Sit and Go heads up play when the blinds are big

[McGrain]

Any tips?

I find this very tough as the usual rules I try to play by when heads up (small bets, avoid speculative all in play, raise or fold) seem to go by the by in favour of random pushing.

This is because the blinds are so big - I make an information raise, he goes all in and I can't call according to my usual heads up rules.

I've adjusted to this pretty quickly, but my win rate when I get heads up Sit and Go is exactly 50/50.

I'm pretty new to this form of poker, but i've been playing cash games and tournaments all year.

So any Sit and Go heads up specific advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks for reading.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Try the STT strategy forum. You'll get the best answers there.

[McGrain]

Thanks friend I will go and have a look.

Don't normally leave "Beginner", it's frightening out there.

If anyone would care to post in here all the same, i'd be greatful.

[Perk76]

[ QUOTE ]

Don't normally leave "Beginner", it's frightening out there.


[/ QUOTE ]

LOLOL...you got 75 posts man, your not a beginner. You will get better strategy answers posting in the appropriate section. STT has a ton of soley stt players that can help ya.

[McGrain]

I can't stop looking at your avatar.

[Soupy]

hu forum is probably better than stt

[pzhon]

A very common mistake in SNGs is to fail to adjust your hand standards when you are heads up. You should remember that most of the time, neither you nor your opponent has a good hand by your normal full ring standards. Loosen up, and exploit your opponent mercilessly if he folds too much, the way you probably do now. Since the blinds are large, getting caught with a bad hand does not cost much relative to blinds or small pots you can win.

[SellingtheDrama]

If you are HU and blinds are large, its pretty much gamble time. Don't try to play small pots or postflop poker, it just doesn't work except against specific idiots. Brute force is the optimal strategy.

Generally I try to be pretty aggressive on my button, I raise anywhere from about 65% to 100% of my hands depending on my chip stack and the villain's play. If he's allowing me to play pots for free on my big blind, I take it happily with bad hands and shove back with good ones.

Also - when blinds are huge (I'm thinking about STT on Stars where there is 13500 in play and blinds at 400/800+) there is just no value in probing plays. Know your hand values and how they match up, and pick the hand to go with for a hero call*

*When I played SNGs exclusively (a period of about 18 months) I constructed my own custom odds chart - I broke down the hands I felt were most likely to be shoved by a reasonable player (someone waiting for a fair-good hand, not someone only shoving premium cards or any two cards) using PokerTracker, and then built an excel sheet of the odds of each hand against that range, and then basically memorized the chart. I didn't sweat each number, just the general trends of the graphs.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Since the blinds are large, getting caught with a bad hand does not cost much relative to blinds or small pots you can win.

[/ QUOTE ]
Don't try to play small pots or postflop poker, it just doesn't work except against specific idiots.


[/ QUOTE ]
While I agree with pushing a lot preflop, you don't have to push from the big blind when the small blind completes. After you check, there is often room for a couple of rounds of postflop play, particularly since a minimum bet of half of the pot is quite significant.

[SellingtheDrama]

I was more thinking about button play or making small raises from either position. I generally preferred to either play a limp pot or an all in pot in the blind range I mentioned. Smaller than that (300/600), I agree you can play normal poker if you are careful.