Always 2nd Place!

[solfan]

Hi Everyone. I've been lurking here for a few months and this is my first post.

I've only been playing for about 6 months so I'm really really new to Poker. I play primarily at my house once a week with a regular group of guys with some additonal folks every now and then.

We play for $5-10 buy-ins tournament style Texas Hold'em.

My problem is that via reading forums, playing some online, and playing my home games, I've learned ALOT. My first tournament, I was third out. Since then, I've won a couple small games, but mostly I come in 2nd place. It's been 4 months since I was out less than 3rd place.

It doesn't matter who I go up against, I always come in 2nd place. I'll have 5:1 chiplead and still get beat. Basically, I suck at heads up. If I play heads up on Full Tilt, I win about 3 for every 1 that I lose, but the live games kill me heads up. The only good thing about my home games is I never lose money because we give 2nd place back their buy-in.

Is there any info out there, or advice on how to move about 2nd place. If I could just figure out the trick, I know I could be a good winning player.

An example.. Last night, I played.. Got to heads up with a good player. He's beat me every time he's played me heads up. I had probably 4:1 chip lead.. He worked his way to chip lead (having less than 1000 chips more than I had).. I get dealt A9s. I raised a couple thousand (blinds 1000/2000).. he called. Flop comes J64 rainbow. He checks.. I bet 2000 again. He calls. Turn comes J. I bet 4k. He just calls. Turn comes some low card. He bets 1/2 his cihps. I put him on a high card (knowing he's a loose aggressive player). I figured a K. I went all in.. He calls.. He has full house... Totally smoked me.

Now, I know my mistake, I should have respected his bet on the river and folded. But, I just didn't think he had it.

Anyway, tips? tricks? Anything?

Thanks,
SOLFAN

[ilikeaces86]

Heads up is all about aggression aggression aggression. Raise and then when you think hey may have you beat raise some more.

[solfan]

Yea.. I've learned that. That's why I just kept betting into him. I used to just let them bet into me, but after much reading, I became way more aggressive. But, perhaps I'm too aggressive sometimes.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

-SOLFAN

[drmcboy]

Don't be too hard on yourself - 1 vs 2 is a lot about luck. As said aggresion is key- remember that you'll have the best hand 50% of the time.

[Rondavu]

I'm not a big believer in excessive overaggression heads up. It makes you vulnerable to being cold called out of your stack.

What generally happens is you win 4 smallish pots by bullying and then get spanked on number 5 by a camping monster.

The mistake you made on the full house hand was not recognizing that this particular hand is not yours. J 6 4 was on the board. You bet into him and he called. It's borderline whether he would call with a 6 or 4 in hand when you raised him preflop. I would have checked the turn and folded to a raise.

Just because your plan is to be aggressive doesn't mean you ignore any possibilities in an opponents hand. You have to be SELECTIVELY aggressive.

Think about it like this. When someone raises into me preflop, when I call I'm thinking one thing... See if I hit, and if not get out. He could have hit the 4 and he has you beat. He called you, and you had nothing. Check/Fold and move on.

What happens when your overaggressive is a phenomena called bluffing yourself out. What that means is the more you raise raise, the more you can't gauge what your opponent is calling you down with, because you might have loosened him up. Your threatening him with your aggression, and he's become a cornered animal defending himself. You have to expect to be looked up sooner or later by marginal holdings as a result of your overaggression. In short, you lose all sense of what your opponent is holding when he calls. Does that make sense?

Instead, be aggressive in spurts. Be aggressive a majority of the time. Maybe 60-40, but maybe even 70-30. That's maximum for me. Then every time your opponent calls you, you know it's not because he feels threatened, but because he has something. He doesn't feel threatened by your constant aggression, and therefore obligated to defend frequent bluffs. It becomes very dangerous when you spin your opponent into slow play call down mode to counter your overaggression. Don't let him get to that point.

Excessive overaggression tends to erase your read mechanism, because you force your oppoenent to play out of his skin. The key is to have your opponent believe your catching good cards, not stealing his lunch money.

