Deep stack preflop heads-up strategy

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pat3392

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I have two deep stacked preflop heads-up strategy and was hoping you guys could tell me which one is better and why.

1) This one is simplest, revolves more around adapting to the opponent:

First step: fold garbage hands like 37 T2, raise mid hands like Q10 at first to see how the opponent plays to them; some opponents tend to fold when you raise whereas other tend to call.

If the opponent calls when I raise then I will raise my garbage hands instead of folding them(the 37/T2 hands) and call my good/average hands(Q10/KK).

If the opponent calls my raises I'll raise good/average hands and continue to fold the garbage hands.


2) This style maximises the advantage of position and makes it difficult to gain reads on my preflop game( the above style can be figured out reasonably easily, changing gears is essential for it to work) It also tends to put certain players on tilt if it works

Basically, follow 3 rules:
fold garbage hands
ALWAYS check on the big blind(out of position) i.e never raise, even AA
ALWAYS raise on the small blind (in position) i.e never just limp, either raise or fold. Note that J2 isn't considered garbage by my standards so I'd raise here. Will raise 3BB at first and gradually reduce the amount I raise by as the blinds increase, till eventually I'll just min raise.



I just realised I could always use bothi.e changing gears. I havn't done this before though so I'm not sure how it would work. The second style is relatively new and people may try to play back at it; however when ever they do I seem to pick up on it and play back at them playing back at me if that makes any sense; this is what tends to put them on tilt, when I reraise their rereaise because I recognise it as a bluff; or because I'm loose with my raises preflop they think I'm the same after the flop and they call my raises relatively lightly
 
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Grinder101

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I'll give you a little tip to start out with.

THERE'S NO ALWAYS IN HEADS UP NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM!!!

Really there's no need to put together an elaborate strategy for preflop HU play, as long as your raise your good hands and slow down with less good hands you can't do much wrong.
 
tomh7795

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I'll give you a little tip to start out with.

THERE'S NO ALWAYS IN HEADS UP NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM!!!QUOTE]

Agree here. What if your opponents fold almost 85% you raise. You shouldn't fold rubbish hands now. You should raise everyhand. What if your opponent raised every hand from the button. Are you only going to call with decent hands? You should be 3 or 4 bet with 45% of hands. Maybe less. You don't need 1 strict plan and you should create one which will pick on the weaknesses of your opponent.

Example- your opponent 3 bets your button raise all the time. Are you just going to fold everytime expect from top notch hands? You should 3bet his 3bet with crap hands just so your not pushed around. You don't play your cards like you are doing in heads up but simply playing to your opponents weaknesses
 
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volpereira

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I'll try to use that.

I use to play well when short stack, but I have some difficult in deep stack HU.
 
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pat3392

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That was what I used to do, play the player as such, that's was what the first strategy is; but i'm thinking that maybe I should use second strategy for the first 30 hands or so, wouldn't be a fixed amount just so I can get some reads, so that I can gain information from m oponents whilst giving them few, because I will change gears and really start confusing them.

As a seperate question, how do you guya play the BB when your opponent calls? As in generally when would you raise you hands Most players seem to call raises once they have allready called a BB, so should I only raise my best hands since I will be out of poistion, even though that will eventually become a predictable play??
 
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Grinder101

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That was what I used to do, play the player as such, that's was what the first strategy is; but i'm thinking that maybe I should use second strategy for the first 30 hands or so, wouldn't be a fixed amount just so I can get some reads, so that I can gain information from m oponents whilst giving them few, because I will change gears and really start confusing them.

As a seperate question, how do you guya play the BB when your opponent calls? As in generally when would you raise you hands Most players seem to call raises once they have allready called a BB, so should I only raise my best hands since I will be out of poistion, even though that will eventually become a predictable play??

If your opponent is more passive, raise hands for value, but really only stick with the hands that are very likely to be a favorite, because the position disadvantage is already a large burden.
Unless you have a decent pair or AK-AQ, checking the limp is always a viable option. If your opponent is more solid, you can throw in some raises OOP with suited connectors, but that's just from time to time for deception.
 
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pat3392

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I'm not sure if raising premium hands out of position is +EV. My reasoning for checking premium hands is that I don't want to raise hands like KT out of position because they are not that good, and if I only raise premium hands then any observant player would see this and fold whenever I raise out of position. So, there are 3 approaches to this:

1) check every hand in order to disguise(which is what I'm doing)
2) start raising with hands like K10 above
3) raise with good hands at first and if they start recognising this start raising with garbage hands, until they see me/ suspect I'm raising garbage and start calling again, and that's when I can start raising with premium hands again
 
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