Final Table Takedown: Ben Heath Wins Back-To-Back High Rollers In Prague

Ben Heath has been playing poker professionally for eight years, having discovered the game while in college. When he first turned pro, his modest goal was just to be able to comfortably support himself from poker. Today, Heath plays, and wins, in the biggest games on the circuit.

The English pro has racked up more than $15 million in live tournament cashes, including four seven-figure scores. In 2019 he won his World Series of Poker bracelet, banking $1.48 million in the $50,000 high roller event. A couple months later he took third in the £100,000 Triton Super High Roller in London, pocketing another $1.65 million.

Heath also finished fourth in the Super High Roller Bowl Sochi event for $1 million and then earned another $2 million for finishing runner-up at the $250,000 buy-in high roller at the 2021 WSOP. Last year, he took third in the $100,000 WSOP event and fourth in the EPT Barcelona high roller for another combined $1.5 million. Barcelona has always proven to be a lucky spot for Heath, as that’s also where he met his wife, Elisabeth.

In December, Heath added to his impressive résumé with back-to-back €25,000 high roller wins at the EPT Prague festival, picking up another $520,000 in the process. Card Player caught up with Heath to talk about a couple of hands he played en route to victory.

Craig Tapscott: You’ve been on quite a roll. What are a few of the key elements that you attribute to that success?

Ben Heath: I think the main thing is consistency, putting in the time to play, but also studying regularly and keeping that up whether things are going well or not. I think if you make this a habit over time, you see results. 

CT: What advice do you give up-and-coming players in regard to handling their bankroll when moving up stakes? 

BH: It depends a lot on which games you’re playing and the stakes. And of course, tournaments vs. cash make a big difference. If you’re playing very soft live cash games and you have a high win rate, I think you can be very aggressive with taking shots at higher stakes when there’s a good game on. In the worst-case scenario, you can move back down and keep grinding it up again.

If you’re playing low-stakes, big field multi-table tournaments, you need to be more careful and have a lot of buy-ins for the stake you want to play as the variance is so high. You can still take shots, but I’d be more cautious about which games to do that in and how often you do it. You can move up slowly as your bankroll and skill level progress, which will probably be the best move for most players. 

CT: What were some of the early struggles you had with your game? 

BH: When I first started, I was playing both tournaments and cash. While I think it helped me learn different concepts and improve at poker overall, I also think it made progress at each of them slower than it would have been if I’d just focused on one.

Also, when I first started there were a lot fewer ways to study. The solvers weren’t around yet, so it was talking a lot about hands and thinking about different lines and ways to play a good overall strategy. But playing a lot also led me to learn through doing and without solid ways to study that seemed like the better option often.

I ended up playing a lot more than studying, which I think was the same for most people back then and probably now, too. I don’t think I’m as suited to that style of learning. But now I enjoy being able to study a lot when I’m not playing.

I also struggled with losing when I first started. Playing in a game with so much variance and then also trying to move up stakes relatively fast meant there was a lot of losing and looking back. I was definitely playing some games I wasn’t winning in. As a very competitive person, that was tough at first. Gradually, I got better at accepting it as part of poker and learning to push through and not worry too much about the short-term results. I learned how to focus more on the big picture. 

CT: Once you started competing in more high rollers on the circuit, what were some of your challenges? Was the transition to that level easy or hard for you?  

BH: It was definitely a challenge to move up and play the high rollers regularly. Moving up to any new stake is challenging, but there are things that can make it easier when you’re playing to low or mid-stakes, for example getting a coach who plays those stakes or higher can help you build a strategy that wins. Another way is to watch content from winning players, which there is generally more of out there for low and mid-stakes.

Once you’re playing the higher games, the players in those stakes generally won’t coach you to help you beat the games they’re playing. What happens is you are kind of on your own, making it very tough.

Another difficult part of it is that even when you get to be a winning player, at first, you’ll be on the lower end of the pros in the game. And given edges are already small, you could be looking at tiny edges in the high-variance games. Coming into this high-stakes environment it’s tough getting used to the swings. It can be rough having to always play against tough fields. Whereas before, I’d been playing some tough games but then also a lot of games where I had a very high edge which helped with the overall variance.

