Heads up Cash game with guy always raising his position!!

i personally like playing heads up, but theres this guy, actually a pritty good player, who always raises me with his position. The thing is, im certain that this isnt a good move by his part, or at least i feel like it isnt. I would like to know your thoughts on the matter. For example, if he raises continuosly, and if i reraaise him to double his bet he will call it most likely, possibly even up to 3 times. So... i believe that i should wait for a good hand and just reraise as well as pretend i have a good hand from time to time and play exactly the same to confuse his play, but im a lot of the time playing with scared money. Anyway, i would appriciate it if you could tell me some techniques i could follow to beat him next time while he has position . Thanx

If he's raising "every" time then re-raise him (from the BB) with: any pair, any two broadway, any suited ace, and A9o+. Call with any two cards except absolute trash like offsuit two gappers (63o,84o,etc...).

Unless an opponent shows they can adjust properly, I'll do this every time. And no offense but I believe Double-A's suggestion is not a very good adjustment. Basically if you played this way, you'd be playing marginal hands oop against an extremely large range. In addition to that the pot is raised, so the mistakes you make will be magnified. At this point light 3-betting is a must and I would almost never flat call against this type of player. But when your opponent sees you 3-bet light prepare for some light 4-bets. This is where HU becomes a mind game. Personally, I like to play small pots oop and give up easily. I can make it up by playing in position and often my opponent will make the mistake of over-adjusting or playing too aggressively only I'd be in a better position to handle it.

Basically it's much easier to outplay someone in position than out of position. Against a good solid thinking player I'm going to try to play mostly in position and try to put him in uncomfortable situations by forcing him to adjust to tactics like this one.

Well Zachvac, i didnt understand some of the abriviations lol, such as oop, but i have the idea. Its a good idea to play mostly in position, and even if he raises you while he is dealer, if you play the pritty good hands and see that he calls your reraise, then hey, you start doing it less often untill u get that monster and he calls it,giving you a nice pot due to potiental odds. The next time i play heads up with that guy im sure to take a lot more of his money . If anyone of you have some sly ideas on the matter be sure to let me know

oop = out of position, sorry about that.

This is all preflop, you can also exploit him is he isn't a very good post flop player. for instance will he always C-bet the flop or does he on bet with the goods? Just because he is an aggressive pre-flop player doesn't mean he is an aggressive post flop player and you could possible exploit him later in the hand when the pots are larger and his (and possibly your own) mistakes will be bigger.

The big problem here is that you won't catch a good hand often enough for this to work. Say the following happens:

Hand 1 - Villain pot bets from SB, you fold 84o and lose 1BB
Hand 2 - You get 92s, and either fold for 0.5BB or call-fold for a 1BB loss
Hand 3 - Villain pot bets from SB, you fold T6o and lose 1BB
Hand 4 - You get J2s, and call-fold for a 1BB loss

You're now down somewhere in the order of 3-4 big blinds. When this happens:

Hand 5 - Villain pot bets from SB, you re-raise with AJo, villain folds, you win 3BB.

You're still down by about a big blind. The villain is paying you with your own money.

How I counter a strategy like this really depends on reads. If they'll call a three-bet light, then maybe I will wait for a stronger hand before I re-raise, because I know I'm going to get enough action to cover the losses I've made throwing cards away.

If they're a weak flop player, I might make some light calls with hands that have potential (connectors, gappers, paint, etc) and try to take the pots away on the flop. If he's betting preflop and c-betting postflop every single time, for example, I might make a light call and raise an obvious c-bet on the flop.

If he's just altogether a difficult player, however, I'd leave the table and find someone I can beat. There's plenty of fish in the sea, and if it's a cash game there's nothing stopping you standing up and finding someone else to play - there's just nothing to be gained from playing a game like this when you've got no edge.

If he's a pretty good player, as you've described, I'd seriously recommend this course of action. Go find a weak-tight fish and raise them every single hand instead.

I'm not offended. However, I still stand by may advice.

If your opponent is raising (heads up) from the SB 100% of the time and you're reraising with the hands I mentioned then you're getting more money into the pot with the best hand 63% of the time. Even if you throw
the absolute trash out of your opponents range you're still a 60/40 favorite. I don't see how that's marginal.

Assuming your opponent is raising 3xBB 100% of the time then you're getting 2/1 on your pre-flop call. You don't even have to look at your cards to make calling correct against his range at that price. A lot of these hands would be marginal in a larger game or against a tight raiser but we aren't in that situation.

To steal a line from Ted Forrest, I think I could make money playing your discards.

You're oop though. If you both are playing random hands, he's got a big postflop advantage. The strict pot odds don't really matter since most money goes in on later streets. These are the ones where he controls how much money goes in.

Keep posting your HU theories Zach, I'm taking notes ... muahahaha

I see your point on position. I guess I just have a different style. I'm going to be check-raising flops with as little as ace high so I really don't care if I'm in first or last.

If this guy is raising every time chances are he is playing with trash. No way he has a good hand everytime. You gotta think it over with yourself. If you are comfortable with your cards then take the risk. Go all the way. If you arent comfortable then dont play. Eventually you will get the one hand that rocks his world.

lol, thanks for letting me know you're reading this. If you weren't I wouldn't know whether my 84th level thinking was working because maybe you'd missed the thread, but now I know that I can use 85th level thinking because I know you're at least on level 84 .

