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It seems like just yesterday we were publishing articles about how Isildur1 was back in the black and had managed to shortstack and hustle his way back to being a winner. In fact, it actually *was* yesterday that this happened against Ziigmund, BrianTowsend and Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan. Like the old saying goes, what goes up must come down and in Isildur1’s case it came crashing down in a hurry.

In what can only be described as a bloodbath, Isildur1 played $500-$1000 PLO Heads-Up against Brian Hastings on December 8th for almost five hours which spanned 2,565 hands. The result was shocking in the mere magnitude dollars won as Hastings took Isildur1 for $3,234,543. For those of you wondering at home, that’s a wage of about $646,000 per hour.

Here are some highlights of the match featuring pots of $200,000 or more from the $500/$1000 Heads-Up PLO session between Brian Hastings and Isildur1:

Among the first hands played had Hastings getting his money in on the flop as a 68-26% underdog (6% chance to chop) with Isildur1 showing an overpair. The King of diamonds fell on the flop giving Isildur1 top set but gave Hastings plenty of straight outs for the river. The Ace hit the river and gave Hastings a $310,998 pot and an ugly bad beat to Isildur1.

Still early in the match Hastings shoved over the top at the turn with a boat against Isildur1 on a 5-K-9-9 board that had two flush draws. Isildur1 called with 3-Q-2-9 for trips and a redraw to a boat, quads or Queen high flush. Unfortunately, the flush was no good (Hastings would have gotten a King high flush) and none of Isildur1’s boat outs would beat Kings over Nines. Therefore, Isildur1 got his money in on a rare 1 outer in PLO and missed. The $235,997 pot went to Hastings when the Jack of clubs hit the river.

On the button, Isildur1 called a preflop 5bet from Hastings and then called the shove on the flop. Isildur1 held 9-A-T-K with two spades while Hastings had A-3-5-A double suited to hearts and spades. With the flop of J-Q-Q rainbow, it was Hastings who got his money in as a very slight 55-45% favorite. The 10 of hearts put Isildur1 in the lead at the turn and at the river, a blank 3 of clubs fell. This massive pot totally $456,990 went Isildur1’s way, one of the few large pots that would do so on this fateful day.

Later in the session, Isildur1 put Hastings all-in on a 5-8-5 two diamond flop which was called. Unfortunately for Isildur1 he had flopped two pair with 8-J-A-Q but Hastings had flopped well with T-5-6-7 for trips plus the boat and straight redraws. Once again we saw Isildur1 get his money in terribly (94-6% underdog) although there’s a good argument to be made this was a bit of a cooler. The four on the turn actually ended the hand completely and gave the $202,999 to Hastings.

Hastings and Isildur1 would fire away at a 6-K-5 two club flop with Hastings holding K-T-7-Q with two clubs and Isildur1 holding A-5-Q-5. The main move was made at the flop by Isildur1 who 3bet to $177,000 which committed Hastings to shove or fold. When the two got the money in, Hastings showed his flush draw and top pair while Isildur1 had a set of fives. With a 67-33% advantage in the hand, Isildur1 would hold up when Hastings failed to improve shoving $380,982 to Isildur1.

Hastings would check-shove the turn against Isildur1 with A-J-K-8 on a board of 6-K-T-3 for top pair plus a gutshot. Isildur1 would look Hastings up with 6-J-3-9 for bottom two pair plus a straight gutshot (that was dirty). In this hand Isildur1 got his money in as a slight 57-42% favorite, but that dirty Queen would hit the river giving Hastings the straight and a $317,983 pot.

One of elements that really led to Hastings winning so well was the fact that he constantly picked up small pots as evidenced by his play on the “Keren Marie” table. There were 141 hands played and Hastings showed a profit of $608,980 on the table. The funny thing is that he had 4 hands where he won a $190,000+ pot, while also have 3 hands where he lost a $190,000+ pot. As the match wore on in the fourth and fifth hours of play, fortune would favor Hastings.

Hastings won a ridiculous $682,995 pot by hitting a river straight after getting the money in on the turn. At the time both players shoved their stacks in, Hastings held 4-7-3-6 for a big straight draw against Isildur1 who had top two pair. In this virtual coin-flip situation, Hastings won out with the river 7 giving him the winning straight.

Isildur1 would get a great price on the turn by shoving his last $137k unto a pot of $300k near the end of the night. Isildur1 held T-6-J-8 for two pair and a redraw on a board of 5-T-4-8 while Hastings showed 6-K-J-K for the overpair.Isildur1 got his money in good as a solid 65-35% favorite in this situation but once again Hastings ran well and with the five hitting the river gave him a better two pair hand. Ship the $425,997 pot to Hastings who won yet another massive pot despite not having a solid lead in the hand.

A half-million dollar pot was won by Hastings when he got paid off on his river value shove when he hit his straight draw (on a paired board no less). Isildur1 did not show his hand once the $504,000+ hand was over.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 10:12 am and is filed under Articles, Featured Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.