The first event I played this year was Event #31 the heads up tournament for 5k. I was really excited about this because I have really been playing well as of late and heads up is my favorite form of NL Hold’em. I was lucky enough to get a bye in round 1 so I was set to come back for round 2. The tournament was run pretty horribly, so instead of a noon start, they had a 1:30 start. The tournament reminded me of one of those NFL Blooper videos but replace the players with tournament directors. Enough about that though I was set to play at 5pm.

At 6:30 I was setting alone at my table and finally my opponent sat across; it was none other than Scotty Nguyen. Scotty was one of the nicest, funniest guys I’ve played with. The people around us playing were pretty serious, but our match was a lot of fun. A few key hands:

I got up early about 2.8:1.2 with Q8:

Blinds are 100/200 starting stacks are 20000.

Scotty called my raise from the button, I have Q8o. He check raises me on a board of Q 7 6, with a kind of big bet, so I wanted to use my position and milk my chips because I thought his hand was marginal. I call and the turn is another Q. He bets pretty quickly, so I think he’s still weaker, so I just call. The pot is like 8k now. He Checks and looks like he’s giving up. A flush draw missed somewhere, so I decided to bet about 4500 to try to sell a missed draw by the river (which I think was a 4). He mucks pretty quick so I don’t think he had much.

A big hand happened where he doubled through me:

I held Q3s. He limped the button and I checked. He was doing that a lot, but not giving up the hand much if I raised so I just check. Flop is J 7 2. He bets after I check. I thought he was pretty weak with his bet sizing, so I decide to float. I should have just raised here, but I made a mistake. Turn is a Q so now I have top pair. I have top pair now, and there is a flush draw now. I check call now trying to make my hand look like a scared top pair or middle pair good kicker. River is a 3. I am almost certain I am going to check raise when he bets the river. The river was also a heart though, and I didn’t take enough time to realize a call might have been better, because my check raise would have maybe looked like hearts and lost value against worse hands than Q3. I check raise and he flips over 10 9 of hearts.

I was down to like 11k in chips and we played pretty even with him getting me down to 6k then I stole a bunch of pots because I could tell he didn’t want to double me up so I was taking advantage of that. I worked up to about 10-12k and was just floating around. He was playing pretty passive but picked off one of my bluff check raises in between when the board straightened out. I made a good steal though to get kind of back up.

I have J9o and call preflop. Flop was 10 4 4. He checks behind (he has the button) turn is a Q giving me the open ender. I check raise his bet (I figure he cant be huge here other than a Q maybe). He thinks for a while and calls. River is a 10 making the board 10 4 4 Q 10 and me playing the board. The pot is about 6k. I figure I might be able to get him off something with a weird scary bet (a Q or better calls I’d assume). Pot is 6.5k, I have about 8k behind and I bet like 2k. He was shocked how small it was and folds after 30 seconds. I was pretty sure I folded out like K or A high, so that’s a good thing.

Another big hand was when we both flopped the nuts on a board of QQ8 (both had Q8 hu) we check it to the river then it goes raise/reraise/all in.

The final hand the blinds were 600/1200 and my stack was a little less than 11k to his 29k. I pick up AQo on the button. I had pushed all in twice preflop in the last five times and he kept saying he was going to call. I push he calls instantly with J9s. Board came out 6 4 4 3 9. I’m out. It was a great experience and I think I played pretty well, I just ran up against good competition and a few tough hands. Scotty played well and was a great guy to talk to after.

At one point during the game, some of my friends from college were yelling across the rail something with my name in it. I was ignoring them because I was trying to get back in the match. Scotty started saying hey to all of them thinking they were talking to him. They were like, “we’re talking to the other one, but we like you too.” He said something to the affect of “Any friend of Scott is a friend of Scotty” Good game Scotty Nguyen. Next up is the 6 max 5k Thursday, January 28th.

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