Event: €25,000 EPT Prague High Roller
Buy-In: $26,345 
Entrants: 22 
Prize Pool: $554,631 
First-Place Prize: $238,487  

The Hand

Stacks: Ben Heath – 955,000 (24 BB) Alex Kulev – 1,245,000 (31 BB)
Blinds: 20,000-40,000 with a 40,000 big blind ante
Players Remaining: 2 
Heath limps in from the button holding K 9.  

Craig Tapscott: Set the hand up for us. 

Ben Heath: I’m heads-up vs. a good aggressive pro. I limped the button with K-9 offsuit which I think is the standard play, although a raise would be fine too.  

CT: Did you come into heads-up play with a plan of attack? 

BH: Not really. I have played this player before but never heads-up. And since we mostly play 6-8 handed it’s hard to know how someone will play heads-up. It’s more just trying to play well and quickly figure out how someone’s playing. 

Kulev raised to 160,000. Heath called.  
BH: I called which was my only option really.  
Flop: K 6 6
Kulev bet 70,000. 

BH: He bet about 20 percent of the pot. I expected this continuation bet often from him here. I could have called or raised, but I didn’t think my hand needed much protection and the stacks were short enough to get all-in by the river easily if he checked the turn to me. So… 

Heath called. 
Turn: 8
Kulev checked. 

CT: What was the best way to proceed now? 

BH: I could bet for value now, check back to value-shove the river if he checks again, or raise all-in if he bets small on the river. I think it’s a very close decision and would want to do some of both. This time I decided to bet. 

Heath bet 165,000. Kulev called.
River: 5 (pot: 790,000) 
Kulev checked. 

BH: I had around 66 percent pot left and chose to… 

Heath shoved all in. Kulev called and revealed A 4. Heath won the pot of 1,910,000.

CT: What did you make of that call from him in that particular spot? 

BH: It seemed good from him in the long term, but not this time. Ranges are very wide in heads-up play so in a lot of situations you must make some stubborn calls, otherwise, you’ll get run over by someone playing aggressively like they’re meant to. This pot gave me a huge chip lead and I won the event shortly after this hand. 

CT: What do you think players can learn from this hand?  

BH: I think heads-up you have to be aware of how wide ranges are and get used to playing preflop, while also value betting/calling down worse hands than you would at a full-ring game.   

CT: What’s your advice on how to deal with very aggressive players when it gets down to heads-up play?  

BH: In a heads-up match it’s tough to play well. It’s quite different from the eight- or nine-handed play most tournament players are used to. Good heads-up players will be aggressive and put you to the test a lot. That can be tough to navigate if you don’t have much experience with that format and play style. My best advice would be to take some time to practice or study heads-up when you can, and not just wing it when you do to make it to the final two in any event. 

Event: €25,000 EPT Prague High Roller
Buy-In: $26,345 
Entrants: 30 
Prize Pool: $756,315 
First-Place Prize: $287,396  

The Hand

Stacks: Ben Heath – 280,000 (35 BB) Villain – 450,000 (56 BB) 
Blinds: 4,000-8,000 with an 8,000 big blind ante
Players Remaining: 12 

BH: We were six-handed with two tables left. The big blind covered me. 
Heath raised to 16,000 holding K 10 from the button. Villain called from the big blind. 

Flop: J 6 2

CT: Did you have any read on the Villain? 

BH: The player who called is a very good professional player. 

Villain checked. Heath bet 11,000. Villain called.

BH: He can still have a very wide range of hands, pairs, some good ace-high or king-high type hands, or flush and straight draws too. He may have some traps here, but mostly it will be draws and mid-strength holdings. 

Turn: Q

Villain checked. Heath bet 33,000, and Villain check-raised to 90,000. Heath called. 

BH: If it was against some very tight opponents this would already be a bad situation, but against a good aggressive pro this is an easy call. We make our hand on a lot of rivers and even when we don’t if they check we have a good opportunity to bluff and win the pot that way.

River: J
Villain checked. 

CT: Did you expect your opponent to continue their aggression? How did you read this check?

BH: Well, I thought hands like 6-5 suited are somewhat likely here once he checked, or maybe a hand like A 8×. At this point, I thought my hand was a mandatory bluff. So I..

Heath shoved all in and Villain folded. Heath won the pot of 242,000.

CT: Nice hand. ♠