Heads up and dealing with constant min-raises

jaded848 · Jul 7, 2010

So I was in a turbo today and it was down to me and this other guy, we both have about 7000 in our stacks and blinds are 300/600. Now on his button, he almost never folded, he just min-raised. Normally, I see these min-raises as pot committing, and treat them as shoves, so I usually fold to them. But he was doing them CONSTANTLY. The problem was, they did a good job at disguising his hand. I could shove into him and he could fold, or I could shove into him and he could call. I was down to 3000 chips, he did it again, and I shoved w/ A2o. He called w/ K7 and I won to get back to near even, but he ended up blinding me down again!

For what it's worth, I was getting terrible cards (73o, 82, those sort) but I didn't know how to fight this. I was trying to shove on my button when I could, but I ended up shoving at one point w/ 63o and was called by his K3o to lose the game.

Basically what I'm asking is, is this a viable strategy? Should I have really loosened up my shoving range from the BB after he min-raises? Thats the only way I can think of fighting this strat.

needdiapermoney · Jul 7, 2010

In short, yes. If he is literally opening every hand with a min raise you need to open up. I don't know what the blinds were, so hardto give exact advice, but you really need to 3bet a decent percetage of hands (even stuff like Q2o, or 87o. As for 63o, it is one of the hands with the worst eqity against a random distribution, and you probably should have taken a stand much earlier. Reply back with more specifics and I can give more precise advice.

zek · Jul 7, 2010

Did you try min raising back a couple times to see if they would fold them? If not start shoving all your decent hands. It better than getting blinded out.

jaded848 · Jul 8, 2010

The blinds were 300/600, and they changed to 400/800 after a few minutes. I looked back and noticed some hands like J5o, etc that I could have 3 bet him with I guess...it just caught me by surprise because I was treating the min raises like shoves, and I would never call a shove w/ J5o. The 63o is a terrible hand, but I was down to 4 BBs or so and thought I might still have some slim amount of fold equity.

Ok so after winning a hand with 33 i was back to even, each of us having around 6500 chips. Here is the series of hands that led to my downfall.

BTN- Q5o, I fold
BB- J7o, he min raises, I fold
BTN- 85o, I fold
BB- 53o, he limps, I check, T29 flop, check/fold
BTN- T3o, I shove, he folds
BB- K2o, he limps, I shove, he folds
BTN- 73o, I fold
BB- J9o, he minraises, I fold <-----probably should have shoved here
BTN- 83o, I fold
BB- 82o, he minraises, I fold
BTN- 63o, shove with 3640 or about 4.5 BBs

Sorry if the above is confusing, tried to make it as clear as I could.

ALSO- I did try minreraising him one time. He minreraised me back! I called w/ my Q4s and hit a Q on the flop. He min bet the flop and I shoved and he folded.

Ice Wolf · Jul 8, 2010

needdiapermoney said:
In short, yes. If he is literally opening every hand with a min raise you need to open up. I don't know what the blinds were, so hardto give exact advice, but you really need to 3bet a decent percetage of hands (even stuff like Q2o, or 87o. As for 63o, it is one of the hands with the worst eqity against a random distribution, and you probably should have taken a stand much earlier. Reply back with more specifics and I can give more precise advice.

I agree with this. When its down to only to 3 and 4 players the range of hands loosens up but when its down to one on one you need to really loosen up and try to force your opponent into some tough deciscions, kinda like your villan here.

Russ gervasi · Jul 8, 2010

Agreed...with a player like this you have to know that he's raising with anything and when the blinds are this big in relation to your stack size u have to shove more often. Even if u wake up with some kind of medium King or Queen your gonna have to go for it. You have some fold equity and if you do get called your not gonna be dominated too often heads up. Besides, gambling for a double up is much better than blinding out.

WiZZiM · Jul 8, 2010

jaded848 said:
The blinds were 300/600, and they changed to 400/800 after a few minutes. I looked back and noticed some hands like J5o, etc that I could have 3 bet him with I guess...it just caught me by surprise because I was treating the min raises like shoves, and I would never call a shove w/ J5o. The 63o is a terrible hand, but I was down to 4 BBs or so and thought I might still have some slim amount of fold equity.

Ok so after winning a hand with 33 i was back to even, each of us having around 6500 chips. Here is the series of hands that led to my downfall.

BTN- Q5o, I foldJam this, most probably, theres a huge differance between Qhigh and 63 off, have a look at poker stove and see the hand range chart, and think about what hands are better to shove with heads up Q high or J 10s etc.
BB- J7o, he min raises, I fold Good, since at this point he probably only min raised once.
BTN- 85o, I foldDepending on your stack size, this is probably a shove, close one.. it's somewhat connected, and we cant afford to fold too many buttons.
BB- 53o, he limps, I check, T29 flop, check/fold
BTN- T3o, I shove, he folds
BB- K2o, he limps, I shove, he foldsNot a huge fan of shoving this.
BTN- 73o, I fold seems fine, if your getting short you can shove it
BB- J9o, he minraises, I fold <-----probably should have shoved heredepends what your stack size is, folding isnt horrible
BTN- 83o, I foldagain, if your getting short 6-7bb's you can shove this, he won't call wide enough on average to make the shove bad, hed have to call with stuff like k5s or 35% of hands to make shoving 100% of hands unprofitable.
BB- 82o, he minraises, I fold
BTN- 63o, shove with 3640 or about 4.5 BBs looks good.

Sorry if the above is confusing, tried to make it as clear as I could.

ALSO- I did try minreraising him one time. He minreraised me back! I called w/ my Q4s and hit a Q on the flop. He min bet the flop and I shoved and he folded.yuck, hate calling the reminraise, at these blinds, dont stoop to his level, were trying to exploit him, make yourself less exploitable by just shoving. its your only play with 12bb's or less, especially vs an obvious donk.

..

So yeah, basically were just opening our range up, hands like K5off now become shoveable, as we have fold equity, plus Khigh rates to be the best hand a lot of the time. Check out some hand range charts and just look at think about what types of hands are better to shove heads up.. You can also check out the SAGE or Nash equilibrium.

c9h13no3 · Jul 8, 2010

http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sngs/hune.html

When he min-raises, you can certainly jam anything in the call table, and most of the jam table as well. So to conclude...

(assuming your stack is 6500 and blinds are 300/600)

Q5o on the button is a fold
J7o is a fold, could maybe be a jam if we have a decent read he'll fold after he min-raises.
85o is a fold
T3o is a fold
K2o was a shove (why not a fan of shoving that?)
73o - fold
J9o - shove
83o - fold
82o - fold
63o - fold

Some of those folds could be shoves if he folds his BB easily to shoves, but that all seems pretty standard to me. Also, if you're really short, you can consider stop & go'ing. You could also consider flatting some of the other hands like JTs-T9s that don't do so well when it comes to all in equity, but jamming lots of flops if he folds well to flop bets. Sometimes new players will call shoves with a wide range, but will fold to flop bets unless they have hands that are quite good (top pair+).

BluffYou123 · Jul 8, 2010

I would just try calling some of the min raises in hope of hitting the flop and shoving back over the top of him with some of the better hands.

With blinds this high, you have to make something happen and not let him run all over you.

WiZZiM · Jul 8, 2010

c9h13no3 said:
http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sngs/hune.html

When he min-raises, you can certainly jam anything in the call table, and most of the jam table as well. So to conclude...

(assuming your stack is 6500 and blinds are 300/600)

Q5o on the button is a fold
J7o is a fold, could maybe be a jam if we have a decent read he'll fold after he min-raises.
85o is a fold
T3o is a fold
K2o was a shove (why not a fan of shoving that?)
73o - fold
J9o - shove
83o - fold
82o - fold
63o - fold

Some of those folds could be shoves if he folds his BB easily to shoves, but that all seems pretty standard to me. Also, if you're really short, you can consider stop & go'ing. You could also consider flatting some of the other hands like JTs-T9s that don't do so well when it comes to all in equity, but jamming lots of flops if he folds well to flop bets. Sometimes new players will call shoves with a wide range, but will fold to flop bets unless they have hands that are quite good (top pair+).

What do you think about widening the range when were getting shorter?

we kind of have to shove hands like 6 3 eventually, while we still have fold equity, that 63 i would probably shove, not like it, but with 4bb's feel like it's one i have to make.

Not sure why i said i wasn't a fan of shoving K high, misread it i suppose. But yeah, that's fine, i think i mention that shoving K highs heads up is better than shoving 10Js. oh well.

defo agree with that last statement.

Edit:Just read first line, but ill leave the above in anyways.
Edit Edit: i think i meant to write that on the 10 3 line, wasnt a huge fan of that shove..

c9h13no3 · Jul 8, 2010

WiZZiM said:
What do you think about widening the range when were getting shorter?

Yeah, I didn't know his stack size so I just used the chart to make those reads based on an M of like 10. (6500 stack with 600 blinds)

However, if his stack size were shorter, the chart still applies (since it gives you hands to shove based on stack size).

So okay, 63o and 4bb's deep? Look at the chart! Under the "Pusher" chart, next to 63o, the number is 1.7. That means when you have 1.7bb's, you can shove 63o profitably even if your opponent calls the perfect amount.

Now, no opponent calls the perfect amount, and if our opponent folds more than is perfect, we can shove 63o a little deeper (maybe up to 4bb's if he folds a lot). But 63o is a pretty terrible hand, and 4bb's is pretty short, so you're likely getting called a ton. Thus, I'd muck it if I were 4bb's deep.

WVHillbilly · Jul 8, 2010

The real question is what were you doing on your BTNs?

WiZZiM · Jul 8, 2010

c9h13no3 said:
Yeah, I didn't know his stack size so I just used the chart to make those reads based on an M of like 10. (6500 stack with 600 blinds)

However, if his stack size were shorter, the chart still applies (since it gives you hands to shove based on stack size).

So okay, 63o and 4bb's deep? Look at the chart! Under the "Pusher" chart, next to 63o, the number is 1.7. That means when you have 1.7bb's, you can shove 63o profitably even if your opponent calls the perfect amount.

Now, no opponent calls the perfect amount, and if our opponent folds more than is perfect, we can shove 63o a little deeper (maybe up to 4bb's if he folds a lot). But 63o is a pretty terrible hand, and 4bb's is pretty short, so you're likely getting called a ton. Thus, I'd muck it if I were 4bb's deep.

I dont tend to use that chart at all, My ITM play is probably the weakest part of my game, i tend to be overly loose and aggressive, most probably a leak ive developed due to the buy in levels i play, most of these guys will fold a lot, though i still find myself shoving hands and thinking, what am i shoving that for? Something i need to work on in the future...

cardplayer52 · Jul 8, 2010

WiZZiM said:
I dont tend to use that chart at all, My ITM play is probably the weakest part of my game, i tend to be overly loose and aggressive, most probably a leak ive developed due to the buy in levels i play, most of these guys will fold a lot, though i still find myself shoving hands and thinking, what am i shoving that for? Something i need to work on in the future...

i was use this chart(well what i remember if it) way too much imo. i'm push/folding when (like the villian here) could play a more exploitive style and just min. raise them to death. At my stakes($2.25s currently) most opponants have big HU leaks and i'm not taking the most profitable line against them. another thing i don't do(because either i'm busy on other tables or just too lazy***mostly i'm too lazy***) is take note on player as i get itm or HU this is when i've hopefully devoloped a good read on the villian. i have been making it a point to take more notes on how players play HU. i'll usaully make note on whether the villian is willing to play for big pots pf(like wizzim) or not(jaded).

bullishwwd · Jul 8, 2010

Here is my two cents worth of advice:

1. With any decent face card, you should minimally call his min-raise and "raise" him with any two face cards....heads-up means "controlled aggression" to me whether you are on button OR he is.

2. If you are on the button, you'll want to "make the play" and force him to consider and re-consider... "place and keep him on defense" when you have the button. Do not let him see the flop for free, ever!

My best to you, Wally

The_Pup · Jul 9, 2010

I feel your frustration in this situation.

If they seem like a half decent player (what did they do in the rest of the tourney, esp when 3 left?) then you can play some poker - ie don't worry about your cards but play the situation. For example, if you have been compelled to fold 6 hands in a row then a call or reraise will look like the decent hand you have been waiting for. Open shoving a Axx board from the BB having flat called the minraise preflop will get a fold almost all the time, often even if they have a smaller pair. The fact you have 63 is pretty irrelevent. A poorer player will often not appreciate that your play reaks of your having an A and will call with all sorts of rubbish (that beats you!).

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Heads up and dealing with constant min-raises

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