Heads up coinflips.

Hi everyone, first post here and I've come looking for advice about my newest poker craze - HU tournaments.

Basically I am finding often that my tournament win/loss hinges on a large all in hand featuring two overcards vs a pocket pair.

I am concerned that this is just leaving the tournament down to basically a 50/50 flip (sometimes I have the pair/sometimes the overcards) and I would rather feel that I had a larger edge than this.

I realise it often depends on the player I am against but in general is a good thing to bet/bet/push with large overcards and medium pairs?

Is it better to flat call with hands like AQ/88 etc. preflop and hope to catch the goods? Or is the fold equity/table image from bet/bet/pushing them more important?

Btw. If it matters I am playing $5 BI tournaments and my general strategy is overly aggressive so I am often getting called when I raise it up.

Edit: Just found a perfect example for what I mean. Taken from my most recent $5.50 game.
It is right at the start and I have no reads on opposition apart from he has folded to one raise and made one of his own (he is not completely timid then).

Blinds are 10/20. Hero is dealt AQs on SB/BU.
Hero raises to 60, Villain re-raises to 140, Hero...?
In this case I moved all in (1500). He made the call with 77 and (luckily?) I won when I flopped a queen.

Could it be better to play this hand in a different manner? Perhaps flat calling then playing in position or 3betting a smaller amount?

Well one issue with A-Q vs a PP is it isn't really a coin flip if you just smooth call. Why? Well your likely only seeing 3 cards instead of 5. So you have to keep that in mind when your smooth calling with kinds of hands, you wining percentage drops to 30-70. You can't afford to just call a good portion of your stack because when you miss, your really in between a rock and a hard place. Not to mention your opponent has the option of getting away from their hand as well when over cards come.

I prefer to re raise with these hands most of the time because sometimes you win the hand right there or you end up in a coin flip. So even if people fold 40% of the time your play would beneficial in the long run, "assuming your not against aces etc". This is kind of the general strategy for 10 min blinds, I would play more safe in deep stack style tournaments where blinds aren't as much of an issues.

Medium pocket pairs I would be more willing to smooth call since your able to evaluate a board better. Going all-in with these hands aren't great because your either crushed or against 2 overs.

Yeah, I agree with the begley01 said. If you have the overcards, then I'd take the risk and re-raise. More often than not, you won't hit on the flop and will be forced to fold. You won't even be seeing the turn or the river in these cases.

At some point in a heads up game, you're just going to have to take a big risk, and it might just be a coin flip. It just comes down to the luck of the draw.

It's all about your opponent's range - you're not going to be flipping every time you get it in preflop with AQ, because you won't just get called by pairs. You should be getting called by worse aces, two paint and maybe other weird stuff besides and those times you'll be a 60-40 or better favourite.

Unless you know your opponent is the nittiest nit that ever nitted and is only calling a shove with TT+/AK in which case... IDK, just steal their blinds and open raises all the time instead because they're playing way too tight.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your three-bet sizing, BTW, and if you know that your opponent will call a shove with the kind of hands I mentioned above (it's a pretty common calling range for these games, in my experience) as well as pairs then there's nothing wrong with shipping preflop because you're way ahead of their range.