Strategy with Kristy: Jason Koon Discusses Health and Heads Up

Kristy Arnett Editor

Jun 01, 2012 2 min read Last updated Apr 05, 2013

Jason Koon is not only an accomplished poker player with a combined total of online and live tournament winnings exceeding $2.5 million, but he's also a very knowledgeable and passionate about health. He's helped players such as Jamie Rosen and Chris Moorman lose considerable weight through diet and exercise.

Just before taking his seat in the final four of the $3,000 Heads Up No-limit Hold'em/Pot-limit Omaha event, Koon sat down with host Kristy Arnett for the latest edition of the Strategy with Kristy podcast. The two discuss healthy living for poker players and also about his path in the event. Koon goes into depth about one particular hand he played against Annette Obrestad in his quarterfinal match.

Here is a snippet from the interview:

I min-raised the button, pretty standard, with single-suited jacks in PLO. I had jack-jack-nine-four with hearts. The flop came ace-two-four, two diamonds, so I flopped pure crap pretty much. I bet 17,000 and she check-raised to 42,000. I made it 108,000 and she folded. Anytime you get people to fold four cards when you don't have a good hand, it's a good feeling [laugh].

I just think combinations-wise, she's playing pretty tight out of position, so I don't think she's defending many combos of two-two, four-four, or three-five. I think the majority of her flop check-raising range is ace-four and unless she has a redraw, she's probably going to check-call that. I think that she's check-calling all of her flush draws including a king-high draw unless she somehow made two-pair, which, as I stated before, is pretty unlikely. I think she would three-bet a lot of hands that have ace-king in them, so it's pretty hard for her to have combos of two-pair with a big flush draw. There certainly are a number of hands she'd be check-raising for value like maybe some kind of run down that has a gutter to a straight bigger than the wheel with a moderately strong flush draw. But, I just thought the majority of the hands in her range would be check calling.

My range is uncapped. I could have anything. I was opening around 85 to 90 percent of buttons, so I can have all those two-pair combos and all those wheel combos. I think it's just a slightly more credible spot for me to have those hands than it is for her.