Sit and Go heads up play when the blinds are big

[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]

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

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


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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.

[DorianGray]

You say you are exactly 50-50 in heads up play. What is it about you that makes you think you should expect to win more than 50% in heads up play? Personally I don't think an expert should expect very much more than that playing against an intermediate level player. I don't think you have a reason to complain. Except that you seem not to be comfortable with the extreme aggression that heads up play often entails. It is often not subtle.

[McGrain]

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You say you are exactly 50-50 in heads up play. What is it about you that makes you think you should expect to win more than 50% in heads up play?

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I don't "expect" to. I want to.

I am doing well at these sit and go's, although I'm quite new to them - i'm playing at a low level, $10, and out playing most of the guys I sit down with. But getting into heads up play late seems to result in a reduction of any advantage I have.

50/50 is what I would expect if both players were pushing blind every hand. 55/45 would be my goal to begin with. Why shoot for anything else?

[BradleyT]

Go here - http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sn...alculator.html

Use 6750 stacks and type in common blind amounts such as 100/200, 100/200 a25, 200/400 a25, etc and then make some cheat sheets in excel.

The results you get for 6750 chips with 300/600 a50 blinds should be very close to the results for 100/200 with one player having 2300 chips (the antes make a small difference). The reason is because the ranges are based on how many big blinds the smallest stack has left - in both of these cases it's a little over 11. So just make a chart with push and call hands for 4 to 20 big blinds.

[McGrain]

Thanks man.

[Carolina Pirate]

SnG HU Stratagy

1)Push all in within the first 5 hands as huge underdog
2)Suckout on river
3)Taught your opponent and tell him how bad he sucks

Thats what every does against each time I have them crushed and allin before the turn...works for them everytime

[rakemeplz]

http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/15250

It ignores the value of connnected cards for some reason...I dont use it myself but quite a few people have vouchced for it...and it claims to be very close to "nash equilibrium" for heads up.