Last chance saloon for TeamPokerPlayer

1. THE CHALLENGE

Our highly anticipated final burst of poker glory just never quite materialised. TeamPokerPlayer ended up on the wrong side of another 2-1 punch-up despite putting Royal Marines engineer Allan Williams in the firing line.

TeamPokerRoom managed to take the all-important two-game lead to snag victory in the final heat although al190 did bag the third leg to keep the British stiff upper lip from trembling.

We do, however, still have two previous TeamPokerPlayer winners. Clare Choak and Matt Morey overcame fierce opposition from the experienced pros at PokerRoom to reach the Out of Your League heads-up final. We’ll have a full analysis of the grand final next month and unveil the heads-up champion of champions.

And what’s more, we’ll be revealing a brand spanking new challenge, which is going to knock your socks off.

2. THE WEIGH-IN

al190 TeamPokerPlayer
Allan Williams ,28. Northallerton, North Yorkshire
VS
MarvinGarden, TeamPokerRoom
Chris Birchby, 30, Hollywood, CA

3. THE GAMEPLAN CHRIS BIRCHBY

Press the button

One of the keys to heads-up play is to correctly use your position on the button. When you act last, you have a decisive edge. It is usually right to raise with the button, putting pressure on your opponent. You need to constantly feel out your opponent, keeping them on their heels, pressing the attack like a boxer throwing jabs; and when you get them in the corner, pummel them.

Man trap

Trapping often determines the outcome of the games, so it’s important to disguise your hands, while keeping alert for when your opponent changes gears. If your opponent has shown a tendency to raise or fold and suddenly calls a big bet, watch out! If you only ever call big bets rather than raise when you’ve got the nuts you should mix your play up to keep them guessing.

Feel them out

All the little hands that go by should start giving you some idea of how your opponent plays their hands, so when your opponent decides to fight back, you will have an idea if they are honest in their assessment of hand strength or just bluffing you. It’s important to get that feel for how your opponent will play when the blinds are low and the flops come in cheap.

4 POST-MATCH ANALYSIS CHRIS BIRCHBY

Texas Hold’em has come a long way since Doyle Brunson used to crisscross the panhandle looking for action. Nowadays, a player looking for a game has to go no further than their own living room.

In many ways, online poker has become the poker world’s new Wild West, with heads-up play being the online poker’s equivalent of a duel at high noon.

I had the pleasure of facing down al190 in a best-of-three series of heads-up matches online. We started with a game of no-limit Hold’em, then played limit Hold’em, and went back to no-limit for the deciding match. Luckily for me I won two out of the three games, although not without some considerable back and forth chip swings. Game two, which al190 had to win to stay in, was a point in case. About 100 hands in I was 1000 behind but with rising antes it can all change in a couple of hands.

I was playing at 11am, rather than at 7pm so had the advantage of the warm Californian sun on my back. What can I say? I’m living in Hollywood and if you’ve seen any Tinseltown blockbuster at all you’ll know by now we always have a happy ending. You can’t play against that!

SCOREBOARD

TeamPokerPlayer 7
TeamPokerRoom 11

No glory for TeamPokerPlayer but certainly no disgrace