Heads-up vs. #1 DARLINGGIRL - 5 key hands

Replay Poker Hand Review
1

Played some of my strongest poker in a while in a short 30 minute heads-up session against DARLINGGIRL tonight. I’ve been studying more and playing less—I think it’s helped a lot.

Here are 5 hands from the session that I found interesting:

Hand #1
-This is when I started to feel the momentum shift in my favor. Somehow I just felt she was weak the whole way, so I got a little out of line, and this time it worked out.

Hand #2
-She got a nice chunk back here. I give myself a 5/10 for this hand, because I like my play up until the river, but in hindsight I really think I missed a bet on the end. Sure in theory maybe we’re ahead enough of the time that check-evaluate/check-call a reasonable size also makes sense.

In practice, I think turning my hand into a bluff and betting 3/4 to 1.2x pot on this river just gets a ton of folds from the range she arrives here with. There are so many missed draws and weak 1-pair holdings that resulted from combo draws, etc. And I can represent plenty of wacky stuff that somehow got there. Like depending on the size, even a 9 isn’t feeling great calling off on this runout. And DARLING will have plenty of worse combos than 9x.

Hand #3
-Pure gameflow dynamics/instincts. I have no idea if this is a thing or not lol. I guess Q2s makes some decent flushes, blocks QQ/AQ/KQ and unblocks hands like JTs, K9s etc. that can call a 3bet in position, but can’t comfortably continue on this flop?

-Either way, it definitely felt like she tilted a bit after this. She immediately started opening more frequently and using larger preflop sizes.

Hand #4
-In response, I started using a limping strategy. Here I had Ad4d—it’s nice when it works.
-Maybe I misplayed the turn and should have checked back to induce river stabs, or gone super small against a sketchy/weak range?

Hand #5
-I think I played this hand great! I also think it’s super standard, and hard to get wrong (unless we lose our nerve and raise at any point after the flop).

2

Hand 1 why doing 2/3 pot at the flop, is 1/3 ok?
Hand 3 Q2s is ok if good dynamics, but imo i prefer 3 bet the offsuits combos, especially in HU because Q2o stay uncomfortable at defend but Q2s is a pretty good hand in HU so why transform in bluff normally.
Hand 4 idk enough her, if she can check with a Jack bet seems the best line, but if she bet all of his jacks, i prefer checkback my aces because not a lot of hand would call 2times, so we prefer that she bluff the river or betting the river if check

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3

Hand 1 - I am not betting here often, so when I do, I am using a larger size. Also on this board texture, I think Villain will either have a hand that folds to any size, or a hand that is willing to call a larger size.

Hand 3 - I get in a lot of trouble HU against DARLING playing weak undercards, just because of the way our play styles interact. So I am trying turning more of those marginal hands into bluffs. Your point is a good one.

Hand 4 - Exactly, I feel like in hindsight, when she checks turn here she is just really polarized already. So maybe check back is more logical.

4

for hand 1 personally i lead bet so much in this kind of low paired board but its maybe a leak

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5

I think it’s fine to lead a lot, I can probably do it more. People will overfold when you start donking into the PFR on low boards. They don’t have enough hands in range that connect with this board texture, and they mostly aren’t comfortable continuing with enough hands that miss the flop to reach MDF. You can probably massively overbluff these spots before it starts hurting you, especially if smaller sizes still get fold EQ.

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Hand #2

That’s why I wouldn’t be turning your hand into a bluff on the river. You can have so many missed draws that most one pair hands won’t fold. You’re beating some of those, but not enough to be betting for value. They can also have a lot of draws that have missed and now might bluff. I’m not really happy about putting in more money with a weak third pair, but I’d much rather do it as a bluff catch than as a bluff.

Hand #4
I don’t think you get any more value in this hand no matter what you do. I’d wanting to be stabbing here a lot, so it makes sense to be betting for value too. The check back might not look like thick value, but it’s almost always a made hand, so I don’t think more money is going in unless they improve. You’re really just giving them a free card. Your hand is strong enough for that not to matter too much, but it’s not invulnerable either. There’s more merit to betting small, but I still think you only get called by hands that can improve to at least beat a J, and a lot of those hands will be fairly inelastic anyway, making larger bets better.

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7

I’d be wary of leading paired boards against anyone half decent. It’s basically a range c-bet spot for the pfr, so your really good hands want to x/r, not lead, and I think the x/r is fairly intuitive for most players. Usually if I see a lead on a board like that, it’s safe to assume it’s a 6 or a low pocket pair that’s betting for protection and to “find out where they’re at”, and I’m going to tell them by raising regardless of what I have.

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8

@lihiue I agree with everything you said about Hand #4, it’s just that for me the bottom line is I think she is very weak on this river and isn’t going to call me down light because she thinks I value bet too tight. In a vacuum I am fine with the line I took; in reality, something told me I could win with a bet and I let GTO mumbo jumbo talk me out of it. I don’t like that feeling.

Thoughts on Hand #3? Like I said, that one was pure feel for me, but I’m curious how terrible (or not) the play is in theory.

9

For Hand #3, there’s basically no EV difference between calling and raising (for any hand that’s not a clear value 3-bet). Q2s is a mandatory continue, so you can certainly 3-bet it sometimes (FWIW, Q2o would be a fold against 3x, and any hand that should fold is losing even more as a 3-bet).
I think using feel to determine when to actually 3-bet is good. If it feels like a good time to 3-bet and you have a hand that can, go for it. If it feels like a bad time, then just call, even with a hand that is always a 3-bet in theory (like A5s).

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10

tyvm and I love that heuristic!