Ballers play 5/10 NL, amirite?

Finally something poker related - I played two sessions of 5/10 NL heads-up last night. My friend TheSouthAfrican (a MSNL HU specialist) was playing two soft opponents but about to end his session, so he let me sit. Luckily, both players stayed when I sat. One had a $600 stack that I busted almost immediately.

The other stack was sitting with about $1500 to start. I'll take you through my match with him because it was really interesting. Going into the match, TheSouthAfrican told me that this opponent was relatively aggressive, but had a huge leak of checking-calling down almost any pair for 2 or even 3 streets. I was obviously drooling at this prospect. And off we go:

Hand 1: I listen very well, apparently.

My river bet here looks pretty stupid given the read that was handed to me on a silver plate before the mach. Every draw in the world whiffed the turn and river. I don't hate my turn bet since he could have floated the flop with tons of draws that missed and would just fold the turn, plus I have a ton of equity versus a pair
of 8s type hand. This was like the 5th hand in the match, but in retrospect I would never bluff this river versus this guy.

Hand 2: Cooler that I could have gotten away from, sigh.

Everything here looks standard except me calling his shove. In real time I just took it as "I have a flush, oh well I call" without even thinking too much. That is a leak of mine that I need to fix - rushing through some decisions in big pots. If I thought it out I would have realized that the opponent I'm playing is not maniacal to shove for value with anything less with a flush. I also think he bluffs less than 10% of the time here. Thus, I basically can't beat anything when he shoves the river. I will say that I didn't have a read yet on whether he C/Rs flush draws on the flops, so that can somewhat justify a call. Oh well. After this hand, he has all the momentum and I'm stuck a lot. It was at this point that I did develop a general read that he isn't bluffing when he pots the river.

Hand 3: This entire situation just sucks.

I had built up a tiny comeback at this point, so we were semi-deep. He had turned up the heat with 3 betting a lot. He was also very aggressive postflop in 3 bet pots. It was really hard to combat because I was playing somewhat passively, and definitely playing a careful style. I was affected by the fact that it was deep at 5/10 NL. Still, I think I played this hand is okay. Raising the flop or turn is just really bad with stack sizes, I think. 100BB deep I wouldn't mind raising the flop and getting it in. As played, I feel fine about my river fold. It seems pretty obvious that I have an ace.

Hand 4: My first big pot, but wow this is depressing.

Obviously a dream situation, but I blew it on the river. At the time, I just wanted to extract whatever I could. I threw a tiny bet out, thinking maybe there was some chance if he had spades that he would raise the river. I should have realized that even an aggro player like him wouldn't bluff raise this river. I should also have realized that I could certainly extract more from ANY ace, and possibly a king. The pot was $1340 on the river. I definitely believe the best bet size in this situation is in the neighborhood of $800. Depressing for sure, but at least I have some momentum now.

Hand 5: Wow, maybe I've been giving him too much credit.

He has been 3 betting me A TON and I haven't adjusted well. By this point it has chopped me down a lot. I decided to see a flop with 54o, though it is very speculative, even $1900 deep. I decided that the river was a call because I wouldn't get called by less too often, and I expected to see aces up a decent amount of the time here. When he showed 88, I suddenly felt really embarrassed. I felt like that was the confirmation that he has been trying to run me over, and I've had to rely on monster hands to beat him.

Hand 6: Chasing hands = winnar!

I actually won a $2400 pot like five hands before this, where I flopped trips on a TT3 flop, C/Red the flop and got 3 streets of value versus QQ. On this hand, I expected to get floated by any weak draw, but also expected him to bet 60-80% of his entire range on the flop. I honestly don't like ANY line on the flop, but just betting it is probably better. I called because I thought I had decent equity versus his range. On the turn, he hadn't bet too large so I thought I had good implied odds. On the river, I went for a C/R AI because it would guarantee any queen goes broke, and I wanted to allow him to bluff. He timed his ENTIRE TIME BANK (80 seconds) down, claimed he had a Q and folded. Considering he was getting about 4-to-1 on the river shove, I highly doubt he folded a queen even IF he correctly suspected I had AQ.

I busted his last $500 a few hands later when we got TT vs AK in preflop and I won the flip. Overall, I had a stressful session, but managed to net $1900 from the two opponents. Thank you, TheSouthAfrican!

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In other news, I made two bets with my friend Pete (famousanus) about the Flyers/Penguins series. One bet is Flyers winning the series at 2-1 odds: my $200 versus Pete's $400. The other bet states the Penguins must win the series in 4 or 5 games for Pete to win $200; a Penguins win in 6 is a push; and a Penguins win in 7 games OR Flyers winning the series ships me $200. After the Flyers' pathetic showing in Game 1 last night, I was willing to buy out of the bet for $100. Pete declined.