Min raises heads up

All too often I'll be playing heads up (either in a heads up sng or last 2 of a stt/mtt) and the following situation occurs:

Hero completes small blind
Villian min raises

This would be ok if the villian turned over good cards, but all to often this is done as a steal.

Or sometimes I play against someone who pretty much always min raises their big blind when I complete, with atc.

I really don't get it. I was happy to call in position with the 3:1 pot odds completing my small blind. I'm still happy to call in position with the 3:1 pot odds matching the min raise.

Does anyone play like this heads up, and if so can someone please tell me their logic behind it

Maybe this will help...my main game is 6 max SnG's, and for some time, once I was heads up and ITM, I became very loose--I think even too loose. I decided it was time to start outplaying the weaker opponents post flop than gambling with the AI's. So, I've been playing some heads up SnG's lately, and even a HU Tournament last night. To be honest, I really don't mind min-raising. I feel like the argument in FR is that we have no information on the villain's range, but I feel like in HU 3x doesn't make that much of a difference. I could be wrong, and maybe some of the big guns on here can add their input, but if you're only on a semi strong hand PF, I don't mind the min-raise and keeping the pots smaller before we see anything. This gives us a better opportunity to outplay our opponents post flop.

Like I said, just my feelings as of recent, I'd actually like to hear some other ideas too.

If a villain is doing this regularly, I'd be happy to call it with ATC most of the time - only exception would be if the stacks were short relative to the blinds, in which case I'd probably be in push or fold mode.

Otherwise, you're right. You're getting 3:1 on your money, you'll have position, and you'll rarely be a 3:1 (or worse) dog.

I especially like villains who routinely do this, then routinely check-fold the flop. Mmm... free money.

just dont limp from button, and raise yourself

IMO, one of the desired effects of raising is to isolate. HU needs no isolating, so throw that out. Leaving the notion in villains mind that you are more than interested in pursuing any particular hand will make him ask himself if he is. And pretty much any raise will make him ask himself that question.

If your notion is to never play a hand, with every deal settled preflop, then you are going to want/need to be stealing every hand, so Huge, out of proportion bets are in order. Problem there is that villain will catch on in short order, and unless the dealer is crooked as a mountain road, when villain plays back at you you will likely be toast.

dj11 said:

If your notion is to never play a hand, with every deal settled preflop, then you are going to want/need to be stealing every hand, so Huge, out of proportion bets are in order. Problem there is that villain will catch on in short order, and unless the dealer is crooked as a mountain road, when villain plays back at you you will likely be toast.

Click to expand...

i'm not sure what you're implying here. huge, out of proportion bets? exploitable much?

basically if you think villain is stealing by minraising when you limp, adjust either by opening for raises, or calling his steals and exploiting his c-betting tendencies.

The desired effect in raising HU is obviously not to isolate - it's to create a big pot in position or to take it down right there. The thing about HU is position and aggression becomes waaaay more important than hand selection. If you get called you still have position to take the pot away post flop if you don't hit and your average low stakes player won't be doing much about it. It's a great image you can get by doing this, because in his head, he will be thinking he can keep folding mediocre hands and be paid on his monsters, which you'll easily identify and be able to get away from cheaply... continuous stabbing at pots is what will net you the most EV, even though you can and should vary your game and limp in from the button occasionally. the thing about minraising is, no matter how many players there are on the table, it doesn't accomplish much. You'll be giving very good odds to opponents to call with a wide range. This is especially true HU when your raising range should be more liberal, which will make your opponents calling range even broader than it already would be if there were more opponents. Raise it up to 2.5BB-3BB and take it from there...