Heads up strategy guide?

[fishhead]

I play home game tourneys and consistently make it to the final two, but I almost invariably end up 2nd. Sure, I've had a fair share of bad beats, but 75% 2nd place finishes indicates a trend. Can one of you guys lay out a general strategy guide for heads up play? When to push relative to the blinds, what cards to push, how to play TPTK (maybe it's bad luck, but I've had 7 consecutive tourneys with TPTK losing to ragged 2 pairs and flopped straights), trapping vs. betting pairs, how much to open raise, etc. Sorry for the generalities, but I'm looking for help along the lines of Aleo's 10+1 Guide.

Fyi, we usually have a total of T800-T900 chips in play with blinds at 20/40 when we are heads up.

Thanks!

[Jason Strasser]

I'll take a stab at this.

Generally, there is a known set of guidelines to heads up play.

1) Against a good player, you want to push, a lot. If you put me heads up with Phil Ivey, I would be pretty close to a maniac. I would push any suited connector, any king, any ace, any pocket pair, etc. The thinking is that I can steal the blinds most often, and if I get called, at worst (hopefully) I am a small dog or in a coinflip situation. Pushing all in preflop takes away Ivey's chance to destroy me with his superior play on the flop.

2) Against a weak player, you want to play agressive, but you want to give him every chance to mess up on the flop. You assume weak players are going to make weak decisions, so you do your best to put him in a decision making position. You want to see a lot of flops, and you want to outplay him there. You don't want to be calling his all in with pocket 6s, or Ace-nine preflop, because at most you are a slight favorite, and you can outplay him. Against Ivey, I'd gladly call with a hand like 66, hoping that we were in a coinflip situation.

It sounds like recently you've had a few bad beats, which is very normal for heads up play. If I were you, I would analyze each opponent. If you are against a weak player, see a ton of flops, etc. If you are against a strong player, push push push push push.

That is my general advice, hope it helped.

[DVDerek]

I agree with Jason's strategy completely. I found myself in this situation quite often in my home game. I was the best player there and everyone knew it, yet I finished second far too often.

My problem was impatience. I just wanted to finish the tourney and get everyone back in. Once I caught myself having these thoughts, I slowed down and played to see a flop... knowing I could just wait for a mistake and capitalize.