Heads up?

Heads up in small satellite Holdem n/l.


He offered me a deal earlier but I felt like I greatly out-skilled his loose-passive game and he was the kind of guy who desreved a good beating. Of course he sucked out on me when I was a slight chip lead with A10 against his 109.


So blinds are 200/400 and I have a weak 700 chips to my poor playing oppoent's 2600. I'm the small on the button with 56Hearts. What's the move??


(I folded thinking I'd rather have a high card then straight and flush draws. Next had get A8 and loose to his J7... Such is poker)


**sorry for the pookr spelling

The following assumes you have 700 and 2600 _after_ posting the blinds :


If there is the slightest possibility that he will fold for the extra 500 then you should raise I think.


Even if he doesn't you are putting in 700 to win 1100 and without having the figures to hand I think 56s is better than 11-7 against to win vs two random cards. After all it's only 40-60 against AK.


If you pass you will surely be all in 700 each effectively without looking at your cards on the next hand.


These blinds are very high for your stacks, 200-400 with 4000 in play. Unless he is capable of doing something really stupid (like folding for the 500 to your 56s), I hate to say this normally, but even a good player has a negligible advantage.


Finally I must admit sometimes I don't want to deal because someone "needs a beating" but just bear in mind it's going to feel even worse if he beats you :-)


Andy.

If there's even the slightest chance that he'd fold preflop, then move in. If he might fold on the flop, call and bet out, if he will sometimes check the flop here, check if you miss and bet the turn. If you know that he will neither fold nor check it down, call and check-fold unless you hit. But the point here is, that you have to play this hand!


It's heads-up, so it's either you or him with no premium on survival. This means that you have to play any profitable situation. While 65s is a 43.2% dog against a random hand, you're in the SB and have already commited 2/9 (or 2/7 - your post isn't clear on this) of your stack, so you still have an EV of +T77 (or +T104) and cannot fold.


cu


Ignatius

Thank you for the responses. The basic question was... How much of a help is it heads up to be suited and connected. By the way this example was money before blinds were posted (3300 in play).


I had always ascribed to the theory that heads up, most importantly, I want the high card. Therefore, I would have been more likely to push with a weak Jack. But thank you for helping me see better.

You're absolutely right about wanting a high card here and even J2o is better than 65s (which is comparable to T4o). But in your situation, even 73o would still be slightly profitable. You might fold those marginal hands if you know that you won't get the pot w/o a showdown but expect that your opponent will sometime fold his SB. However w/ an EV of over T100 (or 15% of your stack) 65s is far from marginal here.


cu


Ignatius