Heads up - How do I win?

Nice Forum

I have played Texas Hm only for a couple of months or so and
after playing fake money only I have now started to play single table tournaments 1-10 $ with 5 or 10 players. I have improved since I started and now quite often end up among the 2 last players on the table, but then I usually loose.

I can see that my style of play has to change when going heads up, and the blinds are getting big, but I find it difficult to choose a strategy and often end up going AI and take my chances with almost any hand, since the blind is so large.

Could anyone give me a tip or two on how to play heads up

you have to realize with 2 people, starting hand criteria go way down...(k high can be a very competitive hand) i find you have to be super aggressive, but be able to get off a hand in a second....

you have to balance valuing relative strong hands (A2 HU is pretty good) vs absolute strong hands (AK, AQ...etc), difficult, but possilbe if you take the lead on betting and

Be agressive. Raise every pot preflop to 2xBB regardless of your hand. If your opponent calls, then he probably is hoping to improve a weak or average hand. If he reraises, he probably has a good hand - so fold unless you have an Ax or a high pair (depends on his raise). If he folds, you got free money. He will catch on eventually, but his stack will be lower by then and hopefully he plays into your monster hand.

I play any Ace. If you hit another on the flop, you most likely win the hand.

You might think these tips will only speed up your exit, but so far I'm 6/8 heads up. And the last time I lost, my opponent was the aggressor and my cards could not overcome that. I had no clue when he did or did not have a hand.

You want to build an image of tightness and keep your opponent from knowing what anything you do means (i.e. raise a consistent amount relative to the current blinds no matter what you have if you are going to raise preflop - AQo warrants the same raise [throughout the whole session] as AKs as AA). This way you can start making more aggressive plays when it's down to 2/3 people and the others will treat it like it means something.

When you're heads up, TPTK is a monster. Any pocket pair / Ax / face cards are raising hands. Suited connectors technically go down in value unless your opponent thinks he's picking up on your aggressive play, in which case he'll likely call giving you better implied odds.

If I'm heads up and my opponent doesn't raise, I'll limp - no matter the cards [EDIT: unless I'm raising].

The ideal situation to create heads up is for your aggression to turn your opponent passive. You also need to get a read on them to see if/when/how they are bluffing.

There's some general info. I'll try to answer more specific questions if you ask them.

- Jeffrey

Thanks alot for tips!
I think I have been too passive so far. I'll try to be aggressive, but with 7 2 or 5 3 it is tempting to give up even a large blind to get at least on last shot.

Questions in detail for heads up, blinds are big:
1) what about suited 9 10 if he raises and if he doesn't?
2) He's all in and I have A 2 not suited ?
3) I'm small blind, he is getting low on chips in big blind and I get pocket 2's , then what to do?

Originally Posted by Borax

Thanks alot for tips!
I think I have been too passive so far. I'll try to be aggressive, but with 7 2 or 5 3 it is tempting to give up even a large blind to get at least on last shot.

If he raised, fold these. If not, then you can decide how aggressive to be. A part of it is making the cards only a factor if he has you beat. If you can win all the pots except the ones where he knows he has you beat, you're golden. That said, yes, the above are bad hands. If you try to bluff and he re-raises or calls, give it up fairly quickly with these.

Originally Posted by Borax

Questions in detail for heads up, blinds are big:
1) what about suited 9 10 if he raises and if he doesn't?

Is he aggressive - playing as described above raising on bluffs and such? If so, you might call a raise depending on how big it is and if he's likely to call you when you hit your straight or your flush. If he only raises when he has cards, fold this to a raise. To a check, I'd probably raise this my standard amount.

Originally Posted by Borax

2) He's all in and I have A 2 not suited ?

How's your stack size compared to his? What does he raise on? If you have the chips to call and still be at least even AND he is capable of raising with poor hands, I'd probably call. If either of the above is not true, fold, especially if it's only going to be a blind (which you should be able to take back within a couple of hands)

Originally Posted by Borax

3) I'm small blind, he is getting low on chips in big blind and I get pocket 2's , then what to do?

I'd raise at least 1/4 his stack. Possibly push him in. Pocket 2s are actually the only pocket pair that doesn't win over 50% heads up though, so it's iffy. On second thought, pushing him in is probably a bad idea here as well, since it's reasonable to think he'll end up beating you.

