HU LHE Defending BB (comparison between 1/2 and 1/3 SB)

[MrWookie47]

The 40% comes from the fact that you hope to make up the extra 10% and more by playing better and having better cards than your opponent post flop.

I disagree with reraising your worst hands in limit unless your opponent is grossly folding too much. When you 3bet, you bloat the pot so much that your opponent can peel profitably, especially if there's a good chance you have a random hand. In NL, you can bet larger to make peeling (or even calling preflop) a bad idea with a hand that is unlikely to be best. In limit, though, it's much harder to do this in a large pot. By controlling the pot size preflop, you give your opponent the opportunity to make more mistakes post flop. If he folds too much, you'll still profit, and you risk less money for the times when he does have a hand. If you're packing a good hand, though, feel free to bloat the pot to encourage your opponent to draw, especially if he's drawing to a pair that's worse than yours, and to exploit a huge equity edge.

[kapw7]

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I disagree with reraising your worst hands in limit unless your opponent is grossly folding too much.

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I think it's a good idea against a player who plays decent and makes an effort to put you in hands etc. Deception is very important in HU. For example you might 3-bet with 78 and then put pressure and possibly steal on an Axx board.
If the opponent is an idiot who bets everything and never folds then it's not such a good idea. I've found though that players who are very agressive heads-up usually are capable of folds and sometimes they make very bad ones. But that's my limited HU experience.

[MrWookie47]

OK, look at this. You 3bet out of the BB with trash. Your opponent obviously calls (I'll assume he doesn't cap). You're first to act (usually), so you lead on the flop. You're offering him 7:1. 7:1! There's only a 1/3 chance or so that you've paired with the flop, and only about a 6% chance that you have a PP (albeit larger now, since presumably you're more likely to be 3betting w/ PP's), so, on a ragged flop, he's often correct to peel with any two, especially if he has some sort of backdoor or may have the best hand with an A or a K.

Instead, now you call in the BB and donk him on the flop. You're now offering him 5:1. If he doesn't have the best hand, he can be making a fairly substantial mistake to call (or raise). You are also risking 2 bets to win 3, rather than 3 bets to win 4. This play doesn't need to work as often to be +EV.

Now, deception is all well and good. If you want to very occasionally 3bet with junk because your opponent is always giving your 3bets too much credit, go ahead. You'll either win a decent pot, fold early and make your opponent suspicious of your holding, or show down (hopefully) winning junk and know that your opponent will now be paying off your good hands better. Great. However, always 3betting with the bottom 20% of your hands is a terrible strategy, especially in limit. Frequently bloating the pot will usually just make your opponent play better at a bigger monetary risk to you.

[itsmesteve]

1st, i'm not 3 betting with trash, i'm 3- betting with hands in the 60-70th percentile range. Hands like 55, 66, J9s stuff like this. I'm also 3 betting AK, AQ, premium pockets etc. The deception is therefore part of the value if your opponent thinks a bit.

I agree the donk lne may be better depending on the opponenet, but it ignores the fact that you are not discouraging him from raising pre-flop. He's still risking 1.5 bets to win 1.5 there. Discouraging him from raising liberally is one of the key components of what DS and MM outline.

I do agree that it is tougher to push someone off a hand in limit, as you can't control the bet size, but still think the theory of showing aggression and taking control applies.

If he's raising 60% of his hands, and i'm 3 betting about 20% I'm ahead alot of the time. I'm not sure on the math here, but when i raise the 60-70% category, I'm ahead 1/3 of the time he raises (40-60 percentile). When i raise the top 10%, i'm ahead of 5/6 of the hands he rases. If this is the way to figue it out, then 1/2 the time i have a .33 probability of being ahead, and the other 1/2 i gave a .83 prabability of being ahead. this comibines to .165+ .415= 58% of the time me being ahead. If I can figure out a cap means a top hand (or garbage, alternatively), i also minimze my post flop losses.

