Final Table: Heads up: How should I have played it.

[vandalay]

A little history. We had been 6 handed for almost 100 hands thus I have a good read on my people. In general, post flop raises were respected and I had not seen my opponent show down a bluff.

We finally get heads up for 1st/2nd and this is the first hand.

FullTiltPoker Game #2972139411: $10 + $1 Tournament (22597073), Table 28 - 4000/8000 Ante 1000 - No Limit Hold'em - 4:02:40 ET - 2007/07/17
Seat 2: Padge 11 (285,868) (M of 20)
Seat 4: aggie94 (125,132) (M of 9)
Padge 11 antes 1,000
aggie94 antes 1,000
Padge 11 posts the small blind of 4,000
aggie94 posts the big blind of 8,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to aggie94 [7d Td]
aggie94: good match rasta
Padge 11 calls 4,000
aggie94 has 15 seconds left to act
aggie94 checks
*** FLOP *** [Js 7s 3s]

This flop gives me second pair, decent kicker but no spades.

What should be my plan?
a) check, let him bet and check raise (AI?)
b) pot sized bet
c) just check and fold, dont want to get your money in with 3 spades on the board.

Ok, I choose option a and bet... he calls, now what.

aggie94 bets 15,000
Padge 11 calls 15,000
*** TURN *** [Js 7s 3s] [Ac]

a) Bet again, try and win this pot
b) Check and call let him draw for a spade, and if it missed, check and call
c) Check and fold to any bet
d) Bet and fold to a raise.
e) push, dont let him get there.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I'd check-rasie the flop all-in.

What's misleading here are the M figures. With only 2 players at the table, effective M gives you a better idea of where you stand.

2-handed an M of 20 = an effective M of 4.4
an M of 9 = an effective M of 2

Neither of you is really in any position to commit any reasonable amount chips to a pot with any intention of folding.

[LooseCaller]

on the flop, thinking about it more, i agree with the above poster about the crai.

as played, i bet/fold turn for around 30k. of course, knowing his button limping range is pretty important here.

my default is to assume small connectors, ragged suited cards, Kx, sometimes Qx (people in $11s are bad) and Ax trying for lrr (specifically with your stack size). obviously big pairs are possible too, but those arent a large %.

when he calls the flop adn the ace turns, i think you're still in pretty good shape against his range, he shows up with worse middle pair or bottom pair here very often and the bare K or Q of spades sometimes (people play a lot of things passively in small buyin tournaments). on the turn, you dont really want to call a bet, so it's important to keep the pressure on him and assume his raises wont be FOS. if he calls, i check/fold the river unimproved. if he raises the turn, i fold without some superhuman read.

[vandalay]

Of course I only had 30 seconds to think about this when I was running heads up... and of course I bet the turn which was beyound stupid considering he knows that I would raise with any ace preflop, thus I cant represent that.

I ended up betting the turn, getting reraised all in and thus... I wish I was never in that position. I assume I was beat and folded.

However the checkraise, while I would have made a little its one of those hands that I would rarely be ahead when called. Maybe he could have just had a high diamond.

Thanks for the advice.