Head-to-head against a TAG

[usmhot]

Relative newbie. I'm playing NL, small buy-in ($5 or $10) STTs.
Been reading 2+2 for a while and its really improved my game. Got the lists of pocket cards and how to play them pf from all positions. From the forums I'm getting a good idea of how to play through the flop, turn and river.
I'm at the stage now where I can almost always get in the money - so I'm quite happy with my play against multiple players at this level. I reckon I'm quite tight/aggresive.
Last night, down to the final two players, it took us about twice as long to play out as it did to knock out the other players. The villain was also quite TAG, and I lost (finally) by going all-in pf with KTs - mostly cos I was getting frustrated.
My question is this - how do you play and win against a TAG when its head-to-head?
At this stage, when I'm down to final two its often a TAG.

[HesseJam]

You erase the T from TAG .

I always leave the tourney open when I bust to get the summary automatically. Sometimes, it takes the last 3 15 minutes to get down to 2 and heads up takes another 15 minutes. That's when I chime in in chat: "Could you please hurry up, we need the table!" Funny reactions follow and the match is usually over the next minute. (I guess I shouldn't be doing this, should I?)

[HesseJam]

OK, how about something useful:

Try to read as many posts on this forum as possible. Until you get more familiar with h2h play try this the next time you are up against a TAG:

If he has a tendency to just fill up from the SB preflop to look at the flop, raise preflop for 2 big blinds with any 2. If he reraises go all in with only the very best holdings. If he calls, and he checks the flop go all in if the flop hit your hand. If he raises let it go unless you have a monster.

If you are in the SB, raise for 2 BB with 2/3 of your hands. If there is resistance, muck unless you have a great hand (AA, KK, AKs).

Do this only after you are pretty sure that he is a TAG and you are sure that he thinks you are also a TAG, two-three round of blinds folding are sufficient. If you notice that he is getting suspicious try something else like covering the blind and moderately check-raising the flop.

Note that this is not a great h2h strategy but just a quick fix that should leave you better than playing h2h like a full ring TAG. Chances are that you take 2000 chips from him if the blinds are high enough before he knows what hit him. If you are over 6000 go all in with 3/4 of all your hands.

Read posts, read posts, read posts!

[HesseJam]

Oh, and you need to quickly fix your taggishness at the last levels , otherwise you'll be just run over by non-tags.

[mike_scar]

TAG = tight/aggressive?

/NOOB

[usmhot]

Cool, thanks - I'll try this out later on (assuming I find myself in the same position).

[usmhot]

Yep.