4 replies to this topic

[Dagg]

Long time lurker, first time poster.Recently I've moved away from 4-tabling the .5/1 limit tables and have moved to 3/4/5-tabling limit s&gs instead (which I've found to be quite profitable). The problem is I finish 2nd in roughly 1/3 of the s&gs I enter, and seem to perform very poorly in heads up even with a decent chip lead. Part of this is probably due to lack of focus because when you get to a point where 3 tables are all shorthanded, it's get pretty intense. ;)I usually play very aggressively, but it seems to usually back fire at some point. Now if I could win just say half of these 2nds, I'd be winning about 40% of the s&gs I play, which would obviously be much more profitable. So, I'm looking for tips on heads up play. If anyone has any, please post. Thanks.

[Bonobio]

For some info, I would try finding some info on some of the Abdul Jalib essays. I have the link at work that posts these. Alot of what you might find now through yahoo or something might not work...but here's one. http://www.liveactio...horthanded.html

[Metro]

Dagg said:

The problem is I finish 2nd in roughly 1/3 of the s&gs I enter, ..... Now if I could win just say half of these 2nds, I'd be winning about 40% of the s&gs I play, which would obviously be much more profitable. So, I'm looking for tips on heads up play. If anyone has any, please post. Thanks.

If you're only placing at least 2nd in 33% of s&gs that you're playing, and won half of this 33%, how does that add up to winning 40% of s&gs that you play? Perhaps you meant your profit margin would go up 40%?I'm confused.

[eleutheromaniac]

In s&g's, once it gets heads-up the blinds are usually ridiculous anyway (I've been in heads up games where the blinds were more than 1/5th my stack--and I was the big stack). It's pretty much a matter of who gets the cards first (or who succesfully bluffs a big pot first). However, if the blinds are low (if it's been one of those crazy games where people are knocking each other out left and right), heads up hold'em might be the most pure form of cards out there. If you want to get better, I suggest trying out the 1-on-1 tournaments online. Paradise Poker has buy-ins as low as $5.25. Or if you're affraid to lose money in 1-on-1 play, holdempoker.com has free, no limit heads up games which you can use to hone your game. I'm not really sure what specific advice you're looking for, and I think anything I tell would be pretty obvious (such as the fact that any pocket pair, even ducks, can be an all-in hand pre-flop). There are some pretty good articles on heads up play over at ultimatebet.com, but those mostly pertain to 1-on-1 tournaments, which might not be much help here.

[dtemp]

To be honest, once it gets down to heads up, it helps to have all your focus on one game. The reason is that the game becomes much more about your opponent's specific idiosyncrasies and patterns of play. When you are playing with multiple players with marginal talent you can usually get away with playing half focused. People generally play closer to their respective player types (loose agressive, weak tight, etc..) Heads up, on the other hand, everyone plays completely different from one another, at least from my experiences. So, heads up (with deep stacks like eleutheromaniack said), you are basically trying to catch every little flaw in their game and exploit it. Hopefully, that made sense as I need to go to sleep soon and am becoming incoherent.