Heads Up Help Requested -- Getting Beat after taking huge leads

[jwp]

I'm looking for some advice or a good reference to heads up play. I consider myself an average Heads Up player, but twice recently I've taken huge leads (at least 9:1 chip ratio) and been beaten.

Both times, my opponent got super aggressive when short-stacked and it seemed to coincide with me not seeing a card higher than a 9, maybe a J. There were many 25o, 25s, J3o, 96o type of hands.

Does anyone have any general strategy advice for this situation? Is there a good book/article that anyone would recommend?

Thanks,
Joe

[BBill]

The post in this thread by Ramsey is pretty informative <<<<<

Just curious were you playing tournaments or straight heads up and what limits ?

[jwp]

Thanks for the link.

I was playing NL tournaments both times. Once was 2-person SnG, and once was one-table SnG where I was the chip leader when we reduced to two. There was a great deal of back and forth, but the ultimate result is that I lost despite my huge chip lead.

By "super-aggressive", I meant that he was regularly pushing all-in. I never called because my cards were so bad.

[BBill]

At the end of a tournament when the blinds are like 20% of your stack it becomes a bit of a crapshoot. You can not wait out your bad run of cards by folding the blinds so it seems to me the only stratagy would be to take your best shot at doubling up against an aggressive player. I also think that sometimes pure aggression can win in these situations.

[soda]

You probably need to call his all in raise with any two cards with that big of a chip lead and blinds that big. I can't say for certain without knowing the numbers, but too many people make the mistake of folding a shizzy hand just because it's a shizzy hand when they are getting odds to call with any two cards. This is especially true if you are outplaying him. For instance, he's folding too many hands to your aggressive raises.

72o will beat AKo 1 in 3 or something like that. Sounds like you need to take the next step and start putting him all in on your any two cards when he's short stacked. Switching gears. Yummy.

[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

soda

[Michael Davis]

When the blinds get high enough or your opponent's stack small enough, you should be calling with any two cards.

When losing, the all-in every time strategy is usually best when the blinds are large. So many players will fold way too much. I swear some players are folding ace-rag here, they just fold too much. These SNGs do not give you enough chips to wait for a good hand. The people who raise and call with crap late are taking more than their share of firsts.

-Mike

[BBill]

These SNGs do not give you enough chips to wait for a good hand.
some do some don't actually. The HU s-n-g s I play are

Stars 1500 starting chips (I do okay here)
TNT 2000 chips (I do well here)
UB 1000 ( NL only - tough to adjust)
Paradise ( have not played them but I think its 1000)

more chips means less of a coin toss IMO

[inkstain]

More chips does not necessarily mean less of a coin toss or anything like that. More chips just means more chips. What really matters is the amount of chips in relation to the blinds / other structure.

For example, UltimateBet SnG's start with 1000 chips, while PokerStars SnG's start with 1500 chips. However, UltimateBet's blind structure is slower and more gradual than PokerStars', and also does not use antes late in the tournament. Both UB and PS increase the blinds at a given interval (I think 10-15 minutes or so), while Paradise increases it after 10 hands. I think they also increase at a faster (double?) rate. So if more chips in relation to the blinds is more important to you, I'd think you should stay away from Paradise SnG's.

Most of the online poker sites will have a page listing their tournament structures, so you can go look that up before playing if it's that important to you.