My HU Dilemma: 4 game turning hands

[GtrHtr]

I “thought” I was a fairly good HU player, guess not. I usually go into HU with between 2000 and 3000 chips, usually build it up to even or slightly ahead and lately the bottom falls out.

In HU play I will vary my calls, raises, pushes from the SB to keep them guessing and widely expand my calling standards from the BB. If I hit the flop or second pair I will usually attack the pot.

September stats started to get me to focus on my HU game. 44%ITM and 25% ROI with only 10.0% 1st’s and a ton of 2d’s. This month to date my ITM is 45% and my ROI is 18% with only 2 1sts and a ton of 2ds. The hands below are some examples and come from my very frustrating final set of 4 last night where I went 2/2/2/2.

I debated posting an entire HU HH a la DFScott, but thought I’d post the “game turning hands” to see the thoughts and opinions and hopefully learn something. I’m very willing to post entire HU HH’s if that is preferred beyond what I’ve written about my style of play above.

Any thoughts or opinions welcome,



***** Hand History for Game 2831757288 *****
600/1200 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 16360030) - Wed Oct 05 20:50:48 EDT 2005
Table Table 12111 (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 6: Villain (3484)
Seat 10: Hero (4516)
Hero posts small blind (300)
Villain posts big blind (600)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 9c, 8h ]
Hero calls (300)
Villain checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 9d, Th, 5s ]
Villain bets (1000)
Hero raises (3916) to 3916
Hero is all-In.
Villain calls (1884)
Villain is all-In.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 7h ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 2s ]
Creating Main Pot with $6968 with Villain
Creating Side Pot 1 with $1032 with Hero
** Summary **
Main Pot: 6968 | Side Pot 1: 1032
Board: [ 9d Th 5s 7h 2s ]
Villain balance 6968, bet 3484, collected 6968, net +3484 [ 9h Ac ] [ a pair of nines with ace kicker -- Ac,Th,9h,9d,7hAc(kicker card) ]
Hero balance 1032, bet 4516, collected 1032, lost -3484 [ 9c 8h ] [ a pair of nines -- Th,9c,9d,8h,7h ]



***** Hand History for Game 2831682716 *****
400/800 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 16360060) - Wed Oct 05 20:38:46 EDT 2005
Table Table 18329 (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 6: Villain (3970)
Seat 10: Hero (4030)
Hero posts small blind (200)
Villain posts big blind (400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Ah, 6d ]
Hero raises (3830) to 4030
Hero is all-In.
Villain calls (3570)
Villain is all-In.
Creating Main Pot with $7940 with Villain
Creating Side Pot 1 with $60 with Hero
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 7h, 6s, 3s ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Qs ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 9h ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 7940 | Side Pot 1: 60
Board: [ 7h 6s 3s Qs 9h ]
Villain balance 7940, bet 3970, collected 7940, net +3970 [ 9c Qh ] [ two pairs, queens and nines -- Qh,Qs,9c,9h,7h ]
Hero balance 60, bet 4030, collected 60, lost -3970 [ Ah 6d ] [ a pair of sixes -- Ah,Qs,9h,6d,6s ]

***** Hand History for Game 2831668820 *****
400/800 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 16360034) - Wed Oct 05 20:36:27 EDT 2005
Table Table 18327 (Real Money) -- Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 2: Villain (4040)
Seat 10: Hero (3960)
Villain posts small blind (200)
Hero posts big blind (400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 9d, 9s ]
Villain raises (1300) to 1500
Hero raises (3560) to 3960
Hero is all-In.
Villain calls (2460)
Creating Main Pot with $7920 with Hero
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Jd, 5c, 8h ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Ac ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 7c ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 7920 |
Board: [ Jd 5c 8h Ac 7c ]
Villain balance 8000, bet 3960, collected 7920, net +3960 [ Js Ad ] [ two pairs, aces and jacks -- Ad,Ac,Js,Jd,8h ]
Hero balance 0, lost 3960 [ 9d 9s ] [ a pair of nines -- Ac,Jd,9d,9s,8h ]

This one I was never able to double up my initial HU stack of 2300 and went down in flames fairly quickly.

