Poker Heads Up Blinds
Heads up poker is the purest form of the game and is one of the most profitable game types for skilled players.
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Heads up poker format means that you will have to play the blind every hand and hence will have to play LOTS of hands - in some cases 100% of the hands you are dealt.
It's a high-pressure environment, that's for sure.
For a proficient player, this gives the opportunity to impost their skill set onto weaker opponents every single hand and can mean higher win-rates when compared to 6-max and full-ring games.
The key skill in heads up poker is the ability to adjust to your opponent and exploit them - that is what we will be covering in this article as we try to adjust to another professional player and target his leaks and weaknesses.
Adjusting Your Heads Up Strategy
A winning player's heads up poker strategy consists of a malleable game plan ready to go from the onset. Solid ranges they’ve developed that they look to adjust as new information is learned about their opponent.
Playing against a past challenger allows you pick-up where you left off in your previous encounter. Looking for ways to get an edge. Exactly what I was doing in a recent heads-up poker SNG tournament battle where I was pitted against a coach from Japanese poker site, www.pokertrainingjp.com.
I had won 2-1 in the previous bout of HU SNG’s, but Akinori issued a new challenge. He was keen for revenge since the games would be recorded for content on the Japanese poker training site.
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The key to defeating Akinori again was all in the adjustments. His style was ‘TAGish’ which leaves you particularly vulnerable in short-handed and heads-up games.
My plan was an aggressive blitz. Constant aggression allowing me to win the majority of the pots. Chipping away at him until eventually, I’d finish off his dwindling stack.
This is also a very common scenario when heads-up in an MTT.
MTT poker players often lack a heads up poker skill set and are easily exploited since they aren’t used to playing the wide ranges necessary to be competitive heads-up.
Check out the video of the match and then we will discuss the strategy involved:
Heads Up Poker Strategy: Preflop Starting Ranges
I planned to open around 5% wider than I would against a tough opponent. In hindsight, I think opening 100% of hands would have been a reasonable strategy. This would allow me to exploit his tendencies to over-fold preflop, and 3bet at a low frequency. A style which was confirmed in the replay as he made some questionable folds.
Conversely, against his open raises, I didn’t plan on folding much at all.
Versus his 2.5x open raise I was calling more than 5% wider than I would against a tougher player. The pot odds would be 2.3:1 to call. Around 30% ‘straight-up‘ equity required. When considering the all important equity realization, with some of the weakest calls in my range like 63o, I’d need to realize equity as follows;
Poker Heads Up Blinds Repair Parts
Equity realization required = pot odds / equity = 0.3 / 0. 334 = 90%.
I was fairly confident I’d be in this vicinity given Akinori’s tendency to be a little passive post flop, especially on the later streets. This is common for a lot of ‘TAGish’ players when they get to heads-up.
They know a good strategy is to open a lot of hands preflop, but this translates to them being out of their comfort-zone on later streets when they’re frequently left with much more marginal holdings then they are used to. Typically resulting in a lot of turn and river checking.
This passivity on later streets would allow me to realize a reasonable share of my equity OOP. Again evident in the replay as some of my weaker out of position floats did get to the river where I was able to steal some nice pots (Q2, J9, etc).
Heads Up Poker Blinds
Defending The Blinds Heads Up: 3betting
Part of the HU strategy to defend frequently from the big blind included 3 betting a lot.
A typical strategy might include a mix of:
- weaker suited hands,
- premium hands,
- and a mix of suited connectors mostly for board coverage protection.
All at a frequency.
Equating to around a 15-20% sort of range spread. I planned on pushing this a bit further to 20%+ by including a mix of high-low holdings (as we saw with Q2s, J4o), and some weaker combinations at a low frequency. Aiming to profit from my opponent's over folding ways.
Key Strategies To Beating Heads Up Poker
Overall the adjustments pointed out are not huge. However, they help set the tone of the match, as well as lay the foundation for post-flop play. Increased opens, more defending from the big blind including a lot of 3 betting.
This style makes it really tough for a 'TAGish' type of opponent to get into a rhythm as it keeps them constantly under pressure. Their likely response is to attempt to steal less, which has the profitable result of allowing for more walks from the big blind.
This tough preflop play is then backed up postflop with frequent cbets and barrels, as well as a good mix of raises and floats. Which will be the topic of next article as we continue this heads-up series!
What About VS Loose Heads Up Opponents?
Each type of opponent presents different challenges to overcome. Loose opponents allow you to me more patient with your offense. Reducing your bluffs whilst increasing your value bets - Since your opponent will be doing more calling.
You can 3 bet wider for value if they aren't folding to reraises preflop. Proceed post-flop by cbetting less, but look for 'thinner' value. Especially on the later streets when you have more accurately identified your opponents range.
Floating out of position which works well against tighter opponents, should be used carefully. When calling a flop cbet with a marginal hand, along with some hope of improving to the best hand, the chance to steal the pot on a later street often makes this play profitable. However loose opponents often call the river with a wide range. So bluffing in a lot of spots can be a futile play. Stick to solid holdings and contest the pot more aggressively in position.
Positional advantage offers you the opportunity to take more free cards, value bet confidently, and fire small ball bluffs. Remembers a loose opponents range will often be wide, so timely bluffs should be an important part of your strategy. Attack when their range consists of numerous weak holdings, and the board heavily favors your range. Don't push the aggression but rather look for boards that develop favorably when firing multiple bullet bluffs. Moves like this can be quite risky against a loose opponent!
