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#421 – Full Tilt Heads-Up Championship – 37 Mins. Chess, 3 Mins. Wrestling
For 37 minutes, Howard Lederer and Brian Hastings fought a tug-of-war for a few hundred of their combined 40,000 chips. Then, in a flash, Hastings got nukes and incinerated Lederer.
The match had the hallmarks of “going the distance” with Howard Lederer holding a 20,300/19,700 lead over Brian Hastings, the wunderkind who co-founded CardRunners.com with Taylor Caby in their University of Illinois dorm room. Then it was over in 4 hands.
In the first hand, Brian raised on his button with J-J to 360 and Lederer called. It was a dream flop for Hastings, J-5-6. It got better with a 5 on the turn. The river was a deuce. Howard check-called 600, 1,680, and 4,320. Because Hastings bet out, I never got to see Lederer’s hand but I’m assuming he had the case jack or an overpair. (I’ll e-mail him and let you know if I find out.)
After this hand, Brian had the lead, 26k/13k.
Three hands later, Lederer raised on his button to 300. Hastings made it 950 and Lederer called. The flop was 5s-8h-Jc. Brian bet 1,320 and Howard called.
Here are the hands:
Brian Hastings: Ac-Ad
Howard Lederer: Kc-8c
Howard has to call at least one bet with second pair, or a good player (obviously, Hastings is a superb player, a winner at every level he has played in online cash games for the last 3 or so years) will push him out of the tournament.
But he doesn’t have to call 2 bets, especially at the rate they are escalating, with Brian having reraised preflop. He gets a tantalizing turn card, however, the five of clubs. Now if he’s facing something like A-J or an overpair, he has 9 outs to a flush and 5 more shots at 2-pair or trips (which would be a full house with the fives on the board).
He could also potentially get Brian off a better hand. If Lederer had a 5 instead of an 8, the turn card would make him trips, so playing the draw aggressively also has the benefit of representing a better “made” hand.
The guy with pocket aces ain’t goin’ anywhere though. Brian bet 3,120. Howard moved in for his last 10,000, and Brian called.
Limited to fewer outs than he thought (the 3 remaining kings would merely make him a lower 2-pair than Brian’s A-A-5-5), Lederer lost when the river brought a taunting but useless king.
