HU Tournament Poker

[KK82]

Ok, so I've been playing quite a few small buy-in (€30-50) live tournaments and would consider myself half decent at these levels. Most of the time in these tournaments a deal is done and it doesn't even reach HU, so it's not often that it matters, but lately I've been trying to push to play a bit more HU and it turns out I'm pretty fucking awful at it.

What's the best way to approach these situations when you're 20-30 bbs deep? I find myself getting impatient and trying to push things a little on the button. Is it bad to raise-fold? If called, should I be continuation betting when I miss? Should I be folding/limping more?
I know they're all pretty general questions, but I feel pretty comfortable getting to HU, but after that, the game changes completely and I think I'm a pretty big fish.

[Mellor]

Read HarringtononHoldem 2's heads-up section, then play about 100% looser than harrington suggests

[mickste]

Read HarringtononHoldem 2's heads-up section, then play about 100% looser than harrington suggests

Don't do this. Heads Up play isn't about playing loose but being aggressive intelligently.Learning your opponents tendencies is important,being patient and don't be stale.Any good thinking player will be trying to solve you at the same time. Vary the way you play certain hands and your raises occasionally.Don't think of yourself as a fish because it's heads up. You have beaten every other player, no reason you can't beat the last mongoloid in front of you.

[Mellor]

I suggested HoH for the basics of heads up strategy, the looser comment was a reference/joke to the fact that the general opinion is that Harrington is far too nitty.
Playing looser than harrington doesn't mean you have to be anyway near playing "loose"

[mickste]

Playing looser than harrington doesn't mean you have to be anyway near playing "loose"

This is too broad a statement to be helpful.You don't know how the op plays and in general playing "loose" hu isn't helpful for someone who isn't experienced at it.

[BuChan]

!!DON'T STEAM!!

i choke a lot headsup as well. on full tilt i've won 1 of the 6 times i made it headsup and on ladbrokes 3 out of 10, live is somwhere around 50/50 but i have blown some serious chipleads titling out of control. lol why would you want my advice all that considered? maybe it'll spark some conversation.
pay attention to when it's going to be easy for your opponent to make light calls/plays against you. it's far easier for them to concentrate on gameflow/your mood once your headsup so steaming is ultra dangerous.
don't be afraid to limp some buttons and see how they react, you can pick up a lot of small low-risk pots against some people this way.
don't monkey cbet as often opponents are going to check call down 2nd or even bottom pair. pay close attention to how your opponent plays different board textures and cbet based on that, 2 and 3 barrells are going to necessary often.
don't defend against even moderately capable/aggressive players with hands like A4/K3 off. play pretty tight from bb in general, if your opponent is v aggro on button 3bet bluff rather than calling and hoping to make pairs or bottom pair/A high call downs.
so often stacks are pretty shallow when you get to headsup so you can't make many any big mistakes. something i find myself doing far too often is shoving weak over a button raise soon after losing the chip-lead or a big pot.
!!DON'T STEAM!!

[TommyGunne]

Mickste's post is good.

If you have less than 25bb against a good opponent, you are very very rarely going to see a flop. If you raise, they're in shove/fold territory, and vice versa. If the smaller stack has less than 15bb and aren't a fish, then its shove/fold for the original raiser.

For shortstack HU play, its pretty easy to figure out the optimal shove/fold/call ranges for given stacksizes. Pretty much nobody I've ever come across plays loose enough in these spots, so you can prob shove even more than that as a starting point. As a hint, you should be shoving far far more in these spots than you think you should. With 10bb, you should be shoving buttons about 70% of the time.

Obv you should tailor this per specific opponents, and per how you think they will react to how the game is flowing (ie perceive you.) Against specific opponents you can do funny stuff like limp buttons, raise/fold with 15bb, but against most sane people its a very easy game.

Once you get a bit deeper it becomes more interesting. As Mickste says, its a big game of adjustments, just try to either be closer to optimal or outadjust your opponent.

I wouldn't worry about losing a load of heads ups in a row either. There is a hell of a lot of variance in them. Just keep trying to do the right thing and you'll make edge.

[Mellor]

This is too broad a statement to be helpful.You don't know how the op plays and in general playing "loose" hu isn't helpful for someone who isn't experienced at it.

yeah, you're right Mick, was far too Broad and there is little the OP can take from it. I think in general players starting off head-up play sligthly too tight, but as you said this may or may not be applicable to the OP. I think Tommy's suggestion of optimum shoving ranges is a good place to start.

[Winning!]

Raising in LP vs tight blinds is a solid way to chip up, but when called you can't be afraid to cbet. Almost all flops are worth cbetting, as your opponent will miss most of the time. The times that a few consecutive cbets get played back shouldn't deter you from future attempts.

The tricky part comes when your cbet gets called and you have to decide whether to barrel again OTT. Big overcards to the board which could easily have connected with your flop cbet range are generally good scare cards to barrel, despite the fact they may also seem rather unappealing to you. Less so the cards which connect well with the flop cards. In any case, you will usually find yourself in a situation where firing again will not put you to a tough decision, as either your opponent will fold or your opponent plays back and you can fold quickly.

The value of position in these cbet situations cannot be overstressed. HoH deals with it well as mentioned.