Heads up problems

Any tips for a beginner.

Problem I have is that I play ring games better than tournaments but I like tournaments. I've narrowed the problem down to heads-up play. I typically get into the top three of small STT's (around the $5 buy in) but I always seem to loose the heads up.

OK I win a few but those are usually the ones where the stacks are even and we both go all in with good hands. If the play lasts any amount of time I end up loosing.

I'm sure that I'm not aggressive enough but I find it very hard to bet holding nothing but 93 off

Help!!!!!

[AKQJ10]

Although definitely not for beginners, HEPFAP has a lot of good material on heads-up limit play. No-limit is certainly different, but many of the concepts are similar.

In short, you don't want to play just a little looser and more aggressive. You need to play several orders of magnitude looser and more aggressive. Bottom pair is very strong, a pocket pair is a monster, and any ace is generally a hand you shouldn't mind taking to showdown.

Maybe even then 93 offsuit is one of the small percentage of hands you fold preflop, but if you put too many hands into this category you risk making your opponent's raise automatically profitable.

[aargh57]

Also, when playing in these situations HEPFAP suggests pretending the top card isn't there or turning it into a 2. For example if you have Q9 and the flop is K98 then you would pretend the flop is 982 giving you top pair. This is to help you assess the value of your hand in these situations so obviously you can't go too far with this but it points out that the average winning hand is going to be much worse than in full ring games.

[Sean D]

HOH2 has a section outlining some basic heads-up play, and a good play by play analysis. Basically, you want to be as aggressive as possible, and put the other player to a decision. Changing gears when heads-up is also very effective. It sounds simple enough, but experience in heads-up play definitely helps.

[bholdr]

play a bunch of HU tourneys for practice... that helped me a lot. try stars, you get a lot of play for a $5 match.

[pzhon]

Pay close attention to the effective stack size, the number of BB in the smaller stack.

When this is large, there is room for a lot of postflop play. When it is small, you should be pushing preflop aggressively, both for value and as a semi-bluff.

A very common weakness is to be too weak or too passive preflop when the blinds are large.

[ QUOTE ]
play a bunch of HU tourneys for practice... that helped me a lot. try stars, you get a lot of play for a $5 match.

[/ QUOTE ]\

Yeah good idea. If you have a local poker house/home game you can also ask people if they wana play heads up for a couple bucks. When I first started (and I am definatley still starting) I found heads up very difficult and complicated but now I actually like it more than a full table.

Thanks for the responses.

I've gone back through HOH again which has helped. I think I was doing almost everything wrong when it got down to heads-up. I've yet to try any of those heads-up games but I think I will.