Heads up Hand analysis

[mjrevie]

Some more poker discussion. This is about a specific hand but think it can be generalised to a heads-up theme.

Basically last night in a home game tournie, I got heads up, but with about 1/4 to 1/3 of the chips, however, at this point, I'm still relatively confident of winning. I know the player goes all in a lot, especially heads up as he believes there is a huge luck factor involved in heads up so my game was to be patient (blinds werent eating either of us up plus i could buy sufficient number to keep me going). About 10 hands in I got KQs and raised double the big blind. He went all in. I thought for ages and finally folded, but I wondered if I should have called. I put him on Ace rag or low pair. Basically not far off a coin flip. I thought for ages but not trying to put him on a hand. What I was thinking was, given the blind structure, the way we've been playing so far, my ability, his ability, chip stack, etc, am I more than 50% (as at best I think I am a coin flip situation) confident I can outplay him on the remaining hands? Its just an idea cause I fold low pairs a lot to all ins, even if I think I am against only over cards, because I believe long term, that the players i play with, I can probably outplay and to me, i would rather put my chips in when I'm 70-30, rather than 50-50. Obviously if I was up against a pro, I woudl call these 50-50's because I dont think I can outplay them over the course of many hands.

Suppose what i'm saying is, if your heads up and the smaller of the two stacks, woudl you call a 50-50 if you believe your better than your opponent, or would you wait and see if you can outplay them?

Cheers

[thetank]

I think you've answered your own question. If the blinds are small and you think you can outplay him, fold and wait for a better oppurtunity.

[NoflopsHomer]

It depends who I'm playing.

For example, Chris Ferguson in the 2002 WSOP knew he was being outplayed by TJ Cloutier heads up, so instead of being slowly chipped away, he just decides to gamble with any two good cards. I thought this was wonderful, because it was an open admission that he didn't believe he was a better player. In the same way I saw one of the Brenes brothers go up against Layne Flack and move all in with 22 after Layne had raised with 99, he caught a 2, but Mike Sexton was rather critical on the WPT, but again it was more of a measure of respect for Flack, that Brenes thought his best chance was a 50/50 shot, even though he was actually a huge dog. (Pair vs Pair is unlikely most of the time heads up) I'm actually a firm believer that if you feel you're being outplayed most, or all of the time, you should just stick your chips in with any good hand and the majority of the time you're not going to be worse than a 60/40 dog which is probably better odds than you'd give yourself over a period of time.

[Robert HM]

There was a Grosvenor Comp in Blackpool earlier this year. The small stack admitted he would be outplayed by the older more experienced guy, regardless of stack size, and just went on an all in spree. He lost but it is the only way sometimes

[Bongo]

If the other person is just sticking it all in though how can you outplay them?

[thetank]

When I was playing heads up with DC a few months back, I knew I wouldn't stand a chance if we saw a lot of flops. My tactics were to raise, re-raise and re-re raise before the flop and pray for a hand or an out-draw. It worked out for me.

If I'm playing my wee brother in a home game heads-up. I can read him like a book so if he went all-in and I held QQ I'd probably fold, knowing I can win them 90 % of the time by seeing flops and taking down the pots when he has nothing. Small-bet poker to lower variance when you have your opponent out-matched if not out-chipped.

Most of my heads up experience is in sit n gos where you can't really do this. You've got to go all-in or fold because the blinds are so large. You can still get an edge if your opponent folds too much so I win 65% of my heads up encounters in sit n go's.

[thetank]

If the other person is just sticking it all in though how can you outplay them?

If your skill was indeed superior to theirs, then they were using a good counter-strategy.

If they're going all-in all the time, with the blinds still relatively small, I'd prefer to wait till I'm likely to be better than 50-50 shot though so I'd pass the KQs.

[mjrevie]

Well i decided to wait and he showed Ace-rag so I read him well at that point. About fivehands later I called him because I put him on a busted flush draw when in fact he had hit top pair. Didnt do too well reading him at that point