Heads up Final Table

I just won the Extralator Sunday night on Full Tilt Poker.  No big deal.  I had played really tight until we were down to 64 of about 300 players. Paid $15 to win about $300.
Anyways, when I got to the final table it was all-in or nothing most of the time and since I had played so tight early on - I even took a half hour break playing no cards - that  they gave me respect.

But when I got heads up I was super aggressive.  Now, it wasn't without reason, I was using my player image and the other runner up had doubled me up calling with fours when I had Kings.  He had seen me only show top hands to win pots. This is the power of player image.  When we started heads up, he was slightly ahead of me in chips after knocking out the third player.  I had about 170,000 and he had about 190,000.  Now when chip stacks are about even it is really a question of who gets the best cards first.  It's sort of like a gunfight duel.  I had just gotten Aces and Kings at the final table so I wasn't expecting much in the way of cards. In heads up you both have position and both have the chance to represent the flop. So the only advantages you can get are luck - that you can't control - and skill.

It just so happened I made a full house Queens over eights while my opponent had the nut flush.  I wanted to go all in but that would have been too big a bet for the pot.  I wanted a call more than a fold and he hesitated so he didn't want to give up the lead either.  My third pot value bet got paid off by nut flush and I was the chip leader.

I decided not to rely on cards from then on.  In fact, I flopped three full houses in the next seven flops.  Total luck fest.  But that's not where I made most of my chips.  Those were call and fold hands. When I made chip leader I went all in with any suited cards and put the shorter stack to the test whenever I played. If he raised first I reraised all in to make him decide. Otherwise I folded. It worked. He folded lots of chips to me in the process of me working to about 140% his stack.

 He told me after, " I guess I gave you too much respect..."  He was right.  I reasoned that I need to lose two big pots to lose but he couldn't afford to lose one. So he folded until he had an ace and got fed up. I had 9-5 diamonds and he had Ace four offsuit.  I made the last full house Fives over Nines to win.  But if I had lost I would just go all-in and either regain even chips or lose.  Either way he had to beat me twice to win, but he couldn't afford one loss. That is the power of first aggressor as I call it first position. I went first all in or reraised all in to make the decision his not mine.  He played rationally and folded.  He didn't want to commit unless he was sure he was going to win. But those kind of hands are so rare he was going to be out of chips before that happened. In the end he made a pair of aces and it didn't matter.

Like I said with even chip stacks it's really a coin flip to win. But if you play smart you can increase your advantage to win.