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When experienced online pro Joe Cada played inexperienced Darvin Moon headsup, he should have adjusted his game.

This is the view expressed by Daniel Negreanu in his latest blog at Full Contact Poker. Negreanu had a bet on Ivey vs Cada and in the end depended on Cada to win.

When Cada repeatedly moved in with marginal hands, Negreanu had to sweat, which was a bit unnecessary.

Doesn't appreciate Cada's risk taking

Joking apart, it seems clear that the player with the upper hand should avoid close calls and work his opponent slowly but surely.

For Moon, Cada’s will to play big pots for coin flips is a great gift since it takes away Cada’s edge.

Given, of course, that Cada is really the better player. Which everything indicated, and that’s before he actually won. The fact that he won doesn’t add that much to that question.

Even Moon himself underlined it time and time again in interviews before and during the WSOP final table.

For example, on the question “describe your heads-up strategy” Moon answered “how do you define strategy?”

He then went on to claim that this would be the second time he played heads up ever, the first time being when he qualified online to the  2009 WSOP Main Event.

But maybe that was just part of Moon’s tactics…

I don’t know what Cada has to say about this. Maybe he was just playing his usual online game. Which has worked nicely so far. Very nicely even.

Here’s Negreanu’s analysis on Cada vs. Moon:

“WSOP Final Table was just nuts this year! What crazy, crazy hands. I was sweating it big time, and thank you Joe Cada for saving me tons of money on my Phil Ivey vs. Darvin Moon side bet. Cada had me pulling my hair out the way he played Moon. I felt like Cada would be able to slowly and carefully grind Moon down, but Cada got in there guns a blazing and played right into the more inexperienced players hands by playing lots of big pots in marginal spots.

Cada had so much more experience, but it seemed as though he just wasn’t used to playing a guy like Moon. There were specific adjustments I thought he would make against Moon that he didn’t. Moon bluffed in some strange spots, but didn’t play too many hands. That’s easily exploitable using an extreme version of small ball that dictates limping and min-raising from the button and absolutely NO RE-RAISING OUT OF POSITION! Especially with hands like 99 and AQ. We already know Moon is capable of going all in light, so why would we re-raise him with hands that we really need to call him with? Risk all the chips in a marginal spot?

I’m so happy for Cada that he won, I’m just saying, I would have played Moon completely differently. If I got all in vs. Moon it was likely going to be with some kind of made hand vs. a bluff or an inferior hand. It certainly would not have been 99 vs QJ all in pre-flop. SCARY!!! I dodged a bullet with that bet. Phew.”

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