FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#081 – Heads-Up Championship Part XVII – Gavin Has an Answer for Andy Bloch

Posted by Editor | Filed under 2007 NBC Heads-Up Championship, Andy Bloch, Gavin Smith, Heads-Up

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The Gavin Smith/Andy Bloch quarterfinal pairing was a great matchup for me. Gavin was going to have another style to throw at Andy and it would be interesting see how he would handle Bloch’s approach – always raising and betting small, probing for a predictable style and adjusting. I know Andy a lot better than Gavin but he did a chapter of the book, more than enough (beyond his results) for me to have a lot of respect for how he thinks through poker problems.

Gavin got the better cards early and put Andy at a disadvantage. I was very impressed by a couple hands and the way Smith played them. They’re not the kind of hands that are likely to show up on TV but they demonstrate the kinds of things necessary to combat a game theoretical style.

In the first hand, Andy had rallied to near even after Gavin had him on the ropes early. (Andy made quads out of T-T after he was all-in.) There was a lot of checking after the flop and Gavin made a small bet on the river with three high cards on the board. Bloch called. Gavin showed a pair of fives and Andy took it with a mediocre hand with a paint card to match the one on the board.

Genius that I am, I thought, What a goofball? Why bet a weak hand that will only be called by a better hand?

Less than a dozen hands later, the same action followed, and Gavin again bet after little action on a queen-high board. Naturally, Andy called. I don’t know if he thought what I was thinking but it seems like he’d have to call with just about anything. This time, Gavin Smith had Q-6 for two pair.

On another limp/check hand, they both checked a board of 9-6-2. After another deuce on the turn, Andy bet. Gavin called. They both checked after a jack on the river. Andy said, “I like your hand better” and Gavin showed Q-3, for queen-high. And won it.

Obviously, Bloch was bluffing a deuce – and an anything – and Gavin sniffed it out. Maybe Smith has a spidey sense that told him Andy couldn’t beat queen-high, but I’d prefer to think that he decided he had to call with nothing sometimes to Andy would know that he couldn’t bet with nothing and automatically win. (The reverse, that Bloch will get paid off if he bets with SOMETHING, is also a good message to send. Gavin is saying to his opponent: bet when you have it and don’t bet when you don’t. It’s pretty easy to play against someone who listens to that message.)

It wasn’t the featured match and and they’ll probably focus on the 5 all-in confrontations, or Smith’s dramatic run of cards early in the match. But for the poker fan, those “nothing” hands told an interesting story.

As I write this, Paul Wasicka has won the first match of the final against Chad Brown. Watching it from the production truck, it looked like Wasicka was playing a far better game than Brown. In fact, it looked like Wasicka was playing a far better game than I saw against Shannon Elizabeth, but that shows how much you learn from the hole cards as well as the difference a different opponent can make.

I’m going to watch the rest from the truck so I’ll leave you to www.pokerwire.com to get live updates (as if I’d have provided them anyway). I’ll write to you later if I see anything you should know. I’ll also try to get some time to send you the rest of the Andy Beal/Ted Forrest “War of the Furies” match from last year at the Wynn. Speaking of which, I also want to tell you of my adventures at the Wynn Classic, which is going on through the $10,000 buy-in final starting March 8. I strongly recommend you check out the event if you get a chance. They have great people running a great poker room and the reports from the pros busting out of the heads-up and playing the $3,000 buy-in NLHE event were very positive.

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