Columnist Jeff Haney: On learning that a poker experts’s advice at a weekend seminar on aggressive heads-up play is worth its weight in gold

Thursday, Dec. 22, 2005 | 8:09 a.m.

Jeff Haney's sports betting column appears Monday, Friday (gaming) and Wednesday (poker). Reach him at (702) 259-4041 or haney@lasvegassun.com.

Poker expert Mike Sexton was trying to make the point that winners of big tournaments are afforded fame, fortune and glory while second-place finishers are relegated to the discard tray of history.

"Who can tell me who the runner-up was in the World Series of Poker?" Sexton asked students at the World Poker Tour Boot Camp at the Mirage last weekend.

The students, seated around a couple of poker tables in a small conference room, paused for perhaps half a second before chanting in unison, "Steve Dannenman."

Yes, it was a hard-core poker crowd at the camp, a three-day series of lectures, live play, video footage and personal tips from professional players.

This was the 17th World Poker Tour Boot Camp of the year, all sellouts but one (the exception was a last-minute addition). Most of the camps last two days and cost $1,495 to attend, but this weekend's was a special three-day "champions event" with more instructors, some extra features and a $2,895 price tag. Its 100 openings sold out quickly, organizers said.

A similar schedule of camps, which take place at gambling sites throughout the nation, is expected next year.

Besides Sexton, a 25-year poker pro and World Poker Tour TV commentator, the roster of instructors at the Mirage camp included well-known pros T.J. Cloutier, Linda Johnson, Clonie Gowen and Mark Seif.

Although Sexton's students were poker-savvy enough to actually answer his rhetorical question, his point was well taken, and they went on to devour the information he presented.

"In every tournament you will ever play, the biggest jump in prize money is between first and second place," Sexton said in a seminar on heads-up play. "When you're playing short-handed, you have to start firing chips in with marginal hands.

"And when you're playing heads-up, being aggressive is the No. 1 factor in being successful."

Your position at the table, significant in any poker game, takes on monumental importance in heads-up no-limit Texas hold 'em play, Sexton said. When you're in the dealer's position -- or "on the button" -- you're getting 3-1 odds on each hand, which makes it OK to play virtually any two cards.

Virtually any ace is practically a monster heads-up, he said. If you have an ace in your hand, there's a 90 percent chance your opponent doesn't.

Even so, being "dominated" -- a situation where both players share a common card, and your opponent's second card is higher than yours -- might not be as bad as you think, Sexton said.

As an example, Sexton used a key hand from the final table of the Five Diamond World Poker Classic that concluded Saturday morning at the Bellagio, when champion Rehne Pedersen and Patrik Antonius were heads-up.

Antonius got all his chips in with ace-king, dominating Pedersen's ace-4, and began celebrating -- prematurely, as it turned out. With a 30 percent chance of winning the hand, Pedersen did just that.

"Patrik was high-fiving the crowd," Sexton said. "I said, it's obvious he's only 25 years old. When you've been around, you don't jump around like that until the hand's over."

Less than 24 hours later, in the final stages of a single-table tournament in the Mirage poker room, I had an opportunity to use Sexton's heads-up advice.

I played any ace aggressively, used my position and those 3-1 odds, and finally won the thing when my pocket kings held up against my opponent's queens.

Now I'm going to break the unwritten tournament winners' protocol and recap an earlier hand where, in technical terms, I got really, really lucky.

It was three-handed, my stack of chips was dwindling and I had to make a move. In the big blind, I went all-in with a suited queen-4 and found I was up against my opponent's pocket 5s.

Another 5 came on the flop to give him a "set," or three of a kind -- a strong hand that was cracked when I made a miracle straight on the final card.

If not for the fact that I'd been in his position so many times before as the victim of a tough loss, I almost would have felt sorry for the guy.

Any tournament winner -- any honest one -- will tell you there's not a poker seminar in the world that can teach you how to administer a well-timed bad beat, or persuade the deck to hit you squarely at just the right moment.

Jeff Haney can be reached at 259-4041 or at haney@lasvegassun.com.