Heads up in SnGs, Can you do anything?

Womble · #1 01-06-2005, 05:51 PM

If you are a even stacks at the end of a SnG with high blinds such as 5000 vs 5000 (300/600) isnt it basically luck to see who wins first?

When I get to this situation I dont know how t give my self a chance of winning. It seems to be the person with the best cxards. Is there anything you can do?

UMTerp · #2 01-06-2005, 05:56 PM

The only big mistake you can make heads up with the blinds that big is to fold too much, particularly if the stacks are unbalanced. In the example you gave, you can wait 4-5 hands to "pick a spot" if you get really bad cards, but soon you'll get to the unbalanced stack point, and yuo'll be correct to push from the SB with marginal or worse holdings. There is an inordinate amount of luck involved regardless. And you're obviously playing for your entire stack any time you enter a pot at this point.

asofel · #3 01-06-2005, 05:57 PM

[ QUOTE ]
If you are a even stacks at the end of a SnG with high blinds such as 5000 vs 5000 (300/600) isnt it basically luck to see who wins first?

When I get to this situation I dont know how t give my self a chance of winning. It seems to be the person with the best cxards. Is there anything you can do?

[/ QUOTE ]

Be aggressive. Bluff. Mix things up.
A quote from Andy Bloch "In heads-up play, when I realize someone's not going to bluff enough, I'm almost never going to lose against him. Because when both of us have nothing, I'm going to win all of those pots. I'm going to take well-informed stabs at pots. When someone checks, I'll be pretty certain I can bluff at the pot.

Obviously this is assuming you're not facing someone who's also playing aggressively. If you played a mirror image of yoruself, then yes, the cards would determine things. But there will always be some inequalities between you and your opponent. Take advantage of their flaws and try to minimize your own.

junkmail3 · #4 01-06-2005, 06:00 PM

I don't know if this is short term luck or what ... but I find a relatively good SnG Heads Up Strategy (at least for the $10s and $20s) is the call/fold the SB and check/fold the BB (if you don't have a hand) for the first two or three orbits.

In my experience this will loosen up the other guy and he'll get more passive (or he already is). they I'll lay into him with pushes from the SB (unless it's an awful hand) and he'll start folding his SBs to me.

It makes me think we're playing nice ... and then I poke his eye out.

(I'm not recommending giving away half of your stack this way. It usually evens out for me, or puts me at a slight disadvantage at first, but it's very easy to make up after that.)

has anyone else noticed this general trend?

lawfive · #5 01-06-2005, 06:00 PM

Be aggressive. That should increase your EV over .5.

citanul · #6 01-06-2005, 06:08 PM

see daliman's "all in for the title" experiment, amongst other posts of that nature.

i believe that there was a post by someone that said something like "the only thing that you can do wrong is fold, and you can't be all that wrong going all in every hand," to which strassa replied "my heads up strategy changed immensely when i realized this" or something like that.

citanul

The Yugoslavian · #7 01-06-2005, 06:10 PM

You can push. And push frequently.

If your opponent allows you to see flops and is very aggressive then you can also trap by limping and then check/calling with any piece of the flop.

Yugoslav

Big Limpin' · #8 01-07-2005, 04:47 PM

Pretend your checks are a hot potato.

Unarmed · #9 01-07-2005, 05:04 PM

[ QUOTE ]
to which strassa replied "my heads up strategy changed immensely when i realized this" or something like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

The gem from Strassa was the fact that the absolute best your opponent can do against a push every hand, call every push strategy is to beat you 52% of time. That is an absolutely massive observation, and suggests that effective HU play (with relatively large blinds) beings with getting your chips in the middle on every hand, and can be improved by stripping out certain hands/situations from your push everything strategy.

HU is completely opposite from early SNG play. Early on the default is fold, and I need a real good reason to play a hand. HU the default is push, and I need a pretty compelling reason to do anything else.

BTW, the first time I came upon an opponent who pushed everything, I absolutely HATED playing him. After that point I was pretty much converted.

UMTerp · #10 01-07-2005, 05:09 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The gem from Strassa was the fact that the absolute best your opponent can do against a push every hand, call every push strategy is to beat you 48% of time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why wouldn't it be 50% if he called every time?

And the blinds obviously factor into this too. If the blinds are VERY large (400-800 at least), intuitively, I could see how pushing every time could be correct if you thought that there was a chance your opponent would fold. Obviously, if you know that he'd call any push, pushing a hand like 32o is clearly wrong. Also, if the blinds are still 50-100 or something, pushing every time is clearly wrong.

I'd like to see this post by strassa that you're reffering to. I think he's one of the more informative posters on here, but I don't see how he could come to the conclusion that the best your opponent could do against a "push every time" strategy is 48%. Maybe he had a stringent criteria for your opponent's calling standards or something, I dunno.