OT: Heads Up Strategies and considertaions

[the shadow]

Hey Landon,

We're doing the same thing. I can't remember the last time I played a STT. I've been playing only HU and 4-way freeze-outs on Stars for a few months now.

1. Take a look at dana33's excellent 1st post on Simulated heads-up endgame in all-in or fold mode, which includes some good posts by eastbay. dana33 suggests that a 70/50 push/call strategy is optimal for a 10:1 ratio, and a 60/30 strategy is optimal for a 20:1 ratio.

2. I'm still working out myself how aggressive I should be. These may be leaks, but here're some random thoughts on how I'm now playing deep stacked HU matches:

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] I raise PF frequently. I generally raise 3xBB. I generally start out raising about 1/4 of my hands. If villian generally calls, reraises or pushes, I might tighten up. If villian generally folds, I try to see if I can buy the pot with a 2xBB or min-raise.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] If the flop hits me, I generally bet, regardless of whether I have two pairs, an overpair, high pair, mid pair, low pair, or even an under pair. If villian generally calls, reraises or pushes, I tighten up.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] Even if the flop doesn't hit me, I bet it about 1/2 the time.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] If I flop a set, I bet it about 1/2 the time. If the board is safe, the rest of the time I may slowplay it by check-calling the flop and turn and check-raising or leading out the river.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] If it's checked to the turn, even if the board hasn't hit me, I generally bet if I have an overcard.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] If I have a flush or straight draw, I generally bet.

The Shadow

[citanul]

shadow:

your initial writing here seems like a decent start of thinking about how to process all this stuff. i'm sure you know this already and have done more work than your post shows, but it seems like your post sort of only talks about button play, kinda. it takes in to account way too little what your opponent does.

saying that you raise preflop frequently isn't enough usually, as well, you have to play your out of position hands too! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

saying you bet a whole bunch of the time is fine too, but again, are we talkin about when you are checked to, or when you are first to act? what do you do when your opponent bets and you've missed? etc.

blah. that's mostly pointless from me,

c

[Hendricks433]

The hard part for me with HU is the playing OOP part. And being way to aggressive.

[citanul]

that's because it's hard to play heads up out of position. especially when your opponent knows that you're just betting all the time with crap.

[Hendricks433]

Im only aggressive on the button. I fold way too much OOP. and Raise too much on the Button.

[Landon_McFly]

[ QUOTE ]
Im only aggressive on the button. I fold way too much OOP. and Raise too much on the Button.

[/ QUOTE ]

[xJMPx]

The first thing I do when I start heads up is figure out how they react pre-flop to my limps and min-raises.

If they are not going to come over the top of my limps from the button, then I'll raise less often with my marginal hands and see some cheap flops to outplay them later.

If they will fold to a min-raise, then I'll try to min-raise and c-bet them to death.

Typically, I try to figure out what their weakness is and how they are reacting to me.

If they are a calling station, I slow way down and value bet my medium/strong hands. If I'm really sure they don't have a piece of the flop, I push...no more raises that'll they'll call with nothing.

If they fold way to much, I just bet bet bet...anything and everything.

If they are aggressive, pushing a lot and re-raising me, then I go aggro back at them and hope the cards favour me in the end.

[the shadow]

I wrote my earlier post quickly, just like I'm knocking this one out fast, so I'm sure that I could be expressing myself better. (DevinLake certainly made the points clearer.) That said, I was not limiting my earlier post to button play.

IMPO, passivity is more important than position. If villian generally is going to fold to a bet after he's checked it to me, I'm not that worried that I might have to play a hand out of position.

As far as deep stack PF play goes, if I'm checked to, I bet about 1/4 the time. If villian minraises, I always call. If villian raises about 3xBB, I'll reraise about 1/3 the time to see what he does. If villian is almost always raising >5xBB, at the first levels, I'll wait for a PP or AJo+ and push.

Keep in mind, I'm not viewing these as rules or as anything close to an "optimal" strategy. These are just rough guides to my starting parameters as I'm trying to smoke out the villian's style.

The Shadow

[zaphod]

[ QUOTE ]
Keep in mind, I'm not viewing these as rules or as anything close to an "optimal" strategy. These are just rough guides to my starting parameters as I'm trying to smoke out the villian's style.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes,isn't it most important to try to find your opponents weaknes when playing HU SNG's and then use these weakneses against them?
I have just played a few low level matches, but some of the players were horrible. Some opponents will fold if you ask them to on the flop, so you just take a lot of small pots from them. It will take some time to get theire stack, but you will get there eventually.

Then you have the action junky, coming and wanting to bluff you all the time, and you just let him steal, steal, steal(then you trap him).

At the same time trying to wary your own play a little bit is a good plan.