Final table heads up strategy

[UTRounder]

Last night I found myself heads up at the final table of a tournament with stacks around ~300,000 and blinds starting at 5,000/10,000. I've played heads up many times but with much deeper stacks so my strategy was very different. My opponent ended up being a rock, very tight and not agressive at all usually slow playing his monsters to the river hoping to put in a small raise to get paid off. My question is what is an ideal strategy heads up in a tournament especially against this type of player?

[seke2]

Against a rock on relatively deep stacks, you're going to have to get their chips gradually, they won't let you suck them in quickly. So raise most hands preflop. Fold to aggression unless you have a strong hand you want to take a stand with.

[Mi_T_Sharp]

Against a rock like this I would try to basically whittle him down by winning tons of small pots (raise OTB and cont bet or steal pots when he seems uninterested which should be very often). I would only play big pots with monsters. I would fold to almost any bet or raise he makes, unless I had a monster. If he is that tight, it will take a while, but you should be able to slowly take him down as long as you slow down whenever he shows interest and keep the pots small/get to showdown when you have marginal type hands. If you are winning enough small pots and taking them down with a lot of continuation type bets, you may eventually frustrate him into paying off one of your big hands.

[Jeff76]

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Against a rock on relatively deep stacks, you're going to have to get their chips gradually, they won't let you suck them in quickly. So raise most hands preflop. Fold to aggression unless you have a strong hand you want to take a stand with.

[/ QUOTE ]Exactly. And remember, evaluate your hand relative to the strength your opponent is showing. If he's a rock, he's not kidding around. I made this mistake- chipped away at a rock for a looong time only to flop trips with a 2 kicker and get outkicked. Normally this is just variance, but he was a rock. I should have known he had trips.

Fortunately I came back to win, but I'm ashamed I fell to the "ZOMG I have trips- I'll get him now!" against a rock.

[UTRounder]

Unfortunately I did the same thing as you did, paying him off when he had me outkicked with trips and then again when I had AK (top pair) vs his set. By your responses I assume I played against him right but just couldn't close the door.

Another question I had would be the opposite. What if this player is agressive and wants to gamble for the tournament? Is it now my turn to become the rock and wait to trap/play agressively when I believe I have the best hand?

side note: 2nd place is nice money wise but it almost feels like losing especially when you get that close which has spurred all these questions.

[seke2]

UT, Jeff's point is awesome, and I'm glad it rings true with you. I was going to say something to that effect, but I couldn't get it worded right so I left it out of my post. But he hit it spot on.

Evaluate your hand relative to the strength your opponent is showing. If that means your opponent's raising range is EXACTLY the same at a full-ring table as it is playing HU, you can't make him play differently by hoping he's playing differently.

If your opponent is overly aggressive, yes, you're probably better off letting him hang himself. Rope-a-dope him, in Harrington parlance. You don't need to be a total rock, but if he's going to attack relentlessly, let him think he can push you around, and then come after him when you have a hand. And call down more than usual because your opponent might be bluffing/value betting crappy hands more often.

Fundamentally, it comes down to the "most profitable tactic is to do the opposite of what the rest of the table is doing" theory ... and heads up, the table is two people. Sometimes stack sizes are so small relative to the blinds that you don't have a choice but to attack, but when you have room to play, that theory holds a lot of water.

[Mi_T_Sharp]

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Unfortunately I did the same thing as you did, paying him off when he had me outkicked with trips and then again when I had AK (top pair) vs his set. By your responses I assume I played against him right but just couldn't close the door.

Another question I had would be the opposite. What if this player is agressive and wants to gamble for the tournament? Is it now my turn to become the rock and wait to trap/play agressively when I believe I have the best hand?

side note: 2nd place is nice money wise but it almost feels like losing especially when you get that close which has spurred all these questions.

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Against a total rock, TPTK is not necessarily the nuts when they are playing back at you hard.

Against a super agressive opponent, you do have to tighten up. Make him think you are a total rock. Pay attention to his betting patterns. Usually, it isn't that hard to get a feel for when they are stealing. Make them think they can bully you around and then resteal from them when they least expect it. Pay attention to your own patterns and use it to confuse them. If you let them steal tiny pots off of you often, you should be able to resteal it all back and then in combination with winning when you have a real hand...pwn them. Also, call down more with your marginal hands when they are most likely ahead (which you would fold against the rock).

[JoeyJoJo Shabadu]

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Another question I had would be the opposite. What if this player is agressive and wants to gamble for the tournament? Is it now my turn to become the rock and wait to trap/play agressively when I believe I have the best hand?

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It might be a better quality opponent than I'm used to in 11 22 33 sng's but I use a mix when HU. Become even more aggressive is what I usually do in SNGs. Raise almost every button. His min bets and raises get re-reaised more often with any pair/draw etc., his bigger bets get subjected to AI raises. The mix is to slightly slow play that big hand when you get it ... he'll walk into it eventually usually prf. Of course somedays this is just hard to do...but in SNG's the blinds get high compared to the stack size which is where you were at.

This aggression gets them limping their buttons and allows me to see more hands... because they try to slow play me. More often than not... you wittle them down so much that when they finally hit the hand they double and still can't take you out.

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Pay attention to your own patterns and use it to confuse them. If you let them steal tiny pots off of you often, you should be able to resteal it all back and then in combination with winning when you have a real hand...pwn them.

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I love this advice. well put.