Movin' on up...

Today was rather hectic. I delivered two LiveMeeting trainings in the morning, one to Europe, one to North America, followed by a fundraiser for Junior Achievement, followed by my son’s baseball practice, followed by HUC3.

I busted my ass home to make it to the Heads-up Challenge in time for my 7pm start time, only to find a buttload of emails about how FTP set-up the wrong kinds of tables and cancelled the 4-person heads-up I had originally signed up for. So when I finally work my way to my table, someone was sitting in my seat!

After some pouting and foot-stomping, Veneno hooked me up with another bracket that had someone bail on them. That was the good news. The bad news was that it was with DoubleAs, Biggestron, and Donkeypuncher. We had to synchronize our way into a public 4-way Heads-up table, which worked amazingly well. I drew Biggestron in the first half. We traded blinds for a remarkably long time, shuffling chips back and forth while DoubleAs was running over DP like a tank over a schoolgirl. In fact, the highlight of the first half hour was where we traded Hammers in back-to-back hands, both raising 3xBB and dropping the Hammer when the other folded.

I took the lead for good on a hand where Bigge raised 3xBB and I picked up AQ of hearts. I softcalled, knowing that I would push if I connected in any way on the flop. The flop was KJx with one of my suit, and Bigge made what looked like a continuation bet. I put him on a Jack at best, figuring he might try to trap with a strong King. I’m not really big on mathematical outs, relying on feel, and I figured that I had outs with an Ace, Queen, Ten, or a backdoor nut flush draw. So I pushed, giving myself the fold equity if he really did have the Jack and put me on Kx. Turns out I was wrong and he had QQ.

The turn was another heart, giving me more outs (3 aces, 4 tens, 9 hearts). Of course I hit the ten on the river, leading DP (who was sweating) and Bigge to complain about me “sucking out”. It’s not like it was a two-outer or anything… 16 outs. Out of 44 cards. That's, um, a lot of outs. Anyway, I took advantage of my chip advantage after that hand and used my newfound stack to push Bigge out pretty quickly after that. IIRC, the final hand he had K-nothing and I had J8s. I got my 8 on the turn and that was all she wrote.

Amazingly, DoubleAs went much faster, perhaps because he was much more aggressive and I was getting good hands. When I had bad hands, I was getting good flops. The final hand was rather entertaining. I had about a 3-1 chip lead and I made our standard 3xBB raise with KK. DoubleAs promptly pushed. I speed-called his push, and he flipped over… THE HAMMER! Incredibly loyal of him to have pushed in the second round of the HUC with the Hammer! Of course, that would be like the high school letting the autistic kid play the whole game during the second round of the state championship. Of course, he flopped a gutshot straight flush draw (965 sooted) which I had to sweat out before prevailing.

Many thanks to Veneno for all her help and assistance during a trying day for her. Even though my bracket was re-set by FTP, she worked with me and the others to find me a bracket that had an opening. Just my luck that I won it....

I guess my next match is against WillWonka, who I know basically nothing about. If you’re reading this, Will, I’m an AWESOME heads-up player with multiple trophies and tournament wins under my belt. I only raise with Aces or Kings or Big Slick. I’ll fold Queens to a re-raise, and consider small pocket pairs to be the handmaiden of the Devil. My favorite suit is diamonds and I’ll always play connected diamonds. Good luck.