At the weekend a $100K GTD tournament at The Lodge came down to a key heads-up hand, as they all eventually do. This time it wasn’t a cooler or a bad beat that saw the chips pushed to the winner, but rather some courageous play on both sides of the table.
The hand was shown on the Poker At The Lodge stream - check the video above to watch it for yourself (Moreno’s the one in the awesome hat, by the way). The hand starts at the at the 8m55s mark.
‘A confidence booster for sure’
On the button, with a stack of 2.2M and blinds at 20K/40K/40K, was pro player and PokerOrg Advisory Board member Andrew Moreno. In the big blind was Collin Rountree, with the slightly larger stack of 2.4M.
Looking down at 
, Moreno pushed out a raise to 100K. Collin, with 
, made the call. With 240K in the pot, the dealer spread the flop: 
helped no one.
Collin was quick to check, after which Moreno continued with a bet of 180K. After just a few moments, Collin check-raised to 530K. Moreno weighed up his options before making the call.
With 1.3M chips in the pot, the turn was the 
. Collin checked, and Moreno checked along. The 
on the river didn’t improve either player’s hand, and Collin put Moreno all-in for his last 1.6M, leaving himself just a few blinds behind.
It's a good thing Moreno was wearing his 'thinking cap'.Moreno did his thinking out loud: “Could have king-ten… 4-x of hearts… why wouldn’t you bet the turn… the bluffs are definitely there, right? 3-5, 8-7, 8-9…”
Before too long, he had talked himself into an impressive, and correct, call with nothing but queen-high. Collin was left with just 5 bbs, which went all-in on the very next hand holding 
vs Moreno’s 
. The 
flop gave Collin a small glimmer of hope, but after the run-out of 
and 
the tournament was over. Moreno booked the win for $30,544.
Collin was surprised to see Moreno find the call.Lucky hat? Perhaps, but Moreno won't be forgetting this one in a hurry - as he told PokerOrg, these experiences are too valuable.
“Making a call like that and being right (on stream no less) is a confidence booster for sure. I always try to pull out anything useful from hero plays, whether they work out or not. What thoughts/experiences was I having that led me to that decision? I want to dissect it as much as possible and try to understand what the main drivers in my action were. That way, the next time I find myself in a big hero spot, I can draw on past experiences and work out if it feels similar in any way.”
Moreno was even home in time to catch the exciting tournament finale on the delayed stream, as his wife Kristy Arnett Moreno was happy to share.
Andrew Moreno is available for private coaching. You can contact him via his website, and follow him on X.
Images courtesy of Poker At The Lodge
