Heads Up Challenge, the preview...

So, as those of you who are part of the Elite Poker Community are probably well aware by all our trash talk, a good friend of mine, Alex, has challenged me to a heads up match(actually best 2 of 3), with prop bet stakes.

Him being a die hard fan of the Leafs, and myself a die hard Habs fan, the prop bet is simply the loser has to wear the winner's hockey jersey(he owns a Darcy Tucker Leafs jersey, I own a Carey Price Habs jersey) to an event.

Time to up the ante, I'm going to use this spot to publicly re-issue the challenge with a date, time, and overall overview of the challenge as I see it now :

Date : Sunday, September 16th, The Collin's Brewhouse, prior to the event there at noon.
Time : This we'll have to work out in some more detail, I'm figuring 10am or in that range. They make a breakfast so we can grab breakfast and then head down for the game.
Stakes : Upped. Loser has to wear the jersey to BOTH events on that Sunday(The Collin's immediately after, and then Bobby D's that night)

There ya go Alex, your move kid.

As for the poker side of the blog? It actually kind of offers a preview of what anyone watching can expect to see.

Last night I headed over to Alex's house after he got off work, and naturally we sat right down at the poker table. The truth of all this is, all trash talk aside, I consider Alex as good a player as I've sat at a live table with, so it's always fun to test yourself against a player of that calibre. Our heads-up matches are always interesting at the very least, we both play well, at least I feel, and we both take it very seriously(it'll be alot more serious on the prop bet day).

We decided to settle in for a long battle and really test ourselves against each other, so we sat with 300,000 in chips, and started the blinds at 100/200, moving up every 15 minutes.

We played a little bit of small pot poker, he probably grabbed around a 6000 chip edge off of me after about a half hour, when the first big hand came up, and a hand I feel was probably a mistake to try, but I put him on the range his hand ended up being in, and thought I could push him off of it. Instead, he saw through it and I bluffed off alot of my stack.

The hand, I was button, blinds 200/400, and looked at Jc/10h, and raised to 1200. He re-raised to 2400. I called. Flop was As/3s/7d. He bet out 3000, I called. It was at this time I had decided he was only a weak ace. Alex plays a very tricky heads up game and I felt that if he had a big ace, or two pair, he'd be checking here. He didn't even necessarily need an ace to bet here, he could be on something like 99, 10/10 although that was also unlikely with the small re-raise preflop. I called figuring I'd steal this pot on a later street. The turn was a real nice card for bluffing, the 10s, completing a flush draw. He checked. I fired out 7500. He re-raised to 17,000. Again I still didn't change my opinion on his range here, I still figured him for a weak ace, and he was just testing because he'd have been aware that's a good card for me to bluff at. So, I re-raised back again, to 30,000 total. He went into the tank for a long time, before finally calling. Pot was 78,000. The river was a 9d. He checked again, and at this time I was pretty sure he felt like he was behind, but I had to make one more stab here, a healthy bet, or else this play was all meaningless. So, I grabbed 60,000 and bet it at the pot. He went into the tank for basically just shy of forever, and eventually sniffed out the move and called with A/2. It's a great call, unless you ask me about it when he's in the room, in which case I'll swear only a donkey calls in that spot.

After that I was stuck alot, and decided to switch it up, I got down a little further, to where he had about a 2.5 to 1 lead on me, when we played a nice series of hands all within a fairly short span.

Blinds eventually worked up to 500/1000 when I started to work my way back. I looked at the same hand again, J/10, and raised out of the button again to 3000, he called. Flop was Qc/8c/9h. Gin. He checked, I bet out hoping I'd get a bit of action. It's always awkward betting the nuts headsup, but I figured I had to see if I'd get any play here. I bet 4000. He called. Turn was a 3s. He tried what may have been a delayed pro-bet effort here, and fired at this street, 10,000. I smoothe called. River was pretty terrible, 10d. Action killer. He checked, I bet 15,000, and he called. I showed the J for the win and scooped the pot.

The very next hand(blinds went up to 1000/2000) I was BB, he limped in, and I checked out of the BB with 6d/2h. You know when you flop the nuts heads-up, how rare that is? Doing it twice in a row was a little crazy. 6/6/6 flop. He checked and I checked. The turn was a 2. That's a nice card, potentially in his range, plus now it's just funny to me that that's the board while I'm holding 6/2. He does bet, 4000. I call. River is an 8. He checks, I bet 11,000 at the 12,000 pot. He tanks for a minute and calls with ace high.

Eventually, after a few more small pots, I had worked myself back from the 2.5 to 1 edge he ran off to, to dead even in chips, or relatively close, we were within 5000 of each other again.

Closing in on 3 hours into the heads-up match, still practically dead even. This was the last hand we played :

Blinds 2000/4000. He calls out of the SB. I look at KK. Beautiful. I check. The flop is a little dirty, As/7d/7h. Not a great flop at all for my slow played Kings. The Ace is actually irrelevant here, there is no way Alex limped with an ace. The 7 does kind of concern me. He checks. I bet 6000. He calls. Turn is a Queen. That's a nice card, depending on how the hand plays out from here. He checks again, and I bet again, 10,000. He raises now, to 22,000. I'm a little worried about the 7's still, and I see the ace as an absolute brick. In my mind, the only way Alex has an ace after limping from the SB at a high blind level, is if he has two of them, in which case I was just meant to lose this hand. I re-raise back to 75,000. He goes into the tank for a few minutes and then calls after some silly speech about pocket pairs(to me I'm thinking "good he has the queen"). The river is a Jack. He bets out a fairly weak bet now. The pot is 170,000, we both still have around 200,000 infront of us, and he bets 75,000. This puts me in a bind because it both looks weak, and strong. That's a weak bet at the pot, but betting just under half of your chips is fairly strong. So now I go into the tank for a while, before I decide I still feel like he has a Queen here, something like KQ, and doesn't buy me for the ace because I didn't raise either. There's still that nagging chance he has a 7, but I decide to shove over anyway and if he has a 7, just suck it up. In retrospect this was a fairly large mistake, I'm only getting called by hands that have me beat, except maybe a Queen. In any event, he insta-calls and shows that it was probably just fate that lost me that hand. AA. Nearly 3 hours of poker to get coolered. Played out on a weird board that maybe could have gotten me away from it, but I don't think my thought process through the hand was faulty until my river shove.

After that grinding session, we sat down, watched the Blue Jays nearly blow a game to the Mariners save for a pretty sexy little double play to end it with bases loaded and 1 out. Then re-watched UFC 74 since he hadn't seen it(Roger Huerta is my hero for his screen staring elbows moment on that card), and then played some Nintendo Wii, which, as if he didn't run good enough during the poker game, he crushes me at Wii-Tennis which he's some form of superman at. Then we switch to baseball where I promptly beat him. He declares best 2 of 3 and wins the next one, and then just like always, running so good, he hits a 2 out, 2 strike, 2 run HR in the bottom of the 3rd(last inning on Wii-Baseball) to come from behind and win by one run.

Good night, some fun, the heads up match was alot of fun. Frankly I could have wrote for hours about it, there were alot of hands where we were just playing some real fun poker. There was one hand in particular on where we actually got to a 4-bet on the river(raise, re-raise, re-raise, re-raise) when we were both playing the board(I put in the last raise and scooped the pot). It's always fun testing yourself against a high calibre player.