Heads up hand

[Jesus Lederer]

Yesterday i played a 6 players SNG with a friend, my brother and 3 unknown players. I reached the heads up in bad position, but i managed to come back and finally a got the chip lead. After that there was a lot of action and the chips moved from one side of the table to the other several times, and the game kept going until the blinds grew to 250/500. I had $5250 and my opponent $3750.
Now it comes the hand: My opponent was the dealer, and after thinking like for 1 minute he went all in. I saw my cards (i do that after watching my opponent´s play) and saw that i had Ac 4d.
In the heads up had seen my opponent going all in constantly when he was the short stack. I didn´t have cards to justify a call there because in almost all those situation where he went all in if i had called and lost i would have been in bad position (maybe 3xBB). I knew that he went all in with any face cards in his hand, in fact I had won a hand previously with pocket 9s where i went all in preflop and he called with Q2. In that hand i took the chip lead.
So with my read on him i could think that he went all in with a face card (i was 93.6% sure of it), so if i called i would be nearly 55% favourite.

Would you have called, thinking that if you lost you would have left just $1500?

BTW if it matters for the topic, the payout was 75%-25%.

 

[Four Dogs]

Maybe not. If he goes all in with any face card, then he goes all in with any Ace. You're the solid chip leader. Knowing his playing style you won't have to wait long to get another chance at him. Against this all-in heads up strategy, even being short stacked is not much of a disadvatage. Chris Fergusen says fold 'em.

 

[Jesus Lederer]

Ok, i really appreciate any answer that comes from my dad at heads up. I understand your point, so i guess i made the wrong play. This i what happened:

After he said all in I called inmediatly. He seemed pretty confident, so i asked "pocket pair?" and he nodded. He still seemed confident, so for a moment i feared to be against an A with better kicker, until I turned up my Ac 4d and then his expression changed and said "Ok, you have it". He showed Ks 7s.
I was happy to be the favourite, but i knew that the board could show anything, and this is how it came:

Flop: 5d Ad 2c
(Yes! I love hitting the flop in these emotional situations)
Turn: 7d
(Damn, i wanted to finish the game here, but he only had 4 outs, so in my mind i was already celebrating)
River: 7h

Ok, i lost. At least i confirmed than i don´t go on tilt with any situation. The river didn´t affect me in any way, i felt bad for less than 5 seconds after realizing i had lost.

I don´t like being results-oriented, but this time the results showed that you´re were right dogs, i had to wait for another chance. Maybe i could be against A with better kicker or pocket pair so i could be risking almost all my chips being huge underdog. Next time i´m going to be more patient.

p.s: it´s Ferguson, not Fergusen. I hate when people confuses the E with the O, like saying Hanson instead of Hansen. "Sen" and "Son" means "son of" in Denmark and sweden, respectively. For example, my last name is Christiansen, which means "son of Christian", or Hansen is "son of Han". Don´t confuse danish with swedish, because "we" (i have danish blood) are better by far.

p.s.2: I want to read more opinions in relation to the play (specially from my other dads at heads up, like XD and Freak). I understood your answer dogs, but the sentence "maybe not" in your answer sounds like you aren´t completely sure that a fold is the correct option.

 

[xdmanx007]

Heads up is all about exploiting whatever hole or advantage you can spot in your opponents game. Hand values increase dramatically and the BEST theory that can be applied is the "gap Theory" which basically says you will be in there raising and calling with better cards on average than your opponent. In most cases you can throw kickers out of the discussion, of course sometimes they come into play but generally don't worry about kickers heads up. Now you are correct virtually ANY ace is strong headsup but if your opponent was going allin every single hand, with the blinds still relatively low you could have waited for a better spot, if the blinds had been higher then you were in a must call situation. Sometimes you make allins calls against an opponent to send a message. The message being you fire at me I am coming with you, yeah you might lose a hand but I promise your opponent will then tighten up cause he knows if he tries a steal he will more than likely get called.

 

[Freakakanus]

p.s.2: I want to read more opinions in relation to the play (specially from my other dads at heads up, like XD and Freak).

Wow, I'm touched that you think of me as that good of a heads-up player.

I think it's a tough call being such a chip leader and knowing he would go with any face card but you are the dog if he's got an Ace and anything higher than the 4 in your hand.(like a 5 or 6, and wouldn't that just super suck!) I think I'd fold and try for a better spot where you are the dealer and force him to make the decision to call you when you put him all-in with a better hand. Basically with the blinds still low you need to keep the power in your hand and not fall into any traps. Like XD said if the blinds were higher it's a Automatic Call let the best man win, but I think you jumped the gun a bit trying to end the tourney.

 

[Four Dogs]

Sorry I didn't get right back to you on this.

p.s: it´s Ferguson, not Fergusen. I hate when people confuses the E with the O, like saying Hanson instead of Hansen. "Sen" and "Son" means "son of" in Denmark and Sweden, respectively. For example, my last name is Christiansen, which means "son of Christian", or Hansen is "son of Han". Don´t confuse danish with swedish, because "we" (i have danish blood) are better by far.

Oops. 2nd time you've gigged me on this.

p.s.2: I want to read more opinions in relation to the play (specially from my other dads at heads up, like XD and Freak). I understood your answer dogs, but the sentence "maybe not" in your answer sounds like you aren´t completely sure that a fold is the correct option.

I did say maybe not. That's because it wasn't an alltogether bad call. results not withstanding you read him correctly and should have had him beat. If you're sure he was infact going all in with any face card, down to and including J,2 then a call with any Ace is a good one. My earlier reply to your post was more out of caution than principle. I was thinking of all the times I have taken advantage of a rush of good starting hands to create a wild aggressive image to my opponent hoping to induce a frustrated call. Being caught with your pants down with Q,2 or worse only reinforces this image. Mind you, I am not recommending the big bet with this hand. All that being said, in HU, the inveterate All-Inner rarely succeeds. More often then not this frenzy results in a major turn around in favor of anyone patient enough to wait for the show stopper. In effect, you're opponent is saying to you "hey pal, tell you what, I'm going to keep giving you chances to take all my chips and you just sit back, relax, and to decide when the time is right for you to break me."