Need help when it gets to heads up

[Yads]

Whenever it gets down to heads up play I always seem to self destruct. I'll become way too aggro and my opponents will take a nice little pot from me. Then I start playing catch up and can never quite make it back, then go all in with a PP or an Ace and get called and lose. Any tips for when it gets down to the final 2. Any good books I can read to help with this aspect of the game? Any websites. I seem to have no problem getting ITM, but I can not seem to win it in the end. BTW couldn't really find anything in the search so sorry if this has been posted before (which I'm sure it has.)

[zephyr]

Here's my advice. Push everyhand from the SB. Push or call an all-in with 10x+ from the BB (example: you hold J6o, opponent raises, you push). Not even Stu Ungar could beat you if you were using this strategy.

The time to be aggresive is preflop, and unless the blinds are unusually small, be aggresive by putting all of your chips in the middle. It takes alot of skill to play well postflop with such high blinds.

Good Luck,

Zephyr

[eastbay]

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Whenever it gets down to heads up play I always seem to self destruct. I'll become way too aggro

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I seriously doubt that. Almost no such thing.

eastbay

[pshreck]

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Whenever it gets down to heads up play I always seem to self destruct. I'll become way too aggro

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I seriously doubt that. Almost no such thing.

eastbay

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Yeah hes right. The only way its possible if is somehow you got heads up in the 2nd or 3rd round and you each have a ton of BB's (this happens at the 22s occasionally).

Are you doing dumb things like raising 40% or more of your stack without pushing? If you decide to play a hand, make your opponent make a decision for his tournament life, you will be surprised how often they will call a 2k raise with their 10J, but would have folded to a 2900 bet of all in. I am completely serious.

[hurlyburly]

There's a chapter in Sklanksy/Malmuth's Hold 'Em for Advanced Players that will help you a lot. There are a lot of little things you can do to easily improve your game that you probably don't even realize. Seeing the flop with any two, playing middle pair like top pair, betting pot on a scary board when you miss (ie bluff a little bit more often), slowplay smaller hands more (TPTK for example), reraise much more often than normal but be more willing to fold against aggression when you miss.

That single chapter probably added more to my bankroll than the entire rest of the book.

Use the blinds to practice H/U play (or just try some H/U matches). If everyone folds and it comes down to blind v. blind, that's about the same range of hands you can steal/play with.

One thing I'm trying to learn now is how to manage my opponents stack better when I have a comfortable chip lead to set up a big play down the road. Raising with junk, then folding to any raise to get them comfortable that they can beat you, then chopping them back and repeating is tough, but it's a good way to bide time until you get the cards to grab their entire stack.

[eastbay]

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There's a chapter in Sklanksy/Malmuth's Hold 'Em for Advanced Players that will help you a lot. There are a lot of little things you can do to easily improve your game that you probably don't even realize. Seeing the flop with any two

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What!? No, absolutely not. This is how to play with deep money. It has nothing at all to do with how to play SnG heads-up where the money is very shallow.

eastbay

[hurlyburly]

Ok then, if you want to just make the game into a coin-flip by hoping your playing against a TAP then I guess you can push every hand that is raised or whatever. That chapter is worth reading and it has immense value in SnG formats. If you are so short-stacked that you can't apply any of those strategies when it reaches H/U then there is a different problem that needs to be addressed.

My style might be different, I'm usually the chip leader going into H/U (or out in 3-5th /images/graemlins/blush.gif).

[eastbay]

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If you are so short-stacked that you can't apply any of those strategies when it reaches H/U then there is a different problem that needs to be addressed.


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Wrong. If you are big stack then the other guy is short and my comments still apply.

Read everything you can, but don't misapply it.

eastbay

[Yads]

Thanks for the advice guys. No I'm not doing dumb things like not pushing when I'm betting more than 40% of my stack. I just find I'm being aggro at pretty much the wrong times, like when he has a major holding. Is that just bad luck. Should I be basically raising every hand pre flop. I tried doing that last sng I was in. I had the guy pegged as very passive. This guy built a huge chip lead early and was content coasting into the money (stealing his blinds was a joke.) When it got to heads up I would basically raise every other hand and he would give up. Then I lost a big pot leaving me fairly short stacked. And I basically self destructed by trying to muscle him out of a pot a little later. I was BB he raised and I bet the pot with KT. he called and I pushed all in on the flop he called flipping 98 with top pair. My ten came in on the river, but it completed his straight.

Which chapter of HEFAP are you reffering to? Is it the shorthanded chapter? I'll have to re-read it, I found that it was mostly advice on how to deal with an overly aggressive player.

[hurlyburly]

Yes, its the shorthanded chapter, but take it for what it's worth. It was gold to me, but I tend to be too tight and it helped me see edges that I was missing before. Eastbay had some great points that has me thinking that it may not help everyone, but I stand by it's value, even if it's only for me.