heads up strategy

If you read poker newsgroups or discussion forums on the internet you will likely see several different approaches to heads up play. Like many aspects of the game, people tend to develop their own styles and mine has been born from trial and error followed by some more error with a hefty side dish of error. So while I’m not the world’s authority on heads up play, here is what I think:General Strategies:Aggression. Thank you, good night.Seriously, if I had to use one word to describe my strategy, aggression would be the word. But since there are varying degrees of aggression, lets discuss some specifics. The most important factor heads up is the chip count. If you play Pokerstars one-table SNG’s, there will be 13,500 chips between you and your heads up opponent. Your initial strategy will depend heavily on how many of those chips you have. If you have 12,000 and your opponent has 1,500 it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that his only move against you is all-in and you can afford to call his all-in with just about any two cards. He’s going to have to double up and double up again without losing anything in between just to start to pull even with you. If you have a massive chip lead the one thing you don’t want to do is just fold your SB, fold to a small raise he makes, in fact, folding *period* should be rare. Pressure him at every opportunity; which means every hand. But I’m getting ahead. Lets back up to differences between heads up and multi opponent action. Heads up hand selection should be radically loosened up. You will play hands heads up that you would never consider playing any other time. This is one of the most difficult adjustments I see from newer players. They get to heads up and start folding their SB. Then they fold their BB when the SB makes a small raise. Then they fold their SB again. That would be fine if you had 10,000 in chips and the blinds were 10/20. You could fold all night with those limits and would be no worse for it. However, you will likely have anywhere from 3K to 6K (sometimes more sometimes less but usually you’ll be in that range) and the blinds will probably be in the 300/600 range (if you play turbo SNG’s) or maybe in the 200/400 range in a regular SNG. Its easy to see that folding a couple of SB’s and a couple of BB’s will pretty much cripple you. So be prepared to play just about any two cards. For example, I will raise out of the SB with any ace, king or queen, suited or not, and any pocket pair or suited connector. In other words, I’ll raise just about everything. Once you get heads up, you should have some idea about your opponents style. Is he the aggressive type, always coming in for raises or was he passive and waited for good hands before getting involved in a pot? You should know that much about his play at the bare minimum. If he’s aggressive, be prepared for a fast and furious conclusion to the contest. He’s defiantly going to remain aggressive and probably raise every single hand (I like him already!) and if you don’t do something to slow him down at the outset, he’s going to take half your stack before you know what hit you. After that, you’ll be left to going all-in with something less than great and just like that its over. So when he raises the first heads up hand between you, consider re-raising him huge. Notice I didn’t say to look at your hand, and if its a good hand, re-raise him huge. Your hand doesn’t matter (remember, this is just *my* opinion), what matters is that you are going to set the tone right from the outset that you are not going to be pushed off your blind. It also tells him you’re ready to gamble just as much as he is and may slow him down. But understand that this is a risky play because he may just re-re-raise you all-in and then you have a tough decision (depending on the quality of your hand, of course). If you’ve read any of my strategies you probably have the idea that I don’t mind taking risks. I take many risks in SNG’s because that’s the style that has been most effective for me. I don’t play with scared money so I’m not afraid to risk busting out of the tourney (especially heads up where I’m guaranteed at least 2nd place money) so if I playback at my aggressive opponent and he actually has a hand at that moment, so be it. But in my experience, that’s rare.If he’s passive, get ready to have some fun. If all through the SNG he’s just been limping and been lucky enough to catch hands and the reason he’s heads up with you is because the AA, KK, AKs, QQ and TT he had on five consecutive hands all held up, he may be very easy to play heads up. You’ll know right away. If he limps or folds his first couple of SB’s, get ready to start running him over. Raise his blinds and raise your BB if he just limps out of the SB. Notice again I’m not talking about what cards you get, I’m talking about playing the man. If he’s showing you that he’s happy to fold his SB, help him along by pressuring his BB and any limps he makes. After about 2 minutes, you’ll have a massive chip lead and he’ll finally make a stand with something. If he happens to win, just start over attacking him. I think you will find that the passive players are just a real treat to play heads up. They are not adjusting their starting hand requirements and if they don’t happen to get some real good cards real fast, you’ll take them down.Which brings me to how to handle a heads up opponent who catches hands. Its easy, you take second place and start another SNG – lol. Seriously, because of the size of the blinds, if your opponent catches a run of cards for three or four hands, say goodnight Gracie. There just isn’t much you can do if your opponent gets run over by the deck. I guess you could avoid it by folding every hand but that’s just going to leave you short-stacked or crippled and even if you finally get what you consider a good hand to play, you’ve got no chips to move around. Maybe that style can work for you but it doesn’t for me. When I win a SNG I’m delivering the knock-out punch and when I finish second, I prefer to go down swinging, not folding until I have 500 chips left and then going all-in with pocket threes. In other words, I don’t fear losing and consequently I’m aggressive from the outset, especially against a passive player.You may have noticed that I haven’t discussed post-flop play. The reason for that is that my style heads up is not to see a lot of flops. But if I do see a flop I will be very aggressive if I catch any piece of it. And that includes good draws. If I flop bottom pair and am first to act, I’m betting. If I flop four to a flush or straight, I’m betting. If I flop nothing and my opponent is a passive player, I’m betting. Sensing a theme here? If I flop a full house, well, then I’ll check. But mostly I’m looking to bet. Its been my experience that most players get uncomfortable when you’re just firing at them relentlessly and that’s what I’m looking for. I want to be the aggressor and I want my opponent on the defensive. If my opponent is skilled (a rare thing) then I’ll adjust my aggression and look to trap him if I catch on the flop. So again, my opponents style is critical to my strategy. All of the above brings me to this - one thing you must understand about SNG’s is that the structure of the game is built for speed and because of that the limits rise very fast which turns heads up until a bit of a crapshoot. If you and your opponent are about equal in skill and chip count, luck is going to play a large role in the outcome. That’s just the way it is. Which ever one of you catches the first decent hand while the other one catches something less decent will likely determine the contest. Because of that its my opinion that your best chance of winning a SNG doesn’t lie in your heads up strategy. It lies in your mid-game strategy. My goal is not to just squeak into the money (although circumstance sometimes makes that a reality), my goal is to build my stack to an overwhelming advantage so that by the time it gets heads up, my opponent is going to have to get very very lucky to beat me. If I’ve got 10K when we get heads up, for example, I’m going to finish 1st nine times out of ten, regardless of my opponents skill level. So I play the middle rounds of the SNG with that in mind. I’ll take risks and try to bust people out because I know that having an overwhelming chip lead is my best chance of winning. If it doesn’t work out that way in the middle rounds, and I have an average or below average stack come heads up, then see the above. And all the above can really be summed up with one word – I leave it to you to figure out which word.