[melinda27]

with a 5:1 or 4:1 chiplead the two of you shouldnt be seeing a flop unless its for his entire stack

[Rondavu]

with a 5:1 or 4:1 chiplead the two of you shouldnt be seeing a flop unless its for his entire stack

I agree to a point. 5:1 yes, 4:1 no for me. I don't want to call him all in for a double up with a sub par holding. Then we're even again, and I completely lost my advantage since I was too hasty.

[melinda27]

i agree about pushing with a subpar holding, but if i'm already a 4:1 chip leader i feel that if i can get a good 40/60 shot to take him out i'll take it everyday, along with the fold equity i'm gonna get from pushing a few times and taking down the big (in relation to his stack) blinds. I'm gonna take 1/4, 1/3 of his stack easily before he realizes what i'm doing and you can usually tell when that "she's just going to push me around till i make a stand" light goes off and then its just a matter of time before they outthink themselves and call at the wrong time. If you lose the coin flip you usually just give them back the money you've stolen anyway worst case scenario for me is they even up the chip count by surviving and then i just change gears again and grind a chip lead back like i did to get it in the first place. 9/10 times they never even realize what is happening and are completely lost in what to do to stop you.

[Rondavu]

I guess I misunderstood. You said that you shouldn't see a flop unlesss it's for his entire stack. So would you fold if you didn't have a hand that was worthy of calling him all in? Say you have K8 offsuit. Heads up that's not a bad hand. You wanna see a flop, but do you call him all in? I guess that's what I'm missing.

[JeffreyGB]

with a 5:1 or 4:1 chiplead the two of you shouldnt be seeing a flop unless its for his entire stack

Nice to see you posting again...last thing I read was shortly after I joined.

IMO, if you put him AI every hand, you're setting it up for him to double up. I love to play against over-aggressive players like this heads up. Mixing up your play while still leading the table is the key to heads up for me.

[Rondavu]

with a 5:1 or 4:1 chiplead the two of you shouldnt be seeing a flop unless its for his entire stack

Nice to see you posting again...last thing I read was shortly after I joined.

IMO, if you put him AI every hand, you're setting it up for him to double up. I love to play against over-aggressive players like this heads up. Mixing up your play while still leading the table is the key to heads up for me.

I agree. Don't give back casually what you have rightly earned. Let him sweat it out on the low stack. Soon he'll get impatient and bet heavy on you while your holding something strong. Sometimes having a big stack is like being the torture specialist in a war time interrogation room. He knows pain is coming soon, and there's nothing he can do about it. The pressure alone can loosen most players too soon as their stack dwindles.

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[Greedo017]

I think the idea heads up with a chip lead along the lines of 4:1, is you're not just pushing every hand, but you're being aggressive every hand. You don't want him seeing flops and you don't want him getting blinds. Rilla's numbers are right, at 4:1 and with you being very aggressive he's gonna end up pushing at you with unpaired cards, and if you call him you're gonna be >30-35% to win. That is a risk worth taking.

A reverse example of this, is yesterday i was in a heads up game. I was raising every hand w a big edge, he eventually pushes with J5, i called with Ace 3. He hits two jacks on the flop. Then later, we are almost dead even, we both push, i have ace 9 he has jack 5 (coincidence...) and he pairs a jack. Both times, i was the favorite, but lost. If you were a big stack, it would make sense to push even if you had the jack 5 and i had the ace, because you're really not that far behind considering, if you win you win it all.

[melinda27]

i wouldnt call his all in with just about anything, but i'd put him all in with just about anything. After 3 or 4 times of him seeing you'll go all in with any 2 cards he's only going to put himself in a pot with you with strong cards making it much easier for you to pick him off when he's weak, he'll fold alot of mediocre hands from the SB because he knows if he limps at you you're gonna come all in anyway, sure he might get smart AND lucky enough to get a monster before he's blinded down to nothing but then he's also got to dodge whatever junk you're holding for 5 cards as well. THEN he has to be able to beat you straight up IF he is lucky enough to get back to even in chips. I'll take my chances being caught in an overaggressive situation.

[solfan]

Thanks for all the input guys. I've read it all and will take more time to go over it tomorrow when I have more time.

Thanks again,

SOLFAN