FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#919 – Heads-Up with Darvin Moon

Posted by Editor | Filed under Uncategorized

I spent a lot of time in my posts about Joe Cada’s heads-up play criticizing Darvin Moon. Obviously, for the guy to finish second out of 6,400 players, he did a lot of things right. I didn’t see them because I watched Darvin only at the final table and, for the most part, he didn’t play especially well there.

But he did do some things right when he was heads-up with Joe Cada. Those are worth pointing out, as are the options open to an amateur player in a big heads-up match with a more-skilled opponent.

Let’s start with the general concept. I have mentioned it in several recent posts but it bears repeating: If you are less skilled or less experienced than your opponent, you should try to concentrate the action relatively early in the hand. The later you get in a hand, the more marginal decisions you face. It is in making those decisions that the more experienced player has the biggest advantage. Consequently, I thought Moon was making a mistake by rarely folding or raising on Cada’s button heads-up. Almost always, Moon would call a raise and get into the difficult aspects of post-flop play.

The smartest thing Darvin Moon did was re-raising Joe Cada before the flop. On hand #294 (based on PokerNews.com’s numbering) Darvin Moon put in his first pre-flop re-raise. This was on the eighteenth hand of the night and the ninth time Joe Cada raised on his button. Cada folded. Moon should have been doing this more. On hand #320, just the third time Darvin re-raised Joe’s button, Cada again folded. Four hands later, Cada raised again, only to fold to another re-raise from Moon. Hand #342 was the next time Darvin re-raised Joe’s button; once again Cada folded.

Oddly, Darvin increased his use of this strategy only AFTER he took over the chip lead. It is a good strategy for a less-skilled player regardless of who has the chip lead, but it has more impact when the player doing it has the shorter stack. For instance, when the players have 140 million and 60 million in chips and the opening raise is 3 million, the next raise is to 9 or 10 million. The player who makes it 9 to 10 million has all the leverage. If the other player wants to re-raise, it becomes an all-in situation (because nobody is going to bet 30 million when one of the stacks has just 60).

As the small stack, Darvin was in a great position whenever he put in that 8 to 10 million re-raise. Cada was clearly playing defense and he would be playing Moon’s game if he let the tournament get decided pre-flop, which he would be doing if he moved in over Moon. By the time Darvin began using the pre-flop re-raise, however, he had the chip lead and Joe’s fourth bet would have to be all-in.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because Moon could only lose the amount of his re-raise (8 million in hand #346, when this happened) but could win all Cada’s chips and the tournament if he had a big hand. The problem, however, is that you can win chips with this strategy WITHOUT good cards when you’re the shorter stack. As the short stack, you are relying on your opponent’s fear of turning the match into a pre-flop game. But as the big-stack, you are taking a greater risk because the short stack can push you around unless you wake up with a big hand. (By the way, the deck didn’t seem to do Darvin Moon any favors heads-up. After his pocket queens on the very first hand – which he misplayed but still manage to win a big pot – I don’t remember him showing a real premium hand the rest of the match.)

The last time Moon tried the pre-flop three-bet, it was on the final hand, #364. He faced a lot of criticism for this but when you think about it, he accomplished exactly what an overmatched opponent would want: a coin-flip for the chip lead. After Joe made it 3 million, Darvin re-raised to 8 million with Qd-Jd. Cada, with pocket nines, moved all-in, which would cost Moon his last 60 million.

He made a surprisingly fast call, which ironically demonstrates why this is the right strategy for a less experienced player. It felt to me like Darvin was simply exhausted from having to make all these decisions in what he regarded as Cada’s game. Several people watching the hand told me they thought the same. Darvin was just relieved to have it over with, which is why as the less-experienced player, he should have focused on big, simple moves. Even in this instance, where the overwhelming sentiment in the room was disbelief that he would snap-call with such a weak hand, he was a coin flip to take over the chip lead.

Darvin Moon didn’t hit a queen or a jack, and Joe Cada won the World Championship. It is, however, a testament to an aggressive pre-flop strategy that he came so close. Had he put pressure on Cada before the flop more often, perhaps he could have won.

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