Poisoned Again !

Just finished playing against the blogger Heads-Up master, or rather mistress Veneno. Since we last played (months ago!) in the first of our heads up best of 3 Veneno had watched me play a couple of heads up games and given me some tips on how to play which, along with improving my own game, gave me a chance to get inside her head and try to formulate a counter-strategy.

Knowing how aggressive she would be the only way to counter it, save for hitting big hands, would be to get more aggressive and fight fire with fire. Any pair on the flop, any draw, and with any two overcards I would bet or reraise to find out where I stood.
In the first of our two games I took a 2-1 chip lead early when I hit a couple of big hands including quad 4's, Veneno was still in it though and I let her get back to even when she pushed 77 and I called with A-8 which didnt hit. Eventually I baby-flushed when Veneno was on a straight draw, her draw came on the river and that was that, chips in and I win to draw the match at 1 game each.

We sat down for the second game and again I started off by winning a couple of pots to take a small lead, this game lasted longer and when I had a 2-1 lead again Veneno pushed 55 this time I called with Js10s I didn't hit and Veneno made a full house, she was back in the game. The chip lead swung back a forth a few times until finally I see flop with K-8, the flop was 9-K-9, I bet out Veneno raised and I reraised all-in, only to see her flip over Q-9 and bust me to take the match. It was a brilliant game and I really enjoyed myself, I hope we can do it again sometime soon.

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Saturday was another good poker day too, I won a double-shootout Satellite to tonights $1 million GTD on Stars. This will be the third week running I've played in the big Sunday game on Stars and 10th attempt overall, so I'm used to the way it plays now and not at all phased by it, should be another good game. I also played the $3 rebuy on Stars again last night and had my best finish yet, 18th. It sucks that for 5 hours play and 18/1500 I only get $100 but I'm very happy with the way I played it and when I busted it was with AK v AQ allin preflop, a 74% favourite but a Queen fell instead of a King to put me out of the game. 4 out of 5 MTT money finishes in fields of over 1000 players makes me feel pretty smart right now and really looking forward to tonight's big game.