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A Dominating Victory
In my last two columns, I talked about the finals of NBC’s “National Heads-Up Championships,” which pitted Chris Ferguson against me. In the finals, we were playing a best-two-out-of-three format, and we now had one win each.
After Ferguson pulled off a big bluff in the deciding round of the finals, he had a chip lead of roughly $900,000 to my $400,000, and his follow-up tactic was to raise a lot of pots before the flop. I responded by folding a lot before the flop. After a while of this back and forth, I made a stand when I re-raised (I moved all-in) with my A-3. Ferguson eventually called me with his K-Q, which meant that I was only about a 56 percent favorite to win, and could lose the championship. The first four cards were 9-3-2-5. The last card, lifted Ferguson right out of his chair. He momentarily mistook the face card for a king or queen. But it was actually a jack. This marked the first time in the finals that I was all-in with a chance to lose the match. But I pulled it out with a pair of threes. -
Give Credit to a Great Bluff
In my last column, I talked about the bad beat that Chris Ferguson put on me in the second of our three matches during the finals of NBC’s “National Heads-Up Poker Championship.” I had won match one, and was staring at victory in match two when Chris and I put in all our money on a board of 9s-5h-4h-2h, with Chris holding 9h-2s to my Ah-3s. This was, believe it or not, only the third hand of the second match. Chris then proceeded to hit a 10-to-1 shot (meaning there were 40 possible wins for me and merely four for him), when a nine popped up on the river, stealing my championship in dramatic fashion.
I literally fell on the floor when the nine hit (I was on my way to standing up and shouting, “Yes!”), and after losing the next small pot — I was all-in — I headed up to my room to meditate and try to gather myself.
I was steaming, talking to myself, moving at a fast clip up the Golden Nugget’s hallway, while the cameras recorded the whole thing. At the elevator, I told the security guards to stop the cameras; otherwise I’m sure they would have followed me all the way to my room.
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You May Win Even When Your Hand Looks Dead
For the last four weeks, I have been discussing the NBC National Heads Up Poker Championship matches, which were broadcast recently on NBC. After advancing past Men “the Master” Nguyen, Paul Phillips, World Champion Huck Seed, Lyle Berman, and Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari, I found myself staring down World Champion Chris “Jesus” Ferguson in the finals.
The final round, unlike all of the other rounds, was best two out of three. After breezing through the first match with Ferguson, I was feeling pretty good. I had won six matches in a row, and was on the cusp of being champion. But I knew the rules, and now I had a big 1-0 lead.
Just as I had in the first match, I drew the button (meaning I would bet last) and won the first two pots. Now I remembered that at this point in the last match, I called before the flop, and then Chris raised it up and I folded. Looking down at Ah-3s, I again called. I was thinking that it wouldn’t surprise me if Ferguson raised it up again, trying to win the pot right there, just as he had the last time.
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Don’t Let Yourself Get Run Over
After the first three rounds of NBC’s “National Heads Up Poker Championship” (which airs on the network during weekends in May), I found myself amongst the “final four” players.
The NCAA style “bracket” tournament had whittled down over 60 of the top players in the world and now one side of the draw now featured Chris “Jesus” Ferguson v. T. J. Cloutier in a rematch of the 2000 World Series of Poker finals that saw Ferguson emerge as a certified world champion after outdrawing Cloutier in several key pots down the stretch. On the other side of the draw, it was Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari against me.
After beating Men “the Master” Nguyen, Paul Phillips, WSOP Champ Huck Seed, and Lyle Berman, I was now facing a different type of challenge. All of the aforementioned players play no-limit hold’em at a reasonable pace, but I knew Antonio would come out raising and re-raising at a breakneck pace. He would try to run me over, and knock me off my game.
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Don’t Let a Close Call Get Under Your Skin
After beating Men “the Master” Nguyen in round one, and Paul Phillips in round two, I was staring at the 1996 World Champion of Poker Huck Seed in round three of NBC’s “National Heads Up Poker Championship” (which airs on Sundays in May). The field that started from 60 of the top players in the world had been whittled down to 16 in a bracketed structure similar to the NCAA basketball tournament and from personal experience, I knew that Seed would be a tough opponent.
For about three straight years in the late 1990s he was considered the best no-limit Hold’em player in the world. In 1999, after dusting off 250 other players, we found ourselves heads up in one of the year’s major tournaments, at the Rio Hotel. That time around, Seed beat me. (You can read more about that showdown in “Bad Beats and Lucky Draws.”)
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When To Let Your Opponent Raise You
In my last column, I talked about the first round in NBC’s “National Heads-Up Poker Championship” (on NBC during Sundays in May), a competition that features nearly all of the top poker players in the world. With an NCAA tournament-style structure, 64 would start and 32 would survive round 1 — which is where this column begins. After beating Men “the Master” Nguyen in round 1, I was facing Paul Phillips in round 2.
If Phillips played very aggressively (bet and raised a ton), that was fine. I had a standard counter-strategy and was ready to implement it: Let him do all of the bidding when I had a strong hand and trapping him like a fox in a chicken house, checking all of my strong hands to him.
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