Heads up SNG strategy

[Staple Gun]

I have been reading and thinking a lot about getting tells based on the speed of a bet / call / check. I find it fairly hard to keep track of how a full 10 person table plays, but in a heads up SNG its obviously a lot easier. I am going to experiment more with this later this week but I see a lot of reasons this could work.

1. People who play heads up probably want action and people who are anxious will not pay attention and try to bet at the same speed every time.
2. Once you figure out your opponet you can use this info every hand, not just the few that happen to be against them.
3. It is much easier to bluff in a heads up match as opposed to a full table because players often call with any 2 cards and even if they hit a hand they might not feel confident.
4. You can often play rematches against people so you wil have valuable knowledge right away about them.

I am waiting till this weekend before i put any money into this idea because i want to observe some heads up matches to see if I can gain some knowledge. Any other thoughts?

[zenbitz]

Hey, you are not the first guy I know who uses (used...) the handle staple gun. In a totally different context however... (PBM gladiator)

[Staple Gun]

Hey, you are not the first guy I know who uses (used...) the handle staple gun. In a totally different context however... (PBM gladiator)

Huh? I followed you up to (PBM gladiator)

[DavSimon]

It can work...I often feel like I have a read on someone in a SnG - particularly when we get down to 3 people or heads up.
However I make a conscious effort not to vary my bets with the strength of my hand....and a conscious effort to vary the time it takes me to raise, call, fold. I will feign indicision with a big hand trying to induce a call or raise....sometimes I truly will be indecisive. Sometimes I will act quickly to represent strength/confidence - other times I will have the nuts act quickly and hope it looks like I am over confident to induce a call or raise.
Does it confuse my opponents? who knows....it works pretty well, most of the time.

[Venster]

If I see an instant check on a scary flop then I am watching for the slow played nuts!

[zenbitz]

staple gun -
those were code words to determine if you were the same guy.
Either
1) You are not the same guy
2) You have done too much X

[Staple Gun]

Haha no i guess im not the same guy, but anywayshow useful do you think my startegy would be for heads up SNG, like the match play ones. I want to start playing these consistently and i think if i won 60%-70% that would be good enough to make some decent money. In 10 person tables i usually find it more difficult to get good reads on people but heads up it is so easy. Also i think a lot of the match play people are action junkies which means they wont pay to much attention to try and randomize there betting habits.

[zenbitz]

My favorite trick HTH is to feign weakness against a "real" player (ie., no point in feigning anything against a bad player). If they are actually a good player, they won't be fooled, but always use a players arrogance and ego against them.

I also like randomizing responses, although I think I play my cards too much (raising good hands, calling/checking draws, folding losers). A GOOD player would notice what I do, I think. Luckily... good players are rare.

[Staple Gun]

Yea randomiuzing stuff would be the best way to beat a good player. Maybe im going a little far but what if you rolled a dice every times you had a raising hand and you raised whatever the dice showed IE roll a 6 raise 6X BB roll a 2 raise 2X, it would be impossible to read you hand but it might be worse than playing normal I dunno.

very good