Heads Up Plays at MTT Final Table

[Steve Chase]

Tiger7210 wrote:
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Unfortunately in the heads up I think Erdnase needed to switch gears a bit. He seemed to be playing extremely fast and just calling down every hand and not catching anything. It seemed to me like he never got an idea of where he was in a lot of the hands.


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I happen to win the final heads up for a very low buyin tourney at Stars recently (over 1600 players). I saw my opponent is tight. So I played very aggressive in heads up match, and turned my 800,000 chips vs his 1,600,000 chips around and win all the chips in a few minutes.

I attribute my win to:
1. Opponent is too tight: The blind was 20,000/40,000. I raise to 100,000 on almost every hands even he has twice of my chips. He never reraise me and often fold preflop or fold if I bet 100,000 again after flop (I bet 100,000 again regardless if I hit flop or not).

2. Luck: He choose one hand to stand up and called me all the way to the river. Luckily I have two pairs including the top pair so I bet all in after the river. He only got a middle pair. After this hand, I got 2,000,000 chips. He had 400,000.
After a few hands, he bluff me all in after flop and I happen to flopped the top pair T (with my T4 hole cards). I called and won all of his chips.

I am not an expert tourney player yet. Just want to learn more.
My question is How to Read opponent in heads up situation?
How should I play against a good tourney player?
Specifically I would like to know:
1. What hands to call, raise, push in heads up?
2. When to call/raise/push after the flop in heads up?
I only had one final table and one heads up so far.
Not much experience on how to play it.

Any books or threads that I can read?

Thanks

[tiger7210]

I certainly don't claim to be an expert in the matter, but I see each situation as its own depending on the opponent and your relative stack sizes. I thought in last night's tourny it was obvious how aggressive Erdinase was playing betting out on every flop as if it didn't matter what cards he had or were on the board. When you're playing for that much money each pay level is significant and that sort of aggressiveness is so highly effective.

When it got heads up though I believe its a different animal where its now 1 v 1 where its more of a chess match that requires more thinking. I always prefer to be the aggressor which plays real well obviously against tight players since generally they will broadcast when they have a big hand so folding becomes very easy. Against a very aggressive player I just try and mix it up as much as possible which will allow me to hopefully trap them with a big hand.