Head to head. Call the blind every time, basically?

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RickAversion

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I've been playing Sit-n-Go on my phone. 5 person table, winner take all.
With 1 on 1, do you pretty much go in on every hand, regardless of your hand?
I've noticed with conservative players who make it to the 1-1, they tend to fold a lot, and I take the blinds. But when the blinds are big, this adds up fast.

So, I started getting aggressive, and found this works well. It seems, barring a pocket pair, 1 on 1 is a toss up, so the winner is the one with luck and better betting strategy.

They lose their small blind for every hand they do not call, and then it's 50/50 for hands we're both in. So, over time, the guy who is always in seems to win.

Do you pretty much stay in on most hands?
 
S3mper

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Depending how deep you are while HU changes your hand playing range but I wouldn't recommend just shove n pray or calling a shove with weak hands. if your opponent is just shoving from the button every hand if possible just wait till you get a decent hand to call with. You don't have to wait for AA just a marginal hand will do since his range is so wide.
 
Martin

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Always vary what you do, raise the BB, flat call, raise with good hands but occasionally call with good hands just keep em guessing. You and your opponents range will be much wider when playing HU so always bear that in mind. The average hand HU is if I remember correctly Q7 so you can base your play and range from that
 
dirtyoldog

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i call just about any unless theres a raise then depends on your oppenents tendancies if hes just doing it to make you fold or if he only raises with a good hand. but in general your a blind and i like to get my moneys worth so i like to see the flop
 
hackmeplz

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Every time you want to limp minraise instead. Thank me later.
 
Propane Goat

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I was in a 10-person SNG last weekend (wound up being my first tournament and poker cash ever) and it got down to HU with my stack about 1/3 larger then the other player's. This guy decided to take the strategy of shoving pre-flop every time I raised or called from SB, if I checked the BB then he would shove post flop. I got a string of absolute garbage hands like 82o that never connected with the flop at all when I was actually able to see one so I kept leaking the blinds until I got something halfway decent. I knew he was doing this with any junk hand but I didn't want to call when I didn't have anything either, finally got 2 halfway decent hands in a row so I called his shove twice and that was that. I think my VPIP is probably way too low because I'm fairly new to this, so he probably picked up on that and figured he could just keep shoving and I would sit there and fold until I was blinded out. I remember reading somewhere that in HU any hand with an ace can be considered premium, especially when in position.
 
Aleksei

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Well if the stacks are reasonably deep (50+ BB) I just use normal HU cash strategy (I like minraising buttons; it forces a wide defend range and thus allows me to do a ton of tactical trickery postflop in position). If they're really short I go like limp-shove when I'm clearly ahead of Villain's raising range (or have a good bluffing hand such as a ragged Ace -- suited Aces are value shoving hands here), then limp-flat with hands I'm ok playing postflop in position.
 
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Depends on the stack sizes when you get heads up. But you should be raising/calling almost every time from the button. When you're in the big blind, you should play maybe like 60-70%. I dont think you should call with 72o, 82o, 92o, 83o and some of the other shitty hands.
 
Aleksei

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Depends on the stack sizes when you get heads up. But you should be raising/calling almost every time from the button. When you're in the big blind, you should play maybe like 60-70%. I dont think you should call with 72o, 82o, 92o, 83o and some of the other shitty hands.
I wouldn't recommend defending 70% of hands OOP unless villain is opening SUPER wide (like, every button) and you're confident you can outplay him postflop. My default is about 2/3 of hands vs minraise and like 25-30% vs 3x; adjusting up/down depending on how well I play against him postflop and like stack sizes etc.

Open size is super important here, and will determine how you play. Versus a minraise you will defend your BB aggressively and flat OOP with any hand that has decent equity vs his range (and also consider 3betting like 1/3 of his range or thereabouts), because 1) you get 3:1 odds to continue, and 2) if you don't defend wide enough he can autoprofit by minraising every button then folding to any aggression. Versus a 3x your odds worsen to 2:1 so you should tighten your defend range considerably, and depending on Villain consider designing a defend range that consists entirely of 3bets. When open sizes start getting silly huge (like 4x/5x) then you can just stop defending non-premium hands, and pretty much every OOP response to button will be a 3bet.
 
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