HEADS UP!!!!

Lately i've been struggling in heads up situation on SNG's. Any tip's or advice anyone can give me so I can win more heads up situation's? Any strategies, or book's anyone can tell me about?

Play a wide range of hands.. Play any pocket pair.. suited connecters.. high connecters.. K high, Ace high..

If you play a hand on the button, RAISE it, every hand you play in position RAISE and Cbet it...

And if you play for example pocket 77 with a flop 5KJ, if your opponent bets this flop, dont be scared to call, they might cbet too with nothing, and even if he plays a hand like AJ, you can get him off that

Play a lot more hands when you are on the button. Other than that, playing heads up is highly read dependant. If your opponent is overly aggressive, just call with a wide range of hands to trap him. If he's passive and he checks to you, bet almost every time.

In my experiences, and i play heads up A LOT, you can get a good read in a heads up match pretty quickly. You need to raise you're button almost every hand but throw in a few folds so that he doesn't think you are making plays on him.

~~ If you're opponent is aggressive, just re-raise him some when you feel he has nothing and just wait for the big hands in which you can get him to give off some of his chips...

~~ If you're opponent is really tight, i would raise every hand + c-bet every flop and turn(unless he raises on the flop), lol. If he fights back, fold. Tight players usually only fight back if they have close to the nuts. only You are trying to make small profits and minimize you're losses in the big hands.

~~ If he is normal, just play YOU'RE game.

I believe in getting an early chip lead so that when the blinds go up, and i play turbo's so they go up fast, you can bully around you're opponent and make him make decisions for his tourney life.

Oh and don't be afraid to call down with marginal hands, they are usually good heads-up, well, because there are only 2 players.

Also, NEVER GIVE UP, you can always come back in a heads up tourney. I came back once when my opponent had 2,800 and i had 200 to win it.

What site do you play at? I think i've played you...

Hey there Implied Odds, I normally play on pokerstars. I don't really like FTP, but I been trying to figure out how to play in there freerolls. Since I see that you mainly play FTP, maybe you can tell me how to join freerolls. I don't know why FTP makes it so complicated , on pokerstars you just click on tourney/freeroll (simple).

On both pokerstars and FTP, my user name is "xtrmal".

Thank you all who have gave me some hints/advice/strategies about Heads up situations.

you may have played me I go by this name and play on those sites once in a while

I have problems with heads up myself and trying to figure out where I am going wrong. I am not intimadated, nor am I not aggressive enough which I thought in the beginning. It just seems I lose all luck to go with what skill I have and in heads up luck has to happen every once in a while. I will follow this thread and see if I can get some much needed advice.

So basically play like a donk, bluff, hope your opponent is bluffing and hope you get lucky

See http://www.cardschat.com/heads-up-strategy.php for a nice article by ChuckTs on this subject. Basically, HU is about controlled aggression. Bet every flop when checked to, raise more often than you think you should from the button, and just in general don't let your opponents run you over. The key to HU play is control, which cannot be had without aggression.

As James says CONTROLLED Aggression is the key.

There is a video on FullTiltPokerAcademy of Chris Ferguson playing a 25k HU tournament online and he describes his thoughts and actions.

Why do you struggle there?
You have to play the most aggressiv poker in heads up!
Play many many hands and also raise many many hands, espacially if you are on the button...

Keep changing your mindset, to throw the other player off. The key is control, but you get control when the other player is confused. Whatever you're doing, do it for a handful of hands and then change up.

It's like what Jim Palmer said about pitching. "Hitting is the art of timing, and pitching is the art of disrupting the hitter's timing." Change speeds, change your pattern. Keep the ball low for a while, then start coming up high.

I let the cards set my first pattern, and then switch it up once I think the pattern has emerged. The last time I won a heads-up, I started with garbage cards, and kept folding my big blind and folding raises. Then when I started raising and reraising, it threw the guy off. Then I started to just call from the BB. So he figured this was weak, raised, and I came over the top.

But, I think one of the universal principles is to win hands with good cards, bluff with crap cards, try to see some streets with mediocre cards. And since you only have one player, slooooow play those pocket rockets and pocket kings.

theres no set way to play heads up SNGs. Use the first few blind levels to feel ur opponent out and see hw loose or tight he is playing. AFter figuring out the information for cheap when the blinds r low, use this to ur advantage when the blinds r high.

