Which hands to play against aggressor heads up/3 way

[beekeeper]

I've only been playing for 4 months. My regular game is on hiatus, so I have been playing in local games, against unkowns. Usually these games are loose/aggressive, with lots of all-ins. I frequently find myself heads-up or against 2 opponents who will move all-in on every hand. Which weaker-than-normal hands should I call with in these situations? Thanks.

[Pov]

Few questions that are important:

When you say HU/3-way do you mean because everyone else has folded or you're playing really short-handed?
How big are the blinds?
How big can you buy in for / what is the average stack for both you and these movers?
What hands are you playing against them now?

If the blinds are relatively small compared to the size of the stacks (i.e. how deep are the stacks?) and you can rely on these players to keep making their all-in moves with regularity then you should stay tight and double-up when you are a big favorite.

If the blinds are big enough or the game is short-handed enough that you can't wait that long then you'd need to loosen up, but become very agressive with the hands you do play. I think your opponents probably fit into one of the following categories:

a) They really suck and just like to move all-in
b) They're actually pretty good and just running over you to continually steal blinds

B seems unlikely because steal-raising should not normally include all-in moves. Opening from the button with LOTS of hands for 3-5x the BB is an aggressive move. You'll steal quite often and if you're called or re-raised you can react accordingly with the actual value of your hand and position on your side. Going all-in is just silly. Your positional advantage is completely negated, your opponent knows he'll get to see all 5 board cards at no additional cost and most of the time when you're called you will be a big underdog for your whole stack. The reward is not worth the risk. The reverse of this is actually the basis for the GSiH short-stack NL strategy (I believe) which should tell you right away this is a very bad move for a big stack.

There is also case C in which the players are actually pretty good and are making the all-in plays because they think they'll get called by worse hands often enough to show a profit. This seems the least likely scenario but is possible.

So which situation do you think you're in?

[beekeeper]

Your reply is already helpful, thanks.

In the games I play, by the time we're down to 2-3 players, each player has between 10-15 times the big blind (the games around here start with small stacks relative to blinds).

I think that most of the players are not good, but I also suspect that I'm getting run over. I have been able to make it to the final 2-3 players mostly by being extremely tight and letting the others knock themselves out.

When I get to heads up, I will usually loosen up to play J8, small suited connectors, on up, and betting with Ax and small pairs on up.

My problem is I will find myself faced with a run of hands like J7, Q3, 75s, 53s, etc., against all-in or big raises, and not know when to take the risk.
thanks

[Pov]

Ahhh, so it's a freezout/tournament structure. I didn't realize that. Makes a big difference.

Most normal NL games are played with 50 big blinds or more and of course you can reload if you bust. This changes your strategy a lot.

With only 10-15 big blinds and paying them every three hands basically what you've got is very close to a crapshoot and you can't wait for only big hands. I basically have three pieces of advice (I am by no means an expert on this subject though so take my advice with that understanding):

1) Gap concept - Don't call with weak hands unless you're desperate, but be more likely to raise with them. If you are the aggressor, you can win two ways - by having the best hand at the river and by everyone folding. When you call you only have one way to win and the difference can be huge. Stealing the blinds here may well be worth 15% or more of your stack and is worth it with some questionable hands. If you wait until you're down to < 5 big blinds you won't be able to steal because your all-in will not be scary enough to avoid confrontation with more marginal hands.

2) Tiny connected cards are good for beating large fields when you can play them cheaply because they don't hit often but make big hands when they do so you can beat several other players. Here, your situation is exactly the opposite of that playing expensively against a small field. You want hands that can win unimproved. Heads up all-in would you rather have 87s or Q6o? Sadly the answer is Q6o, though not by much. Basically you should be pushing pretty hard with any pair, any Ace, most Kings and other combinations of attractive big cards and a bunch of other hands too if you think you can steal a decent % of the time.

< important side note - heads up you might want to play a lot of smallish suited connectors and even complete garbage for deception and because you have to play a lot of your hands to avoid being run over - the key factor to the above advice is that to play any hand at this stage you're probably putting 20% or more of your stack on the line and you have almost no chance of being ahead pre-flop - raising helps negate this becuase your winning % is bolstered by the decent chance your opponent will fold marginally better hands >

3) When deciding whether to call a big bet the first thing I think about it whether I'm likely to be dominated. If I hold a hand like A5o, I am a small favorite over anyone who doesn't have a pair or a better Ace. But if someone does have a better Ace or a pair higher than 5's, they are a solid favorite over me. This is where you can see that Gap concept coming into effect. If no one else has acted, their hands are basically random so I can assume my A5o is good. But once someone shows aggression their hand is now much less likely to be in the weak half of random. Likewise, with pocket 5's you are a small favorite over most non-pair hands, but a huge underdog to a higher pair. If your hand is not dominated in one of these ways you're actually in good shape. Most people are surprised to learn that ATo only beats Q7o 65% of the time (AKo only improves to 68%). No, you don't want to be calling in that situation if you can help it, but you're going to win 1/3 of the time if you KNEW he had ATo. If he's raising all the time, his hand is likely to be much worse than this.

So in summary (boy I am long winded today) - do a lot of raising yourself - don't do as much calling unless you have something good - and good short-handed is very different from good full ring - if you're down to 5 BB's raise all-in with nearly anything unless there is another short stack on the "bubble" of a significant difference in prize money that you might be able to outlast. Steal against him with nearly anything though. He'll have a lot of trouble risking elimination with a lot of hands that are far better than yours.

[beekeeper]

Thanks, this is very helpful.

[SheridanCat]

Great posts, Pov.

T