A comeback from 960 chips

I managed to reach the heads-up phase of a $20 game at Party. To reach this point was eventually not that hard: the bubble lasted only five games, and right after that I got KQ and went all-in with it. A player with A7 called and lost when I spiked a Q on the turn. Three hands later, he was also eliminated.

The heads-up phase lasted 41 games in total! At the start, I lost a bit of chips and then got very lucky when I went all-in with KJ, got called by AK and won, bringing us back to equal stacks. Some hands later, it seems my opponent lost his patience when he called my all-in with Q8s. I held QJ and was doing fine until the turn was an 8.

This brought me down to 1560 chips, my opponent had 18440. On the next hand, I was BB. The blinds were now 300/600, so just posting the blind brought me down to only 960 chips. My opponent still had 18140 chips after posting the small blind. I held K5. He was first to act.

He folded.

Now, folding is an elementary mistake heads-up: you always have the odds to call. But certainly in a situation like this, I think you want to just get me all-in as soon as possible...

Anyway, now with 1860 chips, my next hand was 95o. I decided to wait for the next hand and hope that it is better. This is also a mistake according to SAGE: practically any hand is good enough to call here.

The next hand, he puts me all-in with KQ and I call and win with T5o. After that, we alternate for five hands: I move all-in as SB and he folds, then he is SB and folds, for five hands. On the sixth hand, he calls as SB and I move all-in again: he folds. Now I have already 6000 chips again, and he must be worried.

Shortly after that, he raises and then calls my all-in with KJo. I have 44 and he gets a J on the turn, leaving me with only two outs: the two missing fours.

The river is a 4.

Now up to 16000 chips, I finish him off four hands later with Q9 vs Q2. (His push was actually justified by SAGE.)

A very nice game... Obviously I needed a lot of luck, but it certainly helped that my opponent was quite lost at sea during the heads-up phase :-) In particular, he played it way too passive, folding much too often when I had a micro-stack. Let that be a lesson to all of you!