Limit SNG assistance please

[tewall]

Regarding the heads-up advice, Paradise has free money heads up matches (and maybe some others as well). This will give good practice for free. Many of the players are horrible of course, but so are many you'll be playing against in the tourneys. This will give some experience for playing against differing types of opponent styles.

Ok, some HU advice (deep stacks):

1. Always raise on the button.
2. If your pf raise is called, and then you are checked to, always bet the flop.
3. If you have a hand as good as Ace high (King high would work here too against many opponents), don't fold it. You can slow down, but make your opponent show down a better hand.
4. If your opponent doesn't raise you SB, raise him, and bet the flop regardless.
5. Play draws aggressively, for their semi-bluff value.
6. If your opponent is leading out, let him keep coming to you with a good enough hand to play. With a killer hand, raise him on the turn when the bets double.
7. If your opponent doesn't always raise you when he's on the button, respect his raises when he does. Play maybe best 40%, and fold the rest.
8. The worst mistake is to fold a winning hand at the river.
9. If you're the first to act on the river, and your hand is as bad as 9 high, bluff.

This is obviously very simplistic, and easy to take counter measures against, but not a bad starting place I don't think. I have well thought out reasons for each of these points which I'd be happy to comment on (they may be wrong, but at least they're well thought out!)

In a long drawn out HU match, you have to be good at figuring out what your opponent's leaks are, and then exploit them. Decent players will switch their strategies, and good players have to be constantly adapting. Things are much more complex then I've presented above, but the most common error HU is not understanding that pot odds force you to play much more than when there's more players. Many players don't understand this and can be beaten simply by aggressively betting, so the above strategy is aiming at taking advantage of this.

tewall: Thanks a lot, I'll start trying some of your tips and let you know how I get on...

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Would it help with your bitterness if I told you trying to two table is making me loathe them?

Thanks for the input.

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Forgot a reason NL is better

4. Easier to play multiple games due to mechanical pushbot strategy that is not hard to learn and is very effective at the 10 dollar tourneys.

P.S. I'm bitter because I've finished 4 4 and 5 in my limit sngs and yes it was due to my bad limit play.

Reading your No. 4 I hope it's now clear to everyone why the standard multitable threads here didn't cover what I wanted to discuss.

Giving it a go this afternoon it was notable that I didn't spot anyone else doing it....

I feel pushbot may be my new monicker....

(I promise I'll search for the threads before asking how I change my name)

Thanks again all.

[A_K]

I'm in the minority here, because like you, I actually prefer limit tourneys. (Mostly because I'm a decent limit player but suck at NL).

Two tips:

(1) You really must play like a LAG when you're shorthanded, and HU you should just go nuts. I often win the low-buyin limit tourneys by playing tight until the end, and then just running over guys. If you play your tight agressive style HU (or three- or four-way) you will lose.

(2) My favorite heads-up discussion is in Hold 'Em Poker for Advanced Players. As it points out, a near-optimal strategy heads-up is to raise every hand (or nearly every hand) from the small blind. Unless the big blind calls a surprisingly large amount of the time (or three-bets, or check-raises the flop), the SB's strategy is profitable.

Thanks A_K, nice to see I'm not completely alone...

By nature I am a LAG so I temper the tendencies until four (probably 5) way and then let loose. But I just get bewildered HU and practically throw in the towel. Anyway trying to multitable isn't helping so I'll have a concerted "one table at a time" effort tomorrow.

I'll read the Sklansky/Malmuth text - as I should have already.

Thanks again and good luck