In regards to villain peeling the flop. At times, he'll certainly fold the best hand, which is a bigger mistake that drawing slim, if i've shown aggression. I'm not sure that you can carry over the 3-bet preflop as what i'm risking on the flop bet. SM and DS don't in this particular section of the book when talking about the villain getting 4:1 if you simply call and ck the flop after he raised. Regardless, if he peels light, i'm in good shape and get that same 4:1 on the turn (from the pot) if i follow with another continuation bet.

Regardless, you obviously can't paly HU formulaicly for too long, and need to mix it up. Just some thoughts.

edited to move some stuff around and put in some spacing!

[Henke]

I'm not sure this was the way DS & MM figued out 40% (ie how many hands should we call with to minimize the opponents profits). But rather, I think it was the other way around; what hands can we profitably play postflop. And that turns out to be around 40%.

I think the key thinking is that they chose hands that either might win a showdown UI (all PPs and Ax) or will "like" the flop about 50% of the time (suited connectors).

With regards to the preflop round, your pf equity would dictate that you should call with all hands since you're getting 4:1. But against a semi-decent player, the reverse implied odds dictate a fold... It's really hard to play a hand like 72o against all but the most predictable players.

In regards to your "how often should I reraise question", think about it as a value play. How often can you reraise an opponent for value? Let's say he raises 60% of his starting hands. If you have a top 30% hand, your raise will on average be for value. But he might also cap it with a better hand, which would require your hand to be a little better than top 30%, say about 20%. But remember this: when you reraise preflop you better have a hand with some possible showdown value. Since the flop will offer at least 7:1 if you check/call, you will probably go quite far... So generally reraise only with hands that has at least a K or A in them.

The drawback with the above strategy is if you're against an observing opponent. He might be able to pinpoint your hand when you reraise, so against that type of opponent you'll have to mix it up a bit with middle range suited connectors...

[Henke]

Oh, and I forgot the most important thing...

The post above outlines an OK preflop strategy from the BB (a bit expanded from the HPfAP HUSH), but when you're playing heads up, your opponents postflop play more than anything else should dictate what hands you should play and how you should play them. A few examples:

Against someone who is really passive postflop and calls down with anything, there's no need to reraise for "defense". Raise hands with showdown value. If he's passive, his raises might mean a strong hand. but even if you think you're beaten, sometimes call his raises so that you won't teach him to play better.

Against really agressive players, it depends on how they play postflop. If they tend to bluff most hands to the river, reraising doesn't have much value. Against those that might give up on the flop, and maybe even fold, you should try to estimate what will give the highest FE of reraising/betting out and calling/betting out. If the percentages are equal, go with call/bet out because it costs less if you're wrong. Or try to find a different table. These guys are IMO the hardest to play HU...

[Henke]

I think question 1 and two are one and the same... His example with villain not having to bet the flop if you call 33% of the time is "contained" within the limits of less than 50%.

Oh, a last piece of advice: the HU tables at e.g. Ultimate are tougher than playing HU at a 6-max or full table. Seems that the players that select the HU tables have often at least read something about how to play HU. Opponents who sits down with you on the bigger tables are usually waiting/hoping that the table will fill up.

I'm off to grab some beer, so I won't be able to follow up any replies today... [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[deception5]

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I don't like the 2/5 one much either, but the 2/3 one is fun, 3/6 should adopt that one

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I've heard this ends up with every other hand being a battle of the blinds. Absolute has this structure I think.

[DavidC]

Hey dude, thanks for the replies. They're great stuff!

[DavidC]

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I'm not sure this was the way DS & MM figued out 40% (ie how many hands should we call with to minimize the opponents profits). But rather, I think it was the other way around; what hands can we profitably play postflop. And that turns out to be around 40%.


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I disagree with this...

DS&MM didn't come up with the 40% playing frequency as a result of looking at the hands to see which hands you can play profitably post-flop. Evidence of this is they selected 39% of hands, then add the J8s, 98o and 97o to bring it up to 40%... so, something's special about 40%...

That indicates to me that they're specifically trying to make it to the 40% mark, for reasons that they understand but I haven't absorbed yet.