Finishing People Off HU SNG

[Knightsridge]

I am having difficulty recently finishing people off in a match. Three times today I had a player down to 500 chips or less and he fought back.

When a player has 500 chips left and blinds are 15-30. What is my move from the small blind with Js8d. Flat call trying to hide my monsters and avoid pushes from him, min raise constantly to keep him guessing, or do what was working and raise to 90. (I know option 3 is probably wrong but wanted to include it for the sake of discussion)

And also, lets say the flop comes QJ2 and he pushes with 120 chips in pot....how many people call?

Basically, should I be looking to play small pots and keep chipping away or am I looking for a knockout punch? I realise that all players are different, but at what point to people usually stop playing their normal game and start trying to defend from preflop shoves from villain.

Sorry this post is all over the place, quite tired but looking forward to responses.

PS I finished my heads up challenge and yes, 80 wins of 100 was too high. I ended up hitting 63 wins and 27 losses. Not great but not bad.

[hra146]

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I ended up hitting 63 wins and 27 losses. Not great but not bad.

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The other 10 were ties? (j/k but Im too tired for a serious response)

[Knightsridge]

oops [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

63 and 37

as I said....tired

[jay_shark]

Why is option 3 wrong ??

In fact , I recommend you raise with j-8 otb . It is much better than limping which imo is a weak play . If you raise and get pushed then you're getting (500+90):410 = 1.43:1 odds so you need to win just over 40% of the time . Since j-8 is probably closer towards the lower end of your raising range , you may safely fold .

2) Your hand isn't strong enough to call a shove when he pushes for 3 or 4 X the pot . First of all , if he has called your raise then his hand already rates to be better than yours . Secondly , if he's playing optimally , and he raises 4X the pot , then his value hands to secondary hands should be in the ratio 4:1 . Therefore he must be confident that he has the best hand at least 4/5 or 80 % of the time . The only way he is this confident is if he hits top pair .

Keep raising and go for the knockout !!

[Knightsridge]

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Why is option 3 wrong ??

In fact , I recommend you raise with j-8 otb . It is much better than limping which imo is a weak play . If you raise and get pushed then you're getting (500+90):410 = 1.43:1 odds so you need to win just over 40% of the time . Since j-8 is probably closer towards the lower end of your raising range , you may safely fold .

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This is my problem. Lets say he has 500 chips left and I raise to 90 and he shoves, I fold. He now has 590 chips. I then get T5 and again raise to 90, and yet again he shoves. He has now taken 180 chips from me without showing and with me having hands not able to call.

Would people advocate min raising forcing him to play more flops for fear of me having a monster. If he shoves both times, I have lost 120 rather than 180.

It just seems that as soon as they hit 750 and double up I am back to square one. At 500 I want to keep them there and make life difficult as possible for them.

[xSCWx]

Why would you be raising T5? Fold that [censored].

[xSCWx]

If the blinds are only 15/30 you can wait quite a bit before getting a hand. If he is shoving every hand you can easily call him with a decent king or ace high.

[Vinetou]

I have the same problem as you, knightsridge. I don't know how to play against shorties. If the blinds are 25/50, they will soon go to 50/100 and then it will become a crapshoot and he can easily fight back. I don't know how to play against shorties.

That is why I prefer cash games for now.

[Jukka]

I've played only on low limit HUSNGs and not too many of them anyway [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img], but anyway here's my 2 cents.

I retain my aggressiveness if it has worked earlier in the tournament. I try to eat my opponents alive by min raising preflop and then cbetting 1/2 pot on the flop. Of course they make their stand at some point, but that is usually less than 50% of the time on the flop and I can easily fold if I don't have a good hand.

Against aggressive players it's harder, but here I fold many hands preflop. I raise or limp with good hands and usually bet the flop with 1/2 pot.

People do not seem to bluff raise on the flop too much because my bet could be legit and they would be called down (and they would be out). So if they are raising they usually connected with the flop (and this happens only 1/3 of the time as everybody knows); so my 1/2 pot bets should turn out +EV.

Of course they get the hang of my betting patterns after a couple of flops (and losing a bunch of chips), but it's still a leap of faith for them to call or reraise.