your opponent; the less capable you think he is of making “thin”/tricky plays, the easier your decision becomes.

In this spot, I actually didn’t think my opponent was capable of making thin value-bets, and I didn’t think he was very tricky. If he had J-9 or Q-9, I didn’t think he’d make such a big bet on the river. So, the fact that he bet 210,000 made it less likely that he had a better 9 than I did.

Similarly, if he had a big pair, J-J to A-A, I’m pretty sure that he would have three-bet the flop. Good, tricky players will take his line with an overpair and hope that I call them down with my bluff-catcher. However, with my opponent’s aggressive style, it didn’t seem like he was the type of player who would get tricky with a big pair.

As I started putting the pieces together, it became more likely that he either rivered top pair with kings or was bluffing.

Given the pot odds, and how often I thought he could have a missed straight draw, missed flush draw, or complete air, I elected to call. Unfortunately, my opponent turned over the K 10 for top pair.

Now, while this may look like a bad call, given that he actually had a king, the fact that he had K-10 actually makes my play on earlier streets good. I got my opponent to bluff at the pot twice, and had he not made top pair on the river, there’s a very good chance that he would have put in a big river bet anyway. Sometimes, you just get unlucky!

To watch Andrew Brokos comment on and play this hand, point your browser to Card Player Pro, the complete online poker training site, at www.CardPlayer.com/link/Foucault-4.