Heads up sets the stage for fun hands like this dandy 
https://www.casino.org/replaypoker/replay/1209608219/high-card-ace
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Here is a secret to help have the right amount of selective aggression, and win heads up.
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Raise the following range:
54 suited, 64 off, 65 off, 75 off, 76, 86, 87, 96, 97, 98, T7, T8, T9, J7, J8, J9, JT, Q7s, Q8s, Q9, QT, QJ, K2s, K3s, K4s, K5s, K6s, K7s, K8, K9, KT, KJ, KQ, A2suited, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, AT, AJ, AQ, AK, 22 to AA; -
Call, limp range:
53 suited, T6 suited, J6 suited, Q6 suited.
- Fold anything else not on the raise or call list.
This works because on average, in general against most opponents, your going to be playing, raising about 37% to 43% of time at minimum to about half time at average, to about 3/5 time at average, to about 2/3 time at best.
This means that opponents will think you are raising good hands selectively, tightly, straight forwardly, but that you are just getting lucky to get good hands to raise.
This means you can use that with this range to exploit that perception, to pick up blinds, pots, hands, etc, uncontested.
Then postflop, cbet boards that more likely hit your range then your opponents range, whether or not have the goods or not. Board, flop examples: X equals little card 8 or lower. Txx, Jxx, Qxx, sometimes maybe even Kxx. Not Axx, because opponents are often semi nits that only call with a A, 98x, 87x, TxJ, QTx, QJx, KTx, KQx, KJx, etc. Bad boards, flops: 742, 852, 963, etc. If a board, flop for your range comes, play check, be careful, delay betting until after a flop check, or on turn, river, if checked to you keeping in mind that depend on player your against, and that to mix up your game, switch gears, adapt, etc, occasionally, and to be more careful, cautious, on bad boards, flops that miss your likely range.
If do that, then about 37% to 2/5 to 1/2. to 3/5 time you will pick up pots. Opponents will think that you are being selective, tightly, straight forwardly, A, B, C, etc, that you are just getting lucky with good cards, and that you are just hitting flops, etc.
What you don’t want to do, is play both too tight, or too loose, or too passively, or too aggressively. Playing in a semi tight to semi moderate to semi loose at loosest to semi aggressive to aggressive, in a semi mixed, semi balanced, way, according to position, players, spots, situation, stacks, blinds, board textures, flops, semi GTO ish, semi standard raising, playing ranges, will win more heads up, over the long term.
This is part of my secret sauce on how I win heads up, in tournaments.
Also it helps to make it to heads up with more chips then your heads up tournament opponent, which is what I try to do.
But even if have less chips then opponent, these tips, will help you win more heads up over the long term.
Been playing some heads-up lately, and no disrespect to anyone but mostly against some bad players. Trouble is, I’m only breaking even. Good news, I win more the higher the stakes, and lose a ton the lower the stakes so I’m up chips, but I lost my 5th or 6th in a row today to fall to 17-18. Not very impressive on the CV. : (
What I’m noticing is that when the stacks are short, I’m definitely the better player, but by the time that the blinds come up, I’m outstacked 2 to 1 and it’s a struggle and all it takes is one lucky deal or lucky board for Villain to take me down while I scratch and claw back.
So what I think is going on is that my short stack open range is quite good, but my deep stack range is too tight. I’m trying to play ‘normal’ deep stack full-table poker (or close to it) heads-up. Now, the reason that I stay tighter obviously is that the blinds aren’t really worth stealing yet (and playing later streets with meh hands is not very profitable). I learned this when I started taking this wide aggro strat that I learned from this thread and had some success, so I started going crazy with it, and at one point I was at a final table heads-up when we were still deep (probably a rookie freeroll with a field of 15 or something that would happen a lot back then) and ran into problems. So I learned that the stack sizes matter a TON. So I think that I have the right idea but I just don’t have all the settings quite right on the machine.
So, my question is, how wide should we be heads-up …
… 100bb deep?
… 70 bb deep?
… 50 bb deep?
This is typical. I have Q5o on the small and fold it to him. I have Q5o on the big, he limps, I check my crap. I whiff my crap, he bets I fold. So you can see that I’m not wide enough when deep stacked, so by the time that the blinds hit 50/100 I have 12 bb and he has 30.
Once we get down to about 20bb most of these players start crapping bricks when I bet and I steal everything - until I run into AQ and I’m dead meat. It’s not luck, I’m getting outplayed by bad players here. I need help.