Summary: Strategical adjustments made this match
Having played against my opponent previously, I'd gained a good feel for the way Akinori was playing. Overall a little too tight, in, and out of position. This provided me with an opportunity to make some adjustments to gain an edge in the match.
Starting with preflop. Raising more on the button and defending more aggressively from the big blind. Setting the tempo of the match, I kept my opponent under pressure and was clearly winning the majority of the pots. By adjusting and gaining an edge in the game, I was again able to claim a 2-1 victory in this heads up poker match.
Make sure you check out the video below for some more heads up poker strategies:
Get Access to Lesson 5.8 From the Road to Success Course which is a 45 minute video covering important heads up strategies.
Want more videos like the ones in this blog post? Check out the PokerNerve Road to Success Course where we have almost 100 videos like this to help take your game to the next level.
Finally, we reach a spot where the stack depth is shallow enough to revert to a shove or fold strategy. BU chooses between these two options and BB will either call or fold. There are some differences between being 7BBs deep and 9BBs deep, but these are minor, and so, for simplicity, we shall lump this range of stack depth into one category.
BU Push or Fold Game
Firstly, let’s note that limping is now impractical as it will offer our opponent the dreaded effective final raise. If this is at all ambiguous, go back and re-read Part 9. At 7-9BB stack-depth, the way to seize the right to the effective last raise is to simply shove. Consequently, BU will do much better in this situation than BB will and so playing the BU very aggressively is mandatory. We must capitalize on the fact that we need less hand strength to make the final raise than our opponent requires to call it. Have a look at the BU push or fold chart for 7-9BB below:
If you do not yet have a great deal of experience with late stage sit and go or tournament play, then this range may seem very wide. Shoving very weak hands like Q4o and 87o is optimal, however, due to how effective this final raise size is. Because Villain realizes no fold equity by calling, he will have to fold many hands better than these due to the fact that they will have insufficient equity against our shoving range as a whole. When holding, for example, Q6o, Villain will have 60% and 56% equity respectively against Q4o and 87o respectively. Clearly, he would like to call. Unfortunately for him, against our entire range his equity is only 42%. If we are 8BB deep, then his risk will be 7BB to win a pot of 9BB (our 8BB plus his dead 1BB.)
7 / (7 + 9) = 0.44
Villain needs 44% equity to call a hand against our shove. Therefore, the aim of our strategy is to find the sweet spot where we can shove as many hands as possible without making our range weak enough for Villain to start calling off hands that are clearly in the bottom tier of starting hands. If we were to lose control and start shoving any two cards, then Q6o actually becomes a favourite against our range and is an absolutely no-brainer call. It follows from this that if we think our opponent is playing the Spin & Go late game too tight, then we should shove with any two cards. Folding Q6o is a colossal mistake against such a strategy and so if Villain is either not paying attention to our shove frequency or is not informed as to how wide he can call against it (more likely) we should feel free to widen this jamming range considerably.
Before we look at how we should react in the BB to the BU push or fold range that we recommended above, a quick word on exploiting the population. Many players, especially below the $30 level of Spin & Gos, will check the BB far too often if we limp. Therefore, the completely unsound theoretical option of limping the BU with 7-9BB might become viable against such opponents. The idea is that 80% of the passive player’s range will check the big blind and when he does raise, we are running into a very high equity hand into which we are glad that we didn’t shove that 76s. These placid opponents will let us see flops, pick up pots post-flop, and have the courtesy to pre-warn us when they have a real hand. Consider limp-folding a lot of very bad hands against such players.
BB Calling Strategy
The BU shoves and we are caught in the vice of being the big blind at 7-9bb stack-depth with no fold equity. We are facing the effective final raise, and there is nothing we can do about it. Such is the structure of the tournament at this late stage. Life is high-variance and not particularly enjoyable in this spot, but nevertheless, it is our responsibility to make sure we make the best out of a bad situation by calling the right hands.
The calling range I will recommend is one that performs optimally against BU’s optimal shoving range. We must remember that there are many opponents who will shove the BU half as frequently as they are supposed to, and others who think they need to jam 100% of starting hands. Our calling range must narrow or widen against these two types of weaker player respectively. Here is how we should react on the BB to the jamming range I recommended for BU:
Again, we have recommended a range likely to shock newer players, but remember, this is only the correct reaction to an optimal shoving range. Most recreational opponents misplay the BU by shoving too wide or too tight. As soon as you catch your opponent folding the BU with a high frequency or limping at an unsuitable stack depth for limping, it is time to tighten this calling strategy significantly. This is partially just because many of the recommended calls will become -EV vs. a passive opponent’s shove, but also because our BU becomes very high EV against such players. If we are going to have all kinds of exploitative options when it is our turn to enjoy the BU, then there is less incentive to make very marginally profitable calls in the BB. Let these hands go and await a spot where you can use Villain’s deficiencies to gain a larger edge, but remember not to wait too long as the clock is ticking and very quickly in this turbo format.
Conclusion
Generally speaking, in lower stakes Spin & Gos, we should approach both of these spots a little more conservatively than is theoretically correct. It is possible to gain a huge