The Gerk Final Tables

I finished 7th in a Full Tilt 260+ person NL Hold'em tournament Monday. I would post some hands, but frankly I'm still a little sick over not winning the damn thing. I'm especially upset with the way I busted. I played my best TAG game the whole tourney, then the following hand came up. With blinds at 800-1600, it folded around to the SB, with myself in the BB. The SB had raised the last 3 pots and taken them without contest, but I knew very little about him, and had not played a hand against him all tourney. He opened for 4800, and I called with 7-3o. I did this for several reasons. One, I thought I could outplay him postflop. Two, he couldn't possibly have as many hands he'd been representing. And three, I hadn't defended a blind yet at the final table, so I thought it would be a good time to set a play up. At the time I had 50,000, with the average stack around 32,000. The flop came 7-2-9, and he fired 16,000, an enormous bet. It looked like a steal, and I like to go with my gut, so I pushed over the top. He tanked and called with A-9, the turn fell an ace, and he faded the two outer to bust me. I took home 48.50 for my trouble.

I felt like I played really well the whole tourney, much better than I have been lately in the cash games. When we played poker Monday night, I was ready to translate that online success into my live game. I won the first tournament and finished second in the other, despite having a 2:1 chiplead when we got it headsup. Max decided to just jam me with the blinds at 5.00/10.00, and pushed in 8 of the first 9 pots. Expectantly, I went completely card dead simultaneously. In the tenth hand, I found Q-8 in the SB and pushed back. He called instantly with A-4. The door card came an A, and that was that. I was surprised at how Max played heads-up... I'd never seen him do that before, and frankly, I don't know how I'm supposed to avoid a 60/40 clash for my tournament when a guy plays like that heads-up. If you have any ideas to counter a super-aggro heads-up style, I'd like to read about it in the comments section. Otherwise...

Good luck at the tables!

-The Gerk