PCA Heads Up
I lost to my first opponent of the PCA $1100 heads up tournament. In the best of three format, I lost the first match, won the second, and had a solid lead before this hand came up in the third match:
Blinds 50-100. He has about 3700 and I have about 6300. I limped the button with QJo. There were reasons I limped rather than raised here but they are complicated and I won't get into them here. He checked his option. Flop J43 rainbow. He bet 150 and I raised to 400. He quickly called. Turn 3c, second club. He bet 650, I dwelled for a bit and called. River 2 he bet 1400. I thought a very long time.
Here are some of the things I know about him at this point:
- He is a good player, but I thought I was a little better
- He has not launched a big multi-street bluff throughout the match
- He is fairly nitty
- I believed my image to be a little looser and more aggressive than his, but nowhere near wild. In other words, I would expect him to give me some credit for a hand when I raised his flop bet
- Nothing physical other than the quickness of his flop call
I did think he was tricky enough to bet out with two pair and call a raise, then bet out with a boat on the turn.
6-5 dominated all the other holdings. Everything about the way he played the hand, based on general poker strategy along with this player's unique tendencies, screamed 6-5. I told myself if he had 6-5, that would be precisely how he would play it.
5-2 is only slightly different from the 6-5. The biggest difference is that 5-2 makes bottom pair on the end where 6-5 makes the straight. Often players will check a pair on the end after bluffing their draw, but here a pair of deuces is very unlikely to be the best hand.
After tanking about all this for a couple minutes I resisted the urge to call and threw away my hand. I think my analysis was sound. What do you guys think?
posted by GnightMoon @ 10:12 PM
10 Comments:
So do you put him on a 3, 65 or 2pair somehow....would he 4 bet you on the flop with 2 pair you think?
Was he donking flops a ton when you limped? Was he donking after a RR ever on flop or turn? I could see someone donks with bottom pair then calling a raise just cuz you could be raising anything on that flop with your position
Sorry long response...whoa! :)
I like the fold, Moon. Seems like he mighta had a 3 in there along with something else that goes along with it.
Sorry about the PCA bubble, but it sounds like you played great to last as long as you did.
When you play it tricky and limp pre-flop with those cards, you're out thinking yourself by considering a fold.
Flop bet, raise and call pretty much says he doesn't believe you.
Turn bet confirms it. You dwell and call.
River. Is a semi-bluff with a weak hand that believes your dwell up was real, say weaker jack or 4 or even ace high.
Can't fold that hand with those stacks and those blinds. You sold the dwell as real and got the bluff you wanted. Doh.
This is tough. You have no information about his hand of course...is it possible that he's smart enough to play a weaker jack that way hoping that he can bet you off a bigger one?
Maybe he has J4 and the pairing on the turn potentially killed his action?
His bet sizing seems straightforward...if I had enough time to think about it, I might back off the thought that he has 65...because he'd be block betting the turn, and given his stack, shouldn't he bet smaller?
I really have no idea if you were beat or not (though if I had to decide, I'd likely say yes). But if you're going to call the turn, you must call the river when a blank falls.
The river 2 only improves one single holding of his: 65.
Bet out/just call a raise is a bit unusual for a flopped two pair in a limped pot but I thought he might have that in him. He was donking flops a fair amount though I wasn't often limping.
Disagreed with the idea that I "must call" the river if I call the turn. The mere fact he bet the river (and had bet all three streets) makes it less likely he's bluffing, as he had not made a play like that all match.
He told me after the match he had 5-2.
But I am satisfied with my analysis. I was losing to everything else unless he decided to make that play with A-5.
So...why limp QJ in this spot? It seemed to complicate everything about this hand.
I agree with Jeremiah. This should be a raise HU 95% of the time. Had he been re-raising a ton? If so, then with stacks I can see a good argument for a limp/call of a raise. Also, if you just call his flop bet, you can happily call two more streets if/when he barrels.
I do not think QJo is an automatic raise in heads-up play. I probably limp it half the time and raise it half the time.
If he truly had 52 in this hand (which I doubt) then he played it extremely strangely and in a way you likely could not have predicted.
I mix in some limps with strongish hands like QJ, especially in situations where I don't want to call a 3-bet or make a 4-bet but don't mind limp/calling. Based on the flow of the match and the stack sizes I felt this was the right time to limp the QJ. There's even more to it than that but I don't want to get into all that right now.
I like the fold. I think the hands you have beat are 5,2 and air. The way you described the hand makes me think you could easily have a jack. Very few players will try to make their opponent fold top pair head up. As for what he had.. I think that he could have a number of hands, but I'd say the most likely hand is a 5,3 / A,3 type of hand, but I could also see him having KJ or 65 here. I don't think he had 5,2 because the river bet didn't really look like a bluff to me..
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