Heads Up $30

[adam55867]

This is the end of a $30+3 on Full Tilt

I have about 9000 and villain has about 4500

Blinds are 200/400

He played pretty loose early tournament and got very lucky a couple of times to stay in. Tightened up considerably towards the end but still isnt very good.

I get J-10o in the SB and just call
He raises to 1200 and I call.

Flop was 8-9-9 rainbow.

He checks.
I go ahead and push.

Is this good considering the overcards and strait outs? Also the board prolly didnt hit him. I guess i could check behind, because any reasonable bet commits me to call.

I've found that I'm a pretty poor heads up player so please help me out. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

What do you guys think???

[Hamiltoba]

If he is playing tight the 1200 raise likely means Ax (possibly K-10)or pocket pair. (Or a 2X BB steal attempt on the button) Therefore he likely has the best hand post flop. The check is either a trap (he has A9, 99 or 88) or, more likely, he has missed the flop.

An all-in loss here switches the chip stacks and forces you to fight back to even. As the chip leader, it is not aweful to go all in here; 2 over cards and an outside straight give you better odds than a small pocket pair/8/ace high. Ideally you will take down the pot here, whittle down his stack, so that when he does go all-in on a later hand he will not become the chip leader with a win.

He has 3300 remaining. An all-in reeks of bluff/semi-bluff with a drawing hand. If he does have ace high/small pocket pair (as is likely) he may smell the bluff and call.

I would bet the pot. A 2400 bet forces him to go all-in (he would only have 900 left) if he decides to call. The advantage is that it looks stronger than an all-in (you could have A9 or A8 or a bigger pocket pair than him) and it could stop him from calling you in a coin flip situation.

If he folds, you will have 11400 to 3300 lead. Making his next double up less potent. If he pushes all-in, you are still a slight favorite to a small pair or an eight and will win about 1/3 of the time against a three of a kind.

The key is get him all-in when you clearly have the best hand OR whittle him down so that his all-in won't give him the lead and you can afford to take the worst of the odds to end the game.

[juiceistilted]

had had a 9 huh?

[walnutmon]

Yeha, i would just make a standard bet, he isn't going all in over top unless he has something decent

[tsearcher]

Why didn't you just push preflop?

[adam55867]

Ya as it turned out he had A9, but i hit my strait on the turn to win the tourney.

I guess i just wasn't sure if i should have bet or taken the free card here because virtually any bet commits him to an all in at some point in the hand.

But i guess with this paricular hand it wouldnt have mattered as i would have turned the strait and gotten it all in anyway [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[DaN_05]

I'd push PF and if I didn't I push this flop.