Good points – I don’t play heads-up very much at all, and I probably don’t pay as much attention to “game flow” as I should since 1) I’m usually playing a bunch of tables and don’t always remember which ones I’ve been active on, and 2) in theory, equilibrium play should be history independent, so at least I’m not getting exploited if I’m not paying attention to game flow, even if I may be passing up some opportunities to profit more by exploiting game flow as you did vs. this guy.

I hope you enjoy the videos – I’d really appreciate and value any comments you have.

I do think it was close, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you’re right. What swung my decision was the game flow. I hadn’t made any big folds to him yet and had already caught him in two big bluffs. It’s hard to say whether that makes him more or less likely to attempt it again here, but I do think that folding to one of his shoves (whether he had or not) will encourage future bluffing, which is definitely something I wanted to do. As you can see, I caught him in several more big bluffs after this hand as. If I call him down each of the first three times, even if from a strictly game theoretical perspective I am far enough towards the top of my range to justify that, he very well may slow down. Since the aggression was something I was looking to exploit, I think that’s an additional argument for folding when the decision is close. It reminds me of a situation Mike Caro talks about where he was playing a guy in heads up 5-card draw and the guy wasn’t adjusting his starting range at all. He wouldn’t call a raise with worse than a pair of Jacks, and while it would have been optimal to raise every hand, Caro folded occasionally just so the guy wouldn’t catch on to how badly he was playing.

Thanks as always for the very good comment. And congratulations on your Cardrunners hook-up, I just noticed you’ve got some videos on there and am looking forward to watching them.

-bruechips