an interesting heads-up match

tonight I played a heads-up game with Dale for ten bucks, because we had nothing to do and couldn't get a game together. There were two interesting hands. We began the hand fairly even in chips, though he was up a little. He limped the button, and I checked my option with the ace of spades and the four of hearts. The flop came down 2 5 9, all spades. I checked my nut flush draw/inside wheel draw, and dale bet 75 cents (three quarters of the pot, since blinds were 25/50. We had started with $35 in chips each.). I check-raised him to $3.25, and he thought about it for a while before eventually making it 4 more on top of that. Feeling that he was weak, I decided to go all-in (debatable, but I knew I had a gazillion outs and two cards coming). Dale decided to call, showing the ace of clubs and the seven of spades!!! By the way, I hate this call. As it turns out, even though his high cards were better than mine, I was a favorite to win the pot.
A five of clubs peeled off, pairing the board. Still, I was a favorite to win it (check the math yourself on Cardplayer.com's odds calculator). However, the nine of clubs came on the river and we split it with nines and fives, ace kicker.

The other interesting hand came when Dale made it $1.50 from the button. Holding ace-ten offsuit, I decided there was a good chance my hand was good and made it $5 to go. Dale (fairly quickly) went all-in. I had a good amount of chips left, about $20 or $25, but there was $10 in the pot. I thought it was possible he had a better ace than me, but it was likely I was up against a pair lower than my tens, or something like KQ suited. After some deliberation, I decided that Dale just wouldn't have played it that way if he had a monster, and I made the call. He showed king-ten, which meant I was a 4:1 favorite to win the pot. It looked good when the flop came down 5 2 4 with two spades, but the king of diamonds turned and I was unable to redraw against him on the river, thus ending our match.

Though neither of these hands ended up the way I liked, I feel I played them well, and that's what really matters to me in a game like that, especially with the stakes as low as they were. Anyway, you have to take the good with the bad, and I got my money in good, which is really the object of poker.

Incidentally, as a quick aside on the Monday night tournaments, I'm ahead in the points still, by fifty. I have 195 against Chip's 145, which makes me feel pretty damned confident I can win this thing. There are twelve or thirteen games left in the year, and I'd really like to win at least two of them. Cashing is fine, and staying consistently in the points is good, too, but I feel I can win the individual tournaments as well. At any rate, enough bad beat stories and gloating about the Monday points. I'll keep everyone updated as best I can.