After twice finishing runner-up at the NBC Heads-Up Championship, Chris Ferguson was determined to go one better in 2008
Chris Ferguson
It was the last hand in a best-of-three series between Andy Bloch and myself. We were playing for the $500,000 first prize at the NBC National Heads-Up Championship last year. Andy and I both approach poker in a similar, mathematical way. But it’s not just about crunching numbers – it’s about asking questions and finding answers through maths.
By the last hand, I had Andy outchipped by less than two to one. Blinds were 5,000/10,000, I got dealt J-J and bet 25,000; Andy called. The flop came T-3-7 with two spades. Andy checked, which he would do with the majority of hands in that situation; I made a continuation bet of 35,000 and he check-raised to 105,000. Now I thought he had a hand. An argument could be made for me to re-raise, but there’s a problem with re-raising every time you have strength – it reveals too much information. So I called and gave him a greenlight to bet the turn. I ran the risk that his hand would improve, but my strategy was to call on the flop with some of my stronger holdings, and I stuck with it.
Then, on the turn, the board paired the Seven. That was a scary card for me – a pair of sevens was one of the hands that I put him on. If he now had three sevens I was in trouble and I started to feel really bad about not pushing on the flop. Then he bet 150,000 and that scared me even more. Nevertheless, I induced him to bet the turn, and he did exactly what I wanted him to do. I figured he would have bet regardless of the card that came.
I considered my options and knew that if he had the Seven he would get the best of my chips anyway, so I moved in. I thought that he might fold and that maybe I had the best hand. In the event that he had a pair of Tens, I figured he’d fold and I’d be protecting myself from a third Ten coming on the river.
Then he started talking about how many outs he had, so I knew he was on a flush draw. He took a while to make a decision – it was literally a 50/50 shot – and finally he flipped a quarter to decide. It landed heads and he called. He turned up his cards to reveal T♠-4♠, so he had two pair and a flush draw.
A raggedy 7♣ came on the river giving me the higher full house. I stood up, punched my fists in the air, and hugged my girlfriend. I won $500,000 and a $10,000 entry into the World Series of Poker Main Event. I always tell people that poker’s never been about the money for me – and that’s true – but I’m still really glad that we don’t play just for fun.
Andy Bloch
Considering my cards [on the flop], if he had A-T I was almost exactly 50/50. His Jacks were worse for me though, because he had a spade, which was one of my outs. But because he just called on the flop, I didn’t think he had an overpair. So calling with the Jacks was a little tricky. When the second Seven came, neither of us liked it. But I thought that maybe Chris had a bigger flush draw than me and I didn’t want to give him a free card. So I bet 150,000, which was a little more than half the pot.
My goal was to avoid giving him odds for an easy call. But I didn’t want to bet so much that he would fold hands I was ahead of. When he pushed, I spent about five minutes figuring out what to do. But then I miscalculated my pot odds. I thought I had 11 outs when I had only Ten. At Ten it was an easier fold, but 11 was a coinflip. So I took a coin out and flipped it. This helps me focus and make a decision – if I don’t like what the coin tells me then I know to do the opposite. But it felt good enough to call, so I did and, unfortunately, finished second.
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