- Jeffrey

Be agressive. Raise every pot preflop to 2xBB regardless of your hand. If your opponent calls, then he probably is hoping to improve a weak or average hand. If he reraises, he probably has a good hand - so fold unless you have an Ax or a high pair (depends on his raise). If he folds, you got free money. He will catch on eventually, but his stack will be lower by then and hopefully he plays into your monster hand

R8ed: THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

I always just sit at ring tables.

Tonight for no particular reason, I decided to try a tournament. I played two SNG tourneys and both times I made it to the final two. The first time I got to the final two, I thought to myself, "what did I just read today on FTR? Always raise, no matter WHAT your cards are, before the flop. If he raises and you have nothing, consider folding. If he folds, you won free money."

Well it doesn't really jive with my tight play personality, but I did it anyway. Raised every damn time from the SB. He folded 50% or more (I could check PokerTracker for an exact %). If he didn't fold and checked the flop, I'd always bet again, regardless of whether or not I hit. And when he didn't fold pre-flop, he often did on the flop. I was surprised how much this worked.

I finished 1st on one tournament, and got caught on the other in my post-flop play. But the preflop strategy worked beautifully!!!

I just wanted to thank you because for the first time I knew what to do when I found myself heads up at the end of a SNG!!!

Funny, I just sent out a newsletter to my subscribers today about playing the play money tables. I sincerely believe playing those tables will severly hurt your ability to learn the game. Don't worry, the best way to win is to get pissed off about losing. Now that you are in the money games, you should learn quite a bit. Practice Daniel Son, Practice, that is the only way you are going to consistently start winning. You have to remember you are playing against some of us who spend 40+ hours a week playing.

John Vorhaus has a decent guide to heads up tournament play. It's a bit long winded (10 parts) but it helped me suck a little less.

http://www.ultimatebet.com/learn-pok...ournament.html

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the advice in this post is absolute gold, i read this a few days ago and just was heads up in a 30 person sng. using this advice i won easily. HU the cards mean almost nothing most hands

More advice..

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...pic.php?t=6821

Wow, this forum rocks!
I played a few tournaments this weekend and for the first time
I won more heads up than I lost. I won 4/5 tables of five players where I reached heads up (3x5$ table and 1x20$ table). I also won 2/3 heads up in 10 player 5$ tables. I tried a bit different tactics and aggressive play as explained on this post really improved my play. Only thing is that when I reach heads up, the blinds tend to get very large sometimes, so large that calling is not really an option. In these situations it's very often all in or fold. But I then went much more all in preflop than before and many players scare easily.

Thank you very much for all tips

I think I lost to one of you guys this weekend Gald I could help...I think. Like my signature says, all the credit should go to the guys mentioned. I'm too dumb to develop something so simple, yet so powerful.

Nice job Borax!!

Thank you Jason
It was great to play with a feeling of doing smart choices an actually win for a change. Yesterday I came down to earth again winning only 1 of 9 single tables... it felt like I never got anything to work with and the few killer hands I got only won blinds.
10-players: 2-6-3 wasn't too bad, but for 5 players: 3-4-3-3-3-1 was a real set back... (at least the one I won was a 20$ paying 50$).

I tried to keep up the aggressive play, but had to play several medium hands all the way and got short stacked in almost every game. I was caught by guys small playing KK twice and lost two games in a row to pocket pairs 88 and 99 going all in with AKo .

okay - I now get the aggressive part, to win against bad players - but then what do you do when your oponent gets the point and starts calling or reraising all the time

Example:
Yesterday I ended up heads up in a 5 player 20$ single table NL with 2500 chips each. Blinds on 40/80. I started up by betting 120-160 every hand and raising 240-320 if he called. He folded and folded and folded and everything seemed to work out nicely. When he reraised 600 once I just folded my (10 2). Then he changed his tactic and started to call me what ever, and I lost three hands in a row. He then called or reraised me every hand from there and since I couldn't get a really good hand I couldn't take him down and blinds were getting too large too handle. I was forced to go all in and lost with QTs to K3o. Due to larger blinds it was hard to keep betting almost every hand and to start checking would be to turn the table in his favour...