***** Hand History for Game 2831625609 *****
400/800 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 16360018) - Wed Oct 05 20:29:17 EDT 2005
Table Table 12161 (Real Money) -- Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 5: Villain (6405)
Seat 10: Hero (1595)
Villain posts small blind (200)
Hero posts big blind (400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 7c, Kd ]
Villain calls (200)
Hero raises (1195) to 1595
Hero is all-In.
Villain calls (1195)
Creating Main Pot with $3190 with Hero
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 5s, 3h, 2c ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 5c ]
** Dealing River ** : [ Ts ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 3190 |
Board: [ 5s 3h 2c 5c Ts ]
Villain balance 8000, bet 1595, collected 3190, net +1595 [ Ah 5d ] [ three of a kind, fives -- Ah,Ts,5d,5s,5c ]
Hero balance 0, lost 1595 [ 7c Kd ] [ a pair of fives -- Kd,Ts,7c,5s,5c ]

[downtown]

Hand 1: Push
Hand 2: Push
Hand 3: Push
Hand 4: Push

Blinds are too high to nancy about with any other moves than pushes here. Your long term results will thank you.

Edit: I meant push preflop on all hands.

[GtrHtr]

right, I pushed all 4, am I missing something?

[downtown]

[ QUOTE ]
right, I pushed all 4, am I missing something?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, I edited. I would have pushed the first hand preflop.

[SoCalPat]

Hand 1: Fold or raise PF. You shouldn't be limping with crap like this, and if you face resistance, you should be able to ditch it.

Hand 2: I'm all for a raise here, but going all-in is too much. Bad players don't want to slug it out, but rather, will risk it all on one hand and hope to get lucky. It's my experience, however, that there's something more sneaky and deviant about small raises from the SB.

Unlike your previous hand, you've got a decision to make if your opponent comes over the top PF, or bets out the flop when you catch a small piece of it. But I'd rather be there than blindly pushing all-in when it's not necessary.

Hand 3: Nothing you can do here. Tough to imagine one of you not being all in before the flop here. You just got marginally unlucky.

Hand 4: You did the right thing, but you were also behind all the way.

You'll notice that in two of the hands you were behind from the start, and in a third (99 vs. AJ), you lost a coin flip. Short of your SB play in the first two hands, I'm not seeing anything here that would lead me to question your skill. You just got unlucky, that's all.

[downtown]

[ QUOTE ]
Hand 2: I'm all for a raise here, but going all-in is too much. Bad players don't want to slug it out, but rather, will risk it all on one hand and hope to get lucky. It's my experience, however, that there's something more sneaky and deviant about small raises from the SB.

[/ QUOTE ]

You deviantly raise to t1000 and Villain pushes. What's your action?

[SoCalPat]

[ QUOTE ]
Hand 1: Push
Hand 2: Push
Hand 3: Push
Hand 4: Push

Blinds are too high to nancy about with any other moves than pushes here. Your long term results will thank you.

Edit: I meant push preflop on all hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

At 200/400 and with 4K in chips, the blinds are nowhere near "too high" to be pushing with 89o. I'm not going to debate the point in pushing in the other three hands, but it's silly to do so here unless you know your opponent is weak-tight, and even then you can accomplish the same (stealing the blinds) with a modest 2-3X BB raise.

[downtown]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hand 1: Push
Hand 2: Push
Hand 3: Push
Hand 4: Push

Blinds are too high to nancy about with any other moves than pushes here. Your long term results will thank you.

Edit: I meant push preflop on all hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

At 200/400 and with 4K in chips, the blinds are nowhere near "too high" to be pushing with 89o. I'm not going to debate the point in pushing in the other three hands, but it's silly to do so here unless you know your opponent is weak-tight, and even then you can accomplish the same (stealing the blinds) with a modest 2-3X BB raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

BB in the 89 hand is t600. There's no other move than the push.

[SoCalPat]

If Villian's MO is to push with inferior hands, I'll call.

If this is the first push I've seen from the villian, I'll fold. In his case, it still would've left me with 2,500 or so, and I've come back from far greater deficits.

[SoCalPat]

[ QUOTE ]
BB in the 89 hand is t600. There's no other move than the push.

[/ QUOTE ]

My bad. I saw the last three were 200/400 and wrongly assumed the first hand in his thread was the same.

At Paradise SNGs there is no 300/600 level. The top level is 500/1000, and there it's push with just about anything decent. Prior to that, it's 250/500 and 150/300. Obviously a different animal than 300/600.

The crux of what we're debating is whether or not the blind structure is so high that it forces you to push on any two cards, right? That's not what you're saying, is it? Because pushing with 89o when you have the chip lead certainly sounds like you are.