Tired of 2nd place - heads-up woes

[MrMeeseeks86]

Hi all,

Need some guidance on my heads-up game. I guess I can't complain about finishing 2nd, but I'd just really like to convert these 2nd places into wins.

Structure usually ends up like this:

Player 1 - 80-90k
Player 2 - 80-90k
Blinds 4000/8000 - 5000/10000
Levels 8 mins

What is the best strategy here? I usually shove basically any ace, but have lost a couple against higher ace. Not really a lot of room for maneuvering since blinds are so big compared to stack.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[kowrip]

With stacks so short, there really isn't a whole lot you can do. Shoving any pair, any ace or any two broadway cards sounds reasonable to me. If stacks are at least 20BB, you can do some small pre-flop raises, but I'm guessing that would show weakness and you'd just get shoved on anyway. If weak aces are killing you, maybe remove them from your shoving range.

 

[foran]

you can not stop eating blinds, how high are you in stage push or fold push Ax, kx, broway, pairs, suited

 

[Katie Dozier]

Keep in mind that even a very skilled heads-up player will lose this type of match a real percentage of the time—I.e. if you are winning 51% of the time then you are doing better than average, but I think we can do better than that!

In my experience a lot of people focus just on what they should be shoving with here, when in fact most people have a bigger leak when it comes to calling their opponent’s shove (in general people tend to call tighter than they should, and also to not shove wide enough). I would suggest spending a lot of time studying both the shoving range and calling range for the common heads-up spots, specifically by using software such as hold ‘em resources calculator.

 

[matiorzi]

Hard to play being so short, for sure I'd shove any pairs, Broadway, Ax, Kx, Qx or any suited connectors. And then get some luck.

 

[MrMeeseeks86]

Thanks for the replies all, much appreciated!

 

[crimsonshroud88]

I suggest you stop for a moment and think about your range and opponent's range even when you are 8-10bb deep.
How can you play better than shoving? Can you min-raise as an exploit? What hands can you possibly limp instead of shoving? What do you actually accomplish by shoving JJ? What do you accomplish by shoving K8o or A2o? How many hands would you shove when an opponent limps? What hands should you check back instead? What are you gonna do when an opponent raises to 2 bb or 3 bb?
I think these questions would be a great starting point.
Definitely better than shoving everything and praying.

 

[Luan]

depends a lot on the tournament that you are playing and usually when you reach this stage you have to know the right time to push the All in, without fear show him that you know kogar has to be aggressive with which pair or As a medium letter . this and my strategy in tournaments when I arrive at such a stage!

 

[Queev14]

With this less BBs its most of the time luck i would say. If you wanna train your headsup play, you could play spin and go or 1vs1 Sit and Gos.