I play like this myself.

On the button I will min-raise pretty much every single hand. This achieves a few things:

1) My hand is completely disguised. It might be trash, it might be aces, you don't know because I always do the same raise.

2) It gives the BB such inviting odds to call, but he's now playing a bigger pot out of position if he does.

3) If the BB folds then you've won his blind at minimal risk.

4) If the BB reraises and gets called he's now playing an even bigger pot out of position.

5) Assuming the BB doesn't play his button in the same way the following things can happen:
- if he often limps then I get to play a smaller pot out of position than he does
- if he often raises then I throw away my hand, denying him the luxury of playing with position postflop.

bookmark, (some excellent advice here, so far).

if he reraises you minimum PF and you have a big stack, then re-reraise him big time say 3 times his reraise and see what happens, he probably wnt try that move again with junk, as he knows you wont take any cr*p from him. Your cards are not important for this at the beginning, but it's nice to have at least painted, or PP, so at least if he calls you have a hand of some sorts.

This is just how I play and how I see most pros play but I think it works well agaist most player but not all. You have to play total fish or total maniacs a bit differant but here is what I do................... When you have position heads up cash game (and both players are around 100 BB or more) you should be raising about 90% + of the time. The fact that you have position gives you such an avenge you should try to build a pot with any two. The cards don't matter much in a HU match unless one or both players are short stacked. It is about out playing your opponent IN MOST CASES. You are much more likely to do this with position. I key to playing against this style of play is to play in the same manner but smarter and if don't feel like you can do that, find a weaker opponent.


Also playing oop play more pasively and try to have hands in most cases.

its a position move a you know he is raising the Button its a move you do in head up put sthe player your playing on defence and make them think they have too have high hand the guy was prob raising suited with bad kicker if he was raising that much so if you reraised him big it easy for him too get aways from hand he prob wont call you allin unless he i a donkey i do that all the time in head up escpec if i have bigger stack cause if the guy knows that you will fold like 50 % of time he i taking your BB 5 out of 10 times adds up fast

I raise my button 98% of the time Heads up. 23o 72o AA doesn't matter. Raise. usually min raise, but i like to mix it up sometimes to throw some doubt in there. This forces the big blind to decided whether to go in or not... and if they do they can put me on anything from 23offsuit to AA. Now:

I'm playing anything, and you're calling with 56offsuit 34suited? No. This is bad and i'm probably going to outplay you on the flop. If i hit even a pair i'm not even CLOSE to slowing down. If you raise me i'll slow down, but only so next time when i hit REALLY big you think you're gonna get more money out of me. The way to beat a super aggressive preflop raiser IMO is to be just as aggressive back at him...or more so. You have to slow him down or he's going to keep taking blinds.

He's right. I like to play HU aggressively. The button is usually a raise, sometimes a fold, never a call. Play the BB cautiously and don't get trapped. I'll know within the first couple minutes whether the opponent is going to let me dominate. If he calls on the button and folds easily, I'm there. If he's as aggressive or moreso than I am - it might be a fun battle of wits and might improve my game to strategize against better competition. But that's not what I'm there for. I'm there to win some chips. So if you got a guy who's outplaying you, why bang your head against the wall? Just go find somebody whom you can bully.

Do the same thing to him for awhile. And if you have a hand and he does that take big advantage of it obviously.

All (or most of) my heads-up experience comes from two man S&G's or from the final table of MTT's. In these situations the blinds are either huge or are escalating quickly. You don't have much time to wait. You need to make something happen or the blinds/antes will eat you alive.

Let's say you're heads up with 600 in chips. The blinds are 100/200 and you're in the small blind. After posting you have enough chips for one standard raise. This is the last hand before a new level of 200/400 blinds w/ 100 ante. So, if you don't go all-in here then the next hand will put you all in. Your opponent is a computer that will call with any two cards.

What cards are you hoping to find?

Pocket aces would be nice but not likely. At this point I'd be happy with anything that beats a random hand. That's:

Any Pair, Any Ace, Any King, Any Suited Queen, Q6o+, J6s+, J8o+, T9o+, T8s+, and 98s+.

Around 48% of the time I'm going to be happy.

Turn the tables and play the BB. This time the computer shoves with the above range and you get to choose between call/fold. Getting 3/2 on the call you only need 40% equity.

Any Pair, Any Two Broadway, Any Ace, K4o+, and Q9o+.

I don't think you should be excited about playing K4o out of position but if you aren't willing to make some plays with the above hands then your more aggressive opponents will run you over. You don't have to be this loose to beat a more passive player but if you're not then you might be leaving some chips on the table. Those chips can help a passive player stay alive long enough to catch a big hand.

Well, he's not really doing anything other than raising the blinds. If he is just doing it every time play like you normally would. A lot of players do and show some cards so you can see the horrible hands they are raising with, but you might call and he has pocket Ks. I watched that happen in a table, but it was with all-in raises. Kinda sucked for whoever called. But I would just play hands you would normally call or raise with. You're not going to be playing with garbage with or without the raise, so just play like you normally would. Re-raise him if you have something over the top, call if you think you have a decent hand. You'll beat him with smart playing and some luck.