Generally you want to be opening at least 70% of hands HU. I go for more like 85-90% myself, but you really don’t want to be below 70% or you are just handing out a ton of free passes. If you play fewer hands, open bigger (3x). If you play more hands open smaller (2-2.5x).
Your opponent will have a hand they don’t really want to defend a LOT of the time. By opening most hands, you put them on the back foot and create a dynamic where you’re more likely to get action when you have a good hand.
For example Q5o is easily an open even if you’re playing the more conservative preflop strategy. You’re just folding too much pre, probably way too much:
you can also try 3-betting the flop way more than you’re supposed to. A lot of players just learn the rudiments of HU and understand that they should cbet a lot as the PFR, but don’t really have a fully formed strategy beyond that. They tend to overfold when their small cbet gets raised, and even if they continue for 1 street, they rarely call down a triple barrel unless they have like an overpair.
HU is the jungle. I recommend trying just owning your opponents with completely irresponsible aggression. It tends to work.
So I’ve won 3 in a row now playing wider from the start. The first 2 were before your response. The first one was easier but took a little while because Villain was nitty. The second one Villain was a call station and I had to battle him pretty hard until the stacks got small because he was hitting everything, like mid pair, low pair, rivering a pair constantly. Once the blinds got to 100/200 I crushed him, even when he sucked me out and I had to crush him down again.
The third one I played (for 250k!!) against a guy ranked 418 (!!) after I read your response here. I opened like stupid crazy wide right from hand 1. I whooped him in 7 hands (felt more like 12 but counted them up in my hand history, wow). Now, on the first hand and the last hand (the only 2 big pots) I got lucky on the board, runner runner 2-pair and AK rivered a K to take out his 77 for the win, but I won ALL SEVEN HANDS. He folded to my 3x or folded to my flop bet (1/3rd to 1/2) on ALL of the other 5.
I didn’t really test my range as the two worst deals that I had were 85s and T4s, I would have folded pre with 85o or 63o. T4o I’m not sure. The first thing that I noticed on Polk’s opening charts was that ANYTHING suited was an open (bonkers, ha!), so I kinda went with that.
I also wanted to test out 3-betting pre but didn’t get the opportunity. He didn’t seem to want anything to do with my aggression. Very small sample size tho. He may have been ligitimately card dead, even if he was prepared to play 60-70% of range.
I think what I am understanding now is that yes the stack size matters, but rather than adjusting the range for the stacks, we might just adjust the sizing. Obviously don’t jam T4s on the first hand, etc, just 2x or 3x, but when the stacks get smaller can start sizing up and jamming. How do you feel about that?
Another question that I have is, do you feel that tightening down to 60 or 50% is smart against really nitty players to avoid the risk of suckouts. At 60% openings, against a nit who plays it like a full table will still probably keep us well ahead in chips and get us more than enough steals, or would you still go nuclear assault on him?
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If they are nitty you open MORE, not less, and use a small size (2x). They only want to play premiums, so punish them by constantly betting small. This theoretically forces them to defend with a wider range; when they don’t, you just run them over.
If they ever fight back you just fold unless you have the top of your range.
You’re right that when stacks get super short, you can just jam a lot of your opens, or all of them if you want. We’re talking like 15bb or less here. Even at 20bb you should still be opening 2x by default.
When stacks are short if you want you can also use a limping strategy, especially against passive opponents who will rarely 3bet you preflop. But you probably have to play pretty darn well post flop to make it more profitable than just opening a lot.
@napkin_holder this is a nice mini lecture from Jonathan Little that you can use to keep building your strategic foundation for HU. I especially like the part at the end where JLittle goes “you know me, if I have a pair on the river, and a lot of draws missed, I’m reluctantly calling.” That’s the kind of mindset you need to win tournaments HU.
I would probably only limp an AA or KK trap, but cool. Thanks for your expertise!
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Ok, played 2 more and it’s going very badly. Both of these Villains are as aggressive as I am or at least close and I’m almost always on the losing end. We’re both 3-betting each other and because of my wide range I’m always behind, although Villain’s range is almost as wide as mine, he’s almost always ahead. I can keep up for the first level or so but it just nosedives into disaster. Only 2 games, though. I’ll try it some more.
I consider myself a sensible player who strives for a balanced game. Why does this excite me?? (blush)
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