dnegs leads in heads up challenge versus doug polk

DNegs Leads in Heads Up Challenge Versus Doug Polk

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Daniel has hit back hard, coming from being a huge underdog in this match when it started, Daniel is definitely running better than the first few sessions. With around a quarter of the minimum hands played he’s got a few buy-in lead.

Triple Barrell Goes Wrong for Doug

The way that poker is played these days, you 3-Bet Pre-flop when you have a strong range, Doug 3-Bets with AJo here, but he would also do this with KQ, AK, AQ, QQ, KK, AA etc.

When the board gives him an advantage because it has cards that connect with his range so well, he can’t help but fire Flop, Turn and River.

He may not have fired every Turn card, but picking up equity in the form of 4 extra outs when he picks up a gutshot probably made it easy to fire. When it comes to the River, he has an easy bet, he needs to fold out any sticky hands that might fold to the last bet and realistically he needs to have some bluffs here and there aren’t many other than AJ, JT and AT.

Daniel makes the easy call with top pair and scoops a cool $80k in doing so, taking an early lead.

Flipping Coins

This is one of those flops where it doesn’t really matter if you have two of the best players in the world or two idiots, the money is going in.

Daniel managed to hold up versus Doug’s pair and flush draw here and got up around $80,000 within 10 minutes of play starting.

OverBet Shut Down

A large part of Dougs strategy in this heads up match has been going for huge bets on the River, we’ve seen this being done with up to 5x the size of the pot, applying huge pressure to Daniel.

In this instance, Doug tried to back the truck up and take the $10k in the middle, presumably with a complete air ball with his 1.5x sizing on the River.

Daniel, however, had the medicine for this sick move and wagered the rest of his biscuits, with Doug getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar and immediately folding.

Queen High Hero Call From DNegs

Maybe they should still call him Kid Poker, because Doug picked up the betting lead here, firing Turn and River and got looked up by Daniel’s Queen high!

Not an easy call at all, Doug bet small, meaning he can do this with wide range for value, like a smaller pair than a King and apply pressure with more bluffs for a cheaper price.

Daniel wasn’t buying anything Doug was selling though and made the call to win a small pot.

We find out a little about DNegs Small Sizings

Whether this was an attempt to balance his tiny bet sizings or not, or like a trick from an old school player where they target your weak range and size a bet perfectly for you to just be getting too good of a price, Daniel got called here with the nut flush.

I think this might be where Daniel is losing some equity in the long run, however, because in these spots, Doug would have probably bet larger and getting called wins him more money, but.. you can’t argue with results and Daniel is winning the match and this pot.

Huge Flop All-in

In this 3-bet pot, Daniel continued small with a quarter pot sizing on this low board, Doug made it around $6k to go and then Daniel responded with a massive $45k all-in.

Holding around 55% equity, Daniel was a favourite to scoop this one and did so on the River when he hit a spade to complete the nut flush.

This play even though it worked this time for Daniel is a little dicey though, because it feels like he is only going to ever have draws or worse hands that Queens when he makes this all-in because a stronger hand like a flopped set or straight, would likely induce an all-in from Doug.

The move is understandable however because he wants to make sure he realises his equity with so many cards that can win it for him, but why not then instead look to 3-Bet the flop and call an all-in from Doug. This way Daniel would allow worse draws to continue to bluff.

Watch the Biggest Pots here

If you want to watch the biggest hands that went down in this 2 and a half-hour session, check out this ten-minute video that has all the pots we featured and a few more!