Heads Up, Tourney?

Hey Guys!

I was playing a home cash tourney a week ago, and it came down to me and the OBVIOUS chip leader(Extremely tight/passive), took out two guys with monster hands and I was left folding my night away due to drawing rags for 3 hours.

Anyways, My question is, how do you approach an opportunity to go heads up, being severely short stacked, to a player who will only play mid-premium draw cards? I've been seriously wanting to work on my heads up/short handed game, I am leaking serious money in these situations, especially since I'm a tight/passive player myself.

I'll give the low down when I hear some suggestions :)

I'd be raising almost every hand.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Toasty

I'd be raising almost every hand.

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Even with constant rags?

That's what I was running into, getting absolutely NOTHING as far as hole cards and trying to buy pots, but getting called is still a worry when you only have about 4 outs to draw trips... :x 8-)

When heads up your cards are only going to be worse than your opps half the time. He's not sitting there with AK every hand, I'm raiseing rags like I have AK everyhand though :)

When heads up starting hands are down to almost any two cards, I try to steal 2 blinds and fold my SB. If you try to win every hand they will get up-set and go all. You jsut have to grind them down. Heads up is the time when bluffing [b]is[/is] a big part of the game.

Catching any part of the flop is usually enough.

{Moved from Hold'em Strategies}

When you're short stacked and headsup, I wouldn't raise unless you have enough chips to actually raise, and then go all in for a substantial amount of chips that your opponent will feel hesitant to call. Imagine this, you have 600 chips and he has 3000. You raising 100 preflop won't do anything, he's going to call. Let alone you going all in after the flop won't do anything either. When you are short stacked you have to go all in preflop and steal his big blind whenever you can. Any face card will do, it's pure gambling and a coin flip but when you're short stacked you can't do anything else. You have to hope that you double up or else you're gonna get pushed around until you finally get pocket Q's only when he has AK and wins on the turn.

Obviously if he has a 5:1 chip lead its all in or fold, but if its 2:1 or lower you are still good.

Well I ended up figuring him out pretty well. I would make a rather large preflop bet, then go all in after the flop, he would fold. I played real aggresive and he couldnt handle it. Ended up dead even and he calls me on an all in, we split the pot and decide its late. So I turn what would've been $30 for second place into $70 for splitting first :)

I guess you have to be ballsy, have a little luck and hope for the best :lol:

:D
Billy

I prefer to play aggressively