If youre talking about HU at the end of a 9handed sng or something youre most likely not very deep and playing pretty much push/fold

attack attack then switch tactics and try and confuse your opponents

I normally play multi-table SNG's because I don't really like single table SNG's. Normally on a 45ppl SNG my opponent and I are sitting on about 25-30K stacks w/ blinds from 600/1200-2000/4000 and a lot of times i'm playing very tight untill HU. Then play very loose aggressive and make one mistake and can't come back from there.

Best way i can tell you is raise on the button 90% of the time 3x the bb

Limit the hands out of postion to sc,ace any thing,89 off an up

3 bet light some to throw him off balance out of postion

Fool around with postion if he checks to see what the min they will fold to you are float you with nothing etc.Some players will call 3x raise out of postion miss the flop check fold every time to a 2x bb bet

Well I read a few of these and they all have something in common. They all speak of what your going to do in play. You know what? I don't think so much about what I am going to do. I know I am going to play well because I know what I am doing. But what I really want to know is what the other player is going to do. Now, I already know they are going to be doing what everyone is suggesting here. The key is which one of you are they going to be? Once I have that figured out, I have the edge in a very big way. It doesn't take long, because they have already committed themselves to play a certain way... which is GREAT for me and really BAD for them. Every once in a while I will get a person in heads up play that will be playing just like me. I love that! I know immediately that the game is going to be exciting and have found a fellow that knows how to play extremely well and effective. Win or lose, I am definitely going to have a good time!

Yes you have to be aggressive in HU, but I really like to mix it up to keep the other off balance. Raising, folding, check raising, I think by totally keeping your opponent off guard you will be able to control the size of the pots. and your opponent will never know if you got the nuts or are playing complete junk

I completely agree with josh... i have been playing more and more heads up lately and found that you just have to mix up your plays...
the other thing is you need to make sure that you can read your opponent... you need to understand if he is overly agressive... very passive.... only raises with premiums in heads up... and lastly... k2 is much better in heads up that 67 is... so play your k2 k3 k4 type hands harder than you normally would..

This just happend to me about 10 mins ago, so satisfying to come back like that, But I stayed focused went aggressive and a coinflip went my way, leaving me with 2/3 of the chips, he then tilted all in with K3o agaist my AQs,
nice...

My advice with HU would pretty much be repeating what everyone else has said, controlled aggression, mixining it up playing against your opponents style etc. This may be due to the low limits I play at, but i have found trapping successfully can often cripple or knock out an opponent very early, appearing weak, making random raises, taking a long time before raising, aggro fish normally shove this. Game over thankyou very much.

GL OP.

I see that all of you said to be aggressive but if my opponent is more aggressive than I can be how should I play?

Thank you.

http://academy.fulltiltpoker.com much of headsup info about all situations.

best strategy for me is rushing re-raising all hands on begining and when he is starting to reraise your raises then play much low-agress and rise each AX hand and then on my opinion can easely bust enemy on bad positions when he just want to steal your chips, becouse you reraise all hands. :P

Good question. It depends on how aggro you are but someone who raises too much pf (say 90%) is a prime candidate for a 3 bet pf or a check raise on the flop.

Against someone who comes out betting on every street almost every hand it's usually worth calling down very light if you have some sort of hand.

Basically you let villain's aggressiveness work against him when you have a hand and raise more of your draws/ air against their weaker range when you don't.

You have to be prepared to call down with marginal holdings if villain seems to always be raising you out of the pot. It's tough to do but if you don't you'll get run over. That's why all the top HU players are aggressive because it hard to play against.

Playing the HUSNG's you'll notice that as you move up from the 5/10/20s to the 50's and 100's that very few open limpers play at the higher stakes. Almost everyone is very aggressive. They bluff more and pick off bluffs better. Also you'll run into a few players that play them all day and make decent $ out of it with sharkscope graphs that just go up at a nice angle. Good practice to improve your game but not usually good for your bankroll.

I don't think there's a strategy to play heads up.

My aproach is to play almost every hand and always raising. Of course it depends on how your oponent reacts to this, and also depends on who has the most chips.

You have to study your rival very carefully, try calling the small blind and see how he/she reacts, how much he raises, etc.