Playing smart heads up.... or maybe too tight?

[JTNeroni72]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to my second post.
Last night, I was at another live event tournament, small buy-in of $25, just over 50 players. Made it to heads up with a chipstack just about even with the other guy.
Played out for 15-20 minutes, not much changed with chip stacks, just a lot of blind stealing. About 15 hands in and I catch K5h. Not the best hand, but heads up definitely worth playing.
Flop- Kc8h7h.... Guy bets minimum. I raise 4 times, about half my stack. (Maybe should have pushed all in, but after 3 1/2 hours of play I didnt want to go down with a weak kicker). After a brief pause, Guy calls.
Turn- 2d.... Guy pushes all-in. Looking at the stacks I have him covered by only 1K. After a bit, I end up calling obviously. Guy shows 8d2s.
I'M LIVID..... lol but I have a ton of outs, 12-14.

So when it comes down to it, in my opinion, do as the used car dealers say..... Push It, Pull It, Drag It ALL IN right away to make the most out of your trade. Every game is different, know your opponent as best as you can, and know yourself even more.

Oh yeah. back to the River- 2h, I catch my flush, he catches his boat. My 1K chip battles back to 4K, and I get ousted with J10os, my least favorite hand in the game. Maybe I didnt have faith in it, or maybe my beliefs are right...

Hope everyone enjoyed my rant, and Good Luck at the tables.

Josh

 

[dj11]

Heads up is a beast all unto its own. It is easy to see that poker is not so much about the cards as it is about bravado.

In HU, any pair will usually win, and any two cards can win at any time. So all connectors, whether by suite or number are worth playing, and in HU, playing will often mean pushing( big raise), or shoving (all-in).

Since the huge majority of starting hands are not premium hands, your K5 play was ok. When you hit the K, a shove would have solved your problem, but villain did catch a piece of that flop, so one can never be positive.

Turn and river were in the hands of the poker gods and there was nothing you did wrong, or the other guy did right or visa versa.

And as rants go, for a 2nd post, .....hmmmm. B+