HU SNG's - Finishing off your opponents

[Landon_McFly]

Less than 3 minutes into my last HU SNG, I had 2800 chips, and he had 200. He somehow stayed alive for about 5 more minutes.

What I was wondering is that when you have such a huge chiplead do you want to put them all in preflop, or do you want to see a flop?

Another thing, would you rather your opponent be shortstacked when the blinds are high or low?

I'm sick right now, and my head is full of snot, so these questions might have been answered by my brain if it was currently in service.

Thanks,
Lando

In heads up, chip equity is all that exists. If you're playing against a good opponent, you should play short stacked just like you play deep stacked (i.e. you having 2800 and him having 200 should be exactly the same as you having 200 and him having 2800).

If your opponent does not respond this way, play however you can best capitalize. For example, I find that many of my opponents are overly TAG when they are short and overly loose/passive when they are big stacks. I raise (or push, depending on stacks) off the button just about every hand when these players are short stacked and fold to most of their raises. When they're deep, I value bet a lot.

For when to start pushbotting, I follow the 8-10 BB rule. If either me or my opponent has less than 8BB, all my preflop raises are pushes, and I'm basically push/fold with rare calls against specific opponents in specific spots. At 9 or 10 BBs, I sometimes raise to 2.5 BB in specific spots and limping becomes more of an option, but I'm basically still push/fold preflop.

As to whether I'd rather have the blinds high or low against a short stack, this is pretty dependent on the player. I find in general that my biggest advantage in Bodog HU SnGs (starting stack = 1k, so multiply by 1.5 to convert), is during the "medium" level of 30/60 level, as the blinds are very significant and my opponents frequently take a few orbits to catch up with my new aggression. That said, there are definitely some opponents whom I'd love to play at 5/10 blinds forever (i.e., people who will push 100x BB stacks with A6o).