Remember in the last video about having to be more assertive when playing shorter tables like the 6 seated sit and go tournaments? Well when you get down to the last two players, > heads up as it is known, your game must change even more radically compared to the early stages of a sit and go tournament. In fact, when playing heads up, you will be playing and even raising, MOST of your hands no matter how weak they may look.

However, in this hand where I am holding QQ I am looking to lure my opponent into the pot since he has been raising almost every hand. I decided to limp here hoping he raises again. His profile suggests that he will, as he has been playing rather foolishly and actually got lucky several times while eliminating all the other opponents at the table. In addition, two hands previous he doubled me up holding K8 suited, to my pocket jacks. With two players left, we are both in the money.

My opponent checks, so that plan did not work so well. We both see the flop of 3s5h7c. My opponent bets out, and given his profile, that is certainly expected. I could reraise here now, but I could also flat call. If he did make a pair, I would like to keep him in the pot right now with the intention of check raising him on the turn, where the stakes are higher and I am likely to get him to commit to a bigger error. So I call and the pot is now 400.

Here is the turn, the ten of spades. Since I am basically slow playing, its hard to know if any card has hit my opponent, but the ten is likely neutral. This is really a hand where I am assuming I will be the best all the way to the river. My opponent bets out again, another 100 chips. Based on his profile and now betting the minimum, there is a fair chance he has nothing here, but at most one pair. Now is the time to get more out of him so I reraise to 500 making the pot 1000. My opponent calls and the pot is now 1400.

Most players would not call my reraise here without at least a pair, and even for his profile it would be rather remarkable to call with nothing here. I should now be thinking this flop hit his hand.

The river is the five of diamonds which pairs the board. My opponent pauses and then goes all in. He is certainly representing that the 5 helped him, and if it did, then I am beat. If I was him, and I had a 5 in my hand, I would also shove all-in. However, since this opponent is capable of many things, including bluffing, I have to take other things into account, not the least of which he has shown little concern in past hands for anything I might be holding, choosing only to bet and bluff with little control. My hunch here is that this is the case, or at least that’s what I want to believe.

Lets take a closer look at the board though, because these kinds of hands require sit and go strategy analysis. Since we are both in the hand still, I must discount his bluffing here. So that means he hit something on the flop, and then to call my reraise on the turn was basically showing that he was waiting for something to improve. Had he flopped two pair holding 73, I believe he would have bet more on the turn, or re-raised all in. If he only had a 3, that would not really warrant a shove here on the river, as I showed strength on the turn. It is possible that he thinking the 5 could NOT have helped me, and so he is now pushing with A7 or K7. However, the most likely scenario to me is that he does hold a 5 in this hand, and therefore given the moderate amount I have committed to this pot and my healthy stack size, this is actually a fold now.

Unfortunately, partly because of my lack of patience with this very lucky player, I convinced myself that there is no way in hell he got lucky again so I just called without really thinking it through. This is a good lesson reminder about taking enough time to think about a big move like this and also not letting your ill feelings towards your opponent get in the way of doing the right thing.