Question for those who play HU in allin or fold mode

[durron597]

Imagine the following situation. You have just made it to HU in a SnG with approximately T3000 in chips. Your opponent has approximately T12000. He has been big stack pressuring but I wouldn't call him LAG; he will fold when its likely he's beat.

Here's the problem. Blinds are not going up every ten hands; they might be timed, I'm not sure why they weren't going up, but they weren't. They were at T100/T200, and stayed that way until at least 30 hands later when HU ended. So my question is: what sort of strategy do you use when allin with Ax, Kx, etc. does not move the chips around fast enough to make the strategy viable?

[Meatmaw]

I've found that my HU play was quite poor at one time b/c I would lash out with all-ins against someone who wouldn't call unless he had a great hand. I don't know if this is any different from common sense play, or if there are standard better ways of approaching this, but a lot of HU play for me now is to put out feelers for the rate at which the opponent is raising big, raising a little, calling, or folding PF and varying my betting to give the impression of certain hands, picking key moments, maybe once out of every 6-7 impressions, to wildly vary it in an attempt to exploit any impression I hope to have made.

I don't know if that made any sense or was any help.

Help me! /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[PrayingMantis]

There is no reason to play all-in/fold HU when blinds are 1/15 your stack (and 1/60 your opponent's), unless your opponents forces you into it. Your "strategy" is to get a read on him, and to outplay him: Steal a lot if he's folding too much, outplay him on the flop if he's calling but plays a weak post-flop play (specifically on the flop and turn), trap him if he's over-aggressive, reraise if he raises small but is scared later, and so on. VERY player dependent.

By playing a rigid all-in/fold (with Ax, Kx "guidelines" and such) at these circumstances, you are losing quite a lot of EV, that you might have if you are a better player than him, i.e, can read him and adjust well and fast enough.

The fact that the blinds are not moving up is even more so in your advantage, if you figure you are better than him. You can be more patient, in any sense, and take advantage of more of his weaknesses.

[durron597]

Yeah. I think the problem was that back when I was a bad poker player (in general, OMG OMG QJo I have two face cards yay) I was also bad at HU, and that guideline helped my play considerably. Now that I'm better at poker in general, I need to sit down and pay attention to my HU play and think.

Thanks for the advice! Though I probably will still play allin or fold mode when half the chips on the table are less than 10xBB /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
Imagine the following situation. You have just made it to HU in a SnG with approximately T3000 in chips. Your opponent has approximately T12000...T100/T200

[/ QUOTE ]

All-in or fold has a lot more to do with stack/blind ratios than it does with heads-up or no.

Playing all-in or fold here is a mistake. Heads-up is irrelevant.

eastbay