General PL08 tourny question....

[kurto]

In preparation for a private poker tourny (4 12 person SNGS - Razz, PL08, Stud hi/lo and NLTH)... I've been playing PL08 SNGs.

I haven't been able to find a lot of literature on 08 tournaments. Thus far, I've been playing fairly conservative early (which allows 2-3 LAGs to get knocked out in the first 2 rounds).

I'm completely lost when it comes to HU or 3 handed. Last night, for instance, I was HU with about $2300 vs the other guys $11K+. With blinds at 200-400... and him minraising nearly every hand, I wasn't sure what were hands to take a stand with. And when to just call or push.

The kinds of hands I would have-
7-8-10-J (single suited or not)
A-6-9-Q
3-4-9-K
K-K-K-3
A-5-8-8
I know these are all crap at a full table, but what about heads up, as a short stack with constant pressure?

What if the stacks were even? Are these raising? Folding from small blind? Completing?

I've read every hand on Ribbo's site, checked out the links provided, read SS2, articles on Cardplayer.... but have seen very little (deep) articles on PL08 tourny play and, specifically, hand values shorthanded or headsup.

Any help appreciated.

[Ribbo]

[ QUOTE ]
In preparation for a private poker tourny (4 12 person SNGS - Razz, PL08, Stud hi/lo and NLTH)... I've been playing PL08 SNGs.

I haven't been able to find a lot of literature on 08 tournaments. Thus far, I've been playing fairly conservative early (which allows 2-3 LAGs to get knocked out in the first 2 rounds).

I'm completely lost when it comes to HU or 3 handed. Last night, for instance, I was HU with about $2300 vs the other guys $11K+. With blinds at 200-400... and him minraising nearly every hand, I wasn't sure what were hands to take a stand with. And when to just call or push.

The kinds of hands I would have-
7-8-10-J (single suited or not)
A-6-9-Q
3-4-9-K
K-K-K-3
A-5-8-8
I know these are all crap at a full table, but what about heads up, as a short stack with constant pressure?

What if the stacks were even? Are these raising? Folding from small blind? Completing?

I've read every hand on Ribbo's site, checked out the links provided, read SS2, articles on Cardplayer.... but have seen very little (deep) articles on PL08 tourny play and, specifically, hand values shorthanded or headsup.

Any help appreciated.

[/ QUOTE ]

You wont get any help from me, because 1: I don't play tournaments and 2: I only play full ring games.
I focus on one game scenario, a full cash game and work on improving because I know I will always get a game.
Heads up, you want 2 low cards with atleast an ace or with a pair. JT98 is terrible, 9935 is better, A57J is better with the usual "preflop call" hands being a shove. When you do decide to play a hand, shove back rather than just call so you don't give yourself the option to fold (almost always incorrectly) on the flop. You will always have atleast 25% equity on a usual flop and with half your stack committed by the preflop call, it makes calling the rest correct.

[aslowjoe]

[ QUOTE ]
kinds of hands I would have-
7-8-10-J (single suited or not)
A-6-9-Q
3-4-9-K
K-K-K-3
A-5-8-8


[/ QUOTE ]
In reverse order of strenght in my opinion. I would welcome any critcism to my order or thoughts.
KKK3 is mucked very time

78TJ makes the 2nd best of everything might be dangerous. depends on the nature of my opp if I call min raise

349K not bad low but not good for much else. Marginal call to min raise.

A69Q again not geat but probably okay for min raises

A588 easy call.I could almost get a bit aggresive with this hand.

All above hands would be for min raise while in the BB any more then min and they all get mucked accept A588. I would limp from the SB if BB was not a frequent raiser on the stronger ones. muck them all from sb with min raise.

[Cooker]

If I were getting raised almost every hand, then I would like to know what types of hands have equity edges over random hands since that is what my opponent has. If the edge is okay then I want to reraise if I don't have many chips since I don't want to get outplayed later, and flat call if I felt cofident that I would make correct decisions on later streets and have plenty of chips to play with (remember, he is likely to keep up the pressure so correct decisions might be tough).

Likewise, when first to act I want to raise up any hand that figures to be a reasonble favorite over a random hand. This info might be in Cappelletti's book. I have read some of it, but don't own it and don't remember exactly what stats he has off hand, but I do remember a good bit of stat info in the book. You could also get some software and do the simulations yourself.

[FBMike]

I know I'll get a lot of heat, but almost any hand is good enough to call a min-raise HU, especially if your opponent raises nearly every hand. You don't want to be calling with 5559, but almost anything else is worth seeing a flop. 87 can win the low end of the pot just as easy as A2 when your opponent doesn't have 2 low cards, which happens quite often. Even the hopeless KKK3 can win a whole pot when the board doesn't hit your opponent at all, which also happens a lot, but probably not often enough to make KKK3 playable very often.

Don't take my word for it. Go watch ThunderKeller, IndianHead, or other high-stakes players play heads up at UB. They see every single flop, raised or not. That's because they get 3-1 pot odds to call a raise and there are very few O/8 hands that are worse than 3-1 dogs pre-flop, even against a premium O/8 hand. Since your opponent raised every time, you can be pretty sure he wasn't holding premium hands every time; so, you should have called nearly every time. You can fold some truly hopeless stuff like 2222 and save some ammunition for later, but almost anything else should be played heads up.

If he started pot-betting pre-flop every time, then you would have to pick your spots, having 1/5 the chips of your opponent. However, even then I would call more often than fold with any reasonable hand. The blinds will eat you up if you wait for premium hands heads up.

I don't know if Buzz has any heads up stats from simulations, but twodimes.net shows that you would have to call a hand like As 2s Jd Td -- which would be a monster heads up -- with a worthless hand like Ks Kc Kd 3h, because it scoops or wins high often enough (EV = 0.314) for you to call a min-raise at 3-1 pot odds. I didn't say I would play it (too many times you don't know if your pair of kings is good), but in theory I should.

One more example: As 2s Jd Td vs Tc 9h 8s 7d. You would think this hand would do a lot better than KKK3, but its EV is only a little better at 0.356. However, this hand is a lot easier to play once the flop hits than KKK3. So, I would definitely be calling heads up with T987.

What you are trying to do heads up is find a board where your opponent has a super-strong hand and you have an even stronger one and you scoop him for a ton of chips. If you keep running for the hills with a mediocre hand when your opponent min-raises pre-flop every hand, you reduce your chances of finding those boards that scoop a huge pot.

Between these key big pots, most of heads up is somebody's garbage beating somebody else's worse garbage for small pots or a pretty weak high hand splitting with a ridiculously bad low hand. If one player is better than another, there will also be a lot of the better player stealing small pots from the other player, when the latter has a weak but better hand.

Think how easy you make your opponent's life if you only call min-raises with pretty decent cards, instead of the wide range of hands I'm suggesting. Not only will he steal you blind pre-flop, but he'll also be able to steal you blind post-flop with nothing, whenever the flop clearly misses the type of hand you call his min-raises with. He can't try that BS so often when you play nearly every hand, because he won't know if the flop missed you or hit you big time.