Heads Up

[ffcowboy76]

After playing many different tournaments at various different levels, I’ve found the hardest part of a tournament is the heads up portion. Most players don’t get as much practice at this because of the extreme difficulty of getting to the heads up part. Using small buyin heads up tournaments are good, but don’t always represent the quality of player who will be at the end of a long MTT. I’ve practiced by playing different heads up games on different sites and working hard to make it to that situation in MTTs. Through my practice I’ve found a few things to be true. The most important thing about head up play is the ability to change gears. If a player can’t change gears on a routine basis, the opponent will start to piece together what you are doing. Part of changing gears is changing your aggression level. You can’t be hyper aggressive all the time, or people will figure that out and start to slow play big hands against you.

Before we can talk strategy we need to discuss what is good in a heads up match. For the most part if you flop a pair you should consider yourself ahead of your opponent. A straight and or a flush is about the best you will see in most heads up matches, full houses are a rare thing and need to be exploited to gain the maximum amount of chips from your opponent. Preflop hand selection should be based on what the action is coming into you and how you want to play. Let’s say you are first to act on the button and you get 5/6 off suit. You goal is to be aggressive right now so what should you do preflop? Raise, call, or fold? Obviously since you are after aggression you need to raise and put the pressure back on your opponent. There are times they will fold their weak hands and there are times they will just call. Other times you want to be passive you might just complete the bet and see a flop. A lot of what you do preflop is based on how your opponent is playing and how you want to play. Remember you can’t play in one style for the entire match or your opponent will exploit the weakness both aggressive and passive play offer. Against an aggressive player you need to do a lot of smooth calling and less raising. As an aggressive player, if someone fires back and me and I have nothing, I’m going to lay it down. If he just smooth calls, I’m more apt to bet on the turn again, trying to get him to fold. If you are facing a passive player you need to be more aggressive if they don’t bet. Most passive players will only bet when they hit something. If you are second to act on the flop and they check to you, try throwing out a ¾ pot bet and see how they react.

Let’s say you make it to the final table of a big MTT. As the players dwindle down you’ve been playing extremely tight aggressive. As heads up approaches you should have an idea as to how your potential opponents have been playing. The big stack has been playing pretty passive, limping with some big cards to allow people to push themselves out of the tournament. You and the big stack end up as the final 2 players with about even stacks. How do you approach a heads up game against him? Should you be aggressive or passive? The first few hands will tell you how to act. If you want to take an aggressive path, raise with first action and see what your opponent does. On the flop, bet again (even if you have nothing) and see what your opponent does. If your opponent is willing to call bet after bet with nothing, start to use that against him. If he is willing to smooth call with big hands, trying to get you to commit chips with nothing, make note of that and slow down. I’m not saying change your action based on the last hand played, but if being aggressive isn’t working, try being passive. Try to just check call with something and check fold with nothing.

Remember the only way to lose a heads up match is to run out of chips. If you are careful to watch the playing style of your opponent and use the weakness of each style against them you will start to find yourself coming out on top more often.

[eejit101]

I love you ffcowboy, HU is something i know about, and wanted to talk about for some time.


My input - HU is a completely different skill. While most people have certain betting styles in the full and semi-full table sections of MTTs, short handed play is alot different. You must completely open your range up, which im sure youve seen me do alot in some games. I can often go from playing 7 or 8 hands in an hour, to playing half the hands im dealt. This is for one reason only, chip accumulation. You want to be going into a HU or 3/4 handed section of a tournament as the chip leader. This allows you the benefit of small-risk agressive play, and of better table image and to be honest, big stacks scare you as you know they can bust you in 4 seconds.

I love HU, i play many MANY HU games. I believe nearly 1,000 just on FT alone. My ROI is in +$$, so we can assume i have some good advice.

All hands are playable HU. From 23 off suit (the worst HU starting hand, as 72os becomes better with only 1 player against you), to AA, the trick is knowing how to play it vs your opponent.

If your opponent is calling your preflop raises every time, and showing down some marginal hands (K6 e.t.c) then make your raises bigger with the premium hands, and extract as much as possible int he preflop stage to assure you he becomes pot commited in some way.

If the opponent is tight/passive, then raise alot more, open your range to incude ANY hands, and accumulate chips that way. If he pushes back at you, only call/push with a good strong hand ( imo JJ or better ) as he is likely to have the "nuts".

Basically get some reads on your opponent as fast as possible. Then change your play accordingly.

Another point - if you get into a huge chip lead and the villain has under 10 x BBs left, DONT, call his all ins with a worse starting hand than you normally would. Yes, he will be pushing alot of crap hands to get some chips back, but if you double him once... he is in danger of getting back to even stacks.




After saying all this, if anyone wants any kind of HU advice while playing a game, let me know, and ill arrange some kind of private HU game on a site for a tiny buyin, and we can just play for nothing, the winner will send the other player their buyin back.

Ill show all my hands after calling or folding, and some kind of helpful advice can be given in a hand, its just alot easier that way.



Finaly - Nice post FF!