I have question abou playing heads up against tight player,who like to slowplay.I have read that it is recommended to be agressive against these types of players.i tried to do so,i won some pots by bluffing and agressivness.but as blinds' level grows i continue to be agressive-for example raise preflop-my opponent calls,then i bet flop-and he reraises-i know now that he has smth.,maybe even he has monster,so i fold.but i lose all or almost all of my advantage i gained by winning smaller pots.so it now becames harder to bluff or be agressive.which tips can you give me about play against these type of player?

How much are you betting after the flop? If you bet 1/2 the pot on the flop, you only have to win 33% of the hands assuming no further action to break even.

If this player is weak tight, you should be able to grind him down if he only reraises with strong hands as most of the time, the flop will miss him.

position is key. dont play marginal hands out of position. when you are out of position and going to play, raise.

in position mix up your strong hands between big raising, min raising and limping. As gobears said, for a continuation/probe bet of 1/2 pot is a good size. it will take down the pots he missed on, and builds a pot if you hit for a strong hand.

With medium hands in position (Kx eg) also mix up between limping and minraising to keep steady pressure on him.

use his aggression by betting and reraising, not trapping, when you have good values.

I agree with almost all of it, except for 1st statement. I think you have to play alot of hands in HU, even when out of position, but you have to know what's marginal and what you should be laying down preflop. I think this all depends on the player. But I tend to call raises OOP when it comes to heads up. And yes, your opponent doesn't always hi the flop, if you have middle or bottom pair and opponent bets out, put a raise out there to see where you stand.

When I'm on the button I do tend to raise alot though, but this also depends on the opponent. I think what's key is being able to change gears in HU play, this definitely keeps an opponent off balance. When blinds get larger this is where I tend to play the game like limit, min raising preflop, min betting afterwards.

That's just my opinion though.

Ultra tight HU players give me nightmares. Sure you can raise their blinds 10 times in a row...but then they snap a couple back on you and you are right back to where you started.

This is where I like to bet the minimum. I know it sounds like bad strategy, but these players are likely to fold to any bet if they don't have a hand. Why risk 800 when you only need to risk, say, 400 for a fold. If they snap back, fold. Pray for a situation where you both get dealt good hands, but yours is slightly better.

Yeah, I had to change my strategy abit against players like this. When blinds get higher, I will normally raise minimum preflop.

I"m 45% to win in HU after getting to top 2 in STT.

I need help!

killing my ROI

This may be a dumb question, but what do you mean by 45% to win? You enter HU 45% of the time with a chip lead? Win 45% of the time?

when I get to final 2.
I win 45%.
Random I'd win 50%.
so, I suck

About 300-350 trials of getting to top 2.

Hmmmm, how about shoving your chips all in everytime no matter what?
There, I improved your game by 5%. Where's my cut?
lol (can't do smiley faces at work)

well, only if villain calls 100%.
Not sure it improves me otherwise.

Are you getting to HU with a chip lead 1/2 the time? If youre very tight you might have been behind more than you think.

To improve my HU game I played tons of HU sngs until I felt comfortable against a lot of different playing styles.



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CAPTAIN OF THE HU LEAGUE FINALIST'S THE DEMENTED AVENGERS

Doesn't work... he'd have to call blind too...

I may enter behind more than 50%
But the exact stats not withstanding, I don't feel comfortable.
Unless I'm in a push mode situation.

I tried HU SnG's and lost 7/10.
The deeper stacks make it worse and furthermore don't represent a real game situation, right?

I should just follow some formula, maybe?

This is how a TAG vs LAG works heads up... LAG wins more pots, TAG wins fewer but bigger pots...

My advice is to change gears a little yourself, the more variety you can have in your heads up play the harder it is for a TAG to play against... If you are consistently raising a lot of pots, a TAG will settle back and wait for a big hand knowing that he can set you up for one big hit and also he knows that folding is giving him credibility so he can in the end push back with any two cards and you will fold unless you nailed the flop....
By mixing up your play, you aren't letting the TAG play his typical system, the more you can push a player out of his preferred system the better chance you have...





Actuary, the best advice I can give you about heads up is to try and know who you're up against... if they play a lot of pots I'd recommend just slipping into the TAG mode I describe above... slip into a passive role lets the other guy think he's in control and allows you to hit him hard once when you are favorite... not the best way to play.. but it is the easiest if you're finding it difficult...

EDIT: Also 45% depending on your sample size isn't too bad... and I agree that every final HU's of MTT's is different because stacksizes/blind ratios are different each time, so it really is a race to adapt... people also look at heads up as an accomplishment in a tourney and relax in their intensity, this could be a problem too...

If you play small ball in the HU SnGs they eventually turn into realistic full table SnG situations a lot of the time. in fact a lot of my small ball HU style was developed because of your concern, and I was intentionally trying to get to lower M situations.

Certainly when you get to lower M situations following SAGE is a fine system, and after you do it for a while you get a much better feel of how loose correct pushing really is.

Until youre under 10 BBs I havent seen any "formulas" that work. If there were it would be something like:

With the button:

preflop : push all pairs 77+, AK, AQ;
min-raise 60% of all other hands, 3x raise 30%, fold 10%

flop: continuation bet every hand for 1/2 the pot unless its a huge hand or total garbage where you limp/reraise or limp/fold

turn: push or fold

Out of position:

pre flop: push all pairs 55+, AK, AQ, AJ, KQ

min-raise with other Aces, other pairs, two broadway cards, connected suiters down to 76
check or fold everything else

if you hit the flop check 1/2 of the time, continuation bet 1/2 the time, except push monsters 1/4 of the time and check them 3/4 of the time

If you miss the flop continuation bet 1/4 of the time. fold to resistence.

turn, check it down, fold to a bet with weak hands or push with strong ones.

I'm not raising often enough for sure according to that.

I appreciate the effort... but come on, a system for HU? If there's ever a time where you must evaluate the player you are up against, HU is the time...

I said in my post that Ive never seen a "system" that could work for deep stack HU play.

Actuary, IF you were going to be playing rote by a "system" it would have to be more aggressive than normal play. a system cant win a long dragged out battle, so it needs to make a few big bets, and put pressure on the other player to make decisions, preferably when hes out of position. It would be a total disaster in a tournament that starts out deep stacked...it relies on blinds being big relative to stacks and many decisions being for the tournament.

Its very close to the opposite of the way I play HU!

Yeah that was sort of my point... as I said i appreciated that you seem to know what you're talking about re poker theory but you said in that post, there is no formula that works, but if there was it would look like this... IMHO you should've ended with there is no formula that works...

Why?

There is no system that will beat craps in the long run, but there are strategies that minimize losses and give you a chance to get lucky in the short run. Thats what Actuary was (somewhat tongue in cheek I assume) looking for.

There was an earlier post about pushing every hand, and pushing every hand is pretty close to unexploitable when the small stack is low relative to blinds (Ms around 5 or less), which is often the case at the end of a SnG.

All I was doing was backing that off slightly to Ms of 5-8 or 9 and not pushing quite as much, and hopefully picking those situations where you can either pick up blinds and completes, or have a positional advantage. Those are the qualities that a well thought out system (which was not the claim for my off the top of the head post) will have to have.

Even more on point than the craps analogy, pushing or folding, a la Sklanskys original tournament system, gave a total novice a chance to survive for a while in a deep stack tourney. His refined system gave a total novice an even better chance to survive for a while. Neither one was a "winning system" unless you get lucky and dont wind up with KK vs AA, and dont get sucked out on. Those then led to Kill Phil, which is an extremely effective strategy in its most complex form..maybe still not as effective as solid post flop skills and adjusting to table conditions..but still valuable.