Pot Limit Hold ‘Em at the Cowboy Poker League Tourney

Last night I played in a Pot Limit Hold ‘Em Poker tourney being hosted by the Cowboy’s Poker League played on FullTiltPoker.  Scott (twitter name is ffcowboy76) and Jeremy (twitter name is IBGPN) are the hosts and contact persons. Tweet or follow them on their exploits as well as follow their league twitter name – @CowboyPoker. Only four games remain in league play so check out their schedule here.

The basic difference between Pot Limit and No Limit is that your largest bet is limited to the size of the pot after a round of betting. Pot Limit betting makes it harder to get a player to fold a drawing hand as the player is getting good odds to call raises.

Last nights game was considered a short-handed game as only six people registered to play the tourney. We each started out with 1,500 in chips and play begin at 9:00 pm EDT. Overall we played about 127 hands with 72 of the hands being played heads up, meaning that the final two players were playing one on one. Heads up play started at about 9:30 pm and lasted for 30 minutes. The lead changed twelve times during heads up play. I finished in first place, the game summary follows:

1: StevieTrips
2: gemgirl6
3: mysticslayer
4: MNFulltilt
5: ffcowboy76
6: Street 3

The last hand is as follows:

Seat 7:	Hero	($7,305)	Small Blind
Seat 9:	Player 9	($1,695)	Dealer

Dealt to Hero

RAISE

Player 9

$300

CALL

Hero

$200

Flop (Pot: $650)

BET

Hero

$600

CALL

Player 9

$600

Turn (Pot: $1,850.00)

BET

Hero

$1,800

ALL-IN

Player 9

$695

RETURN

Hero

$1,005

River (Pot: $4,345)

SHOWS   Hero

SHOWS   Player 9

Poker Hand Replays by: PokerHandReplays.com

Even though the tourney lasted about a hour total, it seemed longer due the fact that the heads up play took over 29 minutes to complete at the low blind structure in place at the time. It was exhausting. I am thankful this was not a 45 person tourney this evening.

Have you ever made it to heads up and found it hard to close out the game? Do you need more practice at heads up play? What is your strategy for heads up play?