Heads up poker

Filed under: Poker Tournaments, Poker Tournament Strategy


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So the plan of the day is to discuss my heads up play, as I've been playing a lot of heads up sit n gos over the past few days. If I were a gambling man, I would bet, however, that my readers are dying to hear how it is I donked out of the CheckRayz-Kiwi Satellite Freeroll 1st. So, to boost my ratings, I'll talk about what I wish to talk about, and then "sammich" the juicy stuff somewhere in the middle.

Yesterday, playing heads up hold'em sit n gos, I went 16-5. I was playing either $5 or $10 sit n go's. Only twice did I have to adjust my overall strategy, which when I had to adjust I was 1-1. That doesn't include the "all-in maniac." It was actually funny, he'd push allin, I'd fold. I'd min raise the blinds, he'd push allin, I'd fold. This went on ten times in a row. Then he limped from the SB. I checked, being content with seeing a cheap flop with 6-3o. Flop comes 5-4-2 (my Grandfather's lottery number). Of course, he pushes allin, I call quickly and he's down to around T100 chips. He had pocket nines and thought he'd slowplay me. Had that flop not hit me hard, I'd have most likely folded.

So, my overall strategy... irritate people with the min raise. I auto-min raise on the SB no matter what my hand looks like. Additionally, from the BB, if they limp, I min-raise more often than not. Sometimes, I do so when they raise, depending on my hand and how convincing it is. This either causes peeps to incorrectly fold to me some of the time or it puts them on tilt, but never gives them a read on me because it's the norm - I'm just wanting to play at the next blind levels.

So, I was second to act in the Kiwi tourney, and had AKo. I raised 4x to Frank, who is a relatively tight player. He calls, suggesting he has a hand. Flop hits me, but also nails him, setting his fours. He checks, I act like a smartass and push allin, figuring his check suggested weakness. He calls, and I'm beat b4 the cards even get turned over. NH, GG - back to heads up sit n go's I go.

As for the two who made me change my strategy, one player automatically reraised 3x my raise when I min raised. So, when I had a hand, I min raise, he came over top, I went over top of him (minimally), he moved allin I called, and he was playing catchup, end of story...

The other player actually played back at me. It was nearly a real heads up match. Blinds actually made it to 100/200, when these other players were not making it past 25-50, but most were losing at the 10-20 level (level two). Against the guy who played, he got allin with AQ vs my AA and the flop hit him a bit harder than it hit me. Great matchup though.

Tonight is Noble Poker Tuesday... Hope to see everyone there. $4+.40, $75 added to the prize pool in this rebuy-add/on CheckRayz private poker tourney. Password is on the CheckRayz tourney schedule page, which you must be logged in to retreive.

Mike