Two of the best online cash game players of all time — Linus Loeliger (LLinusLLove on Pokerstars) and Berri Sweet — have been clashing heads in the No-Limit Hold’em streets for the past year.
They have played thousands of interesting heads-up hands against each other and there are some interesting dynamics at play.
In this article, I am going to break down a heads-up hand that they played during one of their many encounters at the $10,000 buy-in tables ($50/$100 blinds).
Without any further ado, let’s dive in!
Berri Sweet opens on the Button to $261 with A♠ T♣. LLinusLLove 3-bets to $1,050 with K♠ Q♥. Berri Sweet calls.
Both players played this spot correctly.
Berri Sweet should be opening with (roughly) the top 80% of hands heads-up. Obviously, A♠ T♣ is well within the top 80% of hands. His raise size of around 2.5 big blinds is appropriate.
Faced with the raise, Linus’ 3-bet is also correct both size-wise and hand selection-wise with such a strong preflop holding. He is looking to 3-bet with a merged range consisting of about 20% of the strongest preflop hands. King-Queen offsuit is more than strong enough to do so.
Against a 4x re-raise, Berri Sweet should defend with around roughly 45% of the opening range. Ace-Ten offsuit is must call.
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The Advanced Solver Ranges for cash games — one of five sets of preflop charts in the Upswing Lab.
The flop comes K♣ 8♥ 3♠ and the pot is $2,100.
Linus c-bets $650 with top pair second kicker. Berri calls.
King-high flops are favorable for the 3-bettor, which means highly aggressive strategies are called for.
On this specific flop, Linus has a range advantage of over 12%. This is due to a few reasons:
Due to these reasons, the correct strategy for Linus is to c-bet with his entire range for a small size (25%-40% of the pot). This bet will force Berri to fold a lot of his range while allowing Linus to over-realize his equity.
Despite having mostly whiffed the flop, Berri’s call with Ace-Ten offsuit is fine. He’s got an overcard and Ace-high, which very well may be good at this point. Even so, the call is basically breaking even.
The turn comes the 4♥, making the board K♣ 8♥ 3♠ 4♥. The pot is $3,400.
Linus bets $2,378 with his top pair strong kicker. Berri calls once more.
(Remember, Berri and Linus have A♠ T♣ and K♠ Q♥, respectively.)
Things get spicy on the turn!
Linus’ double barrel is a rather trivial decision with such a strong top pair (although some arguments could be made towards check-raising all-in). His double barreling range should be polarized, consisting of:
Berri’s call with Ace-Ten offsuit, however, is completely off the GTO rails. There are a few possible explanations for this decision:
I will let you, the reader, decide which one is most likely.
The bottom of the calling range here should be Ace-Jack and Ace-Queen (both at a very low frequency) according to the solver. But almost all the pocket pairs are folded except for Pocket Tens.
The rest of the calling range is made of top pairs, middle pairs, 3rd/4th pairs, and flush draws. Pocket pairs are weaker than other pairs because they only have 2 outs to improve when they are behind, compared to 5 outs for a flopped pair like 98.
The river comes the 5♥, completing the K♣ 8♥ 3♠ 4♥ 5♥ board. The pot is $8,160.
Linus bets $2,050 with his top pair. Berry raises all-in for a total of $5,920 as a bluff. Linus calls, scooping a $20,000 pot.
The flush-completing river isn’t good for Linus’ one pair hands. But the good thing is that, if he holds a flush blocker, these hands are just strong enough to go for a thin value bet with a small size like 25% pot.
Like on the turn, Berri should have also folded his hand here. He has many other better bluff candidates such as Ace-Queen with a heart or Ace-Jack with a heart. Even a hand such as 87-suited or 86-suited are better candidates than Ace-Ten with no heart, according to the solver.
After the triple barrel, Linus should sometimes call and sometimes fold with his hand at equilibrium. This becomes a snap call if Berri has shown that he has a tendency to over bluff in these kinds of lines.
Heads-up poker is such a deep game given that you get to play with such loose ranges all the time. Even the best players sometimes struggle to know the “optimal” play with each hand in their range.
Let me know in the comments below.
Ready for more high-stakes heads-up hand analysis? Check out Doug Polk Explains Five $105,976+ Pots He Played vs Daniel Negreanu.
Till’ next time, good luck, grinders!
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