A couple days ago I played one of the craziest heads-up matches I've played in a long time.  If you remember that fish from a few blogs ago, the one I played heads-up against, it was the same guy.  At the time I was actually playing a bunch of 6-max tables but quit thouse to play 2-tables vs this guy.  When I sat he had to huge stacks at the 1/2NL tables, he must of ran good against his previous opponents because he sucks way too much to out play anyone.

We start playing and he proceeds to smash me.  It was sick.  He was winning every single hand.  He's the type of player that doesn't like to fold no matter what, if he has any piece or draw he snap calls every street.  Shit, sometimes he'll call without any pair or draw, he's just nuts.  He also just hammers the pot button any time I check, if you show any weakness, he just bets pot looking to take it down.  Normally I love playing guys like this, because the second you make a hand you can get tons of value.  The problem was that I wasn't making any hands whatsoever.  I could barely make a pair, and any time I did make a hand, he would one-up me.  If I flopped 2 pair, he would river a bigger 2 pair.  The thing is he has zero concept of value, so if he made a flush or straight, he would check it to me on the river and just call my bet and not raise.  Which sucked because I kept value towning myself, but I was also able to see his showdown cards for cheap.  This is what I mean:




He also plays a very fustrating style, especially when you're stuck.  Just open limping every puck, keeping the pots small.  Within the first 30 mins he was up about $1000 on me, the silver lining was that I know this guy doesn't hit and run.  He usually plays till someone goes broke, unless you sit-out, or ask him to 'brb' or something, then he'll leave.  Otherwise he'll sit and play with you forever.  We played heads-up for hours and hours, I would start to make a comback, then bam something gross would happen.




I kept topping up on both tables just praying he didn't have to leave with all my money and I would have a chance to win it back.  A few hours in I had such a good read on him every hand.  I knew what bluff lines he was taking, what lines he was taking with medium strength hands and how he was playing his strong hands.  But I still just couldn't make anything to capitilize.  I just folded a lot and stayed patient while he continued to build his stack.  I also knew that if I did manage to win a big hand, he would instantly tilt, he did that last time.. He was playing small ball, then I won a big pot and he would go on extreme tilt and start spewing his chips.

Now here's the pot that was the tsn turning point:



^ You can see I open limped the puck here which I never do, but he was starting to tilt and he was 3 betting me big every single hand, so I limped to see a cheap flop.  The river would usually be a tough spot against most opponents, but like I was saying, I had such a good read on him I pretty much snapped called.

So I broke him on the one table but he still had a huge stack on the other one.  After this previous hand he was on tilting like a mad man, 3 betting every hand with any 2 cards, and betting pot every street.  But luckily for me I started to make hands, we played this next hand which is probably the biggest pot I've ever played at 1/2 no limit.



^ Playing a $1243 pot at 1/2NL is just insane.


We played a little bit longer, till I finished him off with this hand:





All and all we played for about 7-8 hours straight.  My ass was killing me for sitting so long.  But there was no way I was going to quit this guy until I had all his money, I honestly would of played 24 hours straight if I had to.  I was pretty happy with this victory for one main reason, I stuck to my game plan.  I kept telling myself to be patient and wait for him to slip up and not to tilt.  Playing a guy like this can make you tilt when he keeps getting lucky, but I kept my composure and didn't do anything stupid.

Anyways I had a pretty crazy session the other day also when I was chasing 'mesteven' up at 5/10nl cap, but I'll talk about that in my next blog.

Jay