Open raise sizes - SNG's (specifically Heads up)

Hi guys,

I have a pretty big leak which I would appreciate help with.

When I first started playing SNG's I was opening on the button to 3x, but I wasn't a very experienced or competent player so I ended up dropping to a min-raise as I was losing money post-flop against aggressive players. Given that, the players at those stakes were unbalanced towards blind aggression so it was likely the correct decision in hindsight.

However now I've studied a fair bit and progressed past the stage of poker moron, I haven't deviated from a min-raise and I'm comfortable saying that I use it as a sort of 'defense mechanism' to play small ball and I'm not sure in what circumstances or against which opponents I should be adjusting my open raise size. Min-raising has served me well but I certainly think I'm missing out on profitable opportunities because of it but I would like to know what I should be thinking about when deciding against which opponents I should be opening which sizes.

Thanks in advance

It seems that the size of the raise depends on the situation at the table in this distribution. From this position from the first position 3b 3b + b for each limp with AA in any position reraise a raise. It depends on the variety and depth of the stacks of the tournament. If you like pretty mediocre k7ss + but the stack is several big blinds you can play all in.

Thank you for the response, sorry if I was unclear I meant in heads up situations so specifically button vs BB

Mini-raise is the normal starting raise in HUSnG before the fold or all-in phase.

But if you notice that they call you value hands with a 3x (or bigger) or they fold to much when you raise wider, by all means change your opening size.

As soon as someone do something you can exploit: DO IT.

Mini-raise "deep" HU is a good standard though.

In the stack depths just over 8-10bb (all-in or fold) some also have a open-limp range.

I dont like the min raise idea early on to be honest. You are asking for the BB to call and if i was in the BB i would call with almost any 2 cards because of the pot odds you are giving and the implied odds if I hit my hand. If you are doing this late in the tournament I would agree with it being a good idea. You are going to loose value with your big hands doing this early on. You could increase you bet size but smart players will see what you are doing and will just fold to you more often knowing you have a big hand.

I know it is popular to do like min raise regardless of position but my personal preference is:

Early Position : Minimum
Mid Position: 2.2x
Late Position: 2.5x

The reason I adjust my size based on position is because I want to play bigger pots in position than out of position therefore I am trying to manipulate pot size to my advantage. Absent of information behind me, I feel it is better strategy to raise smaller from early position to compensate for having the lack of information/informational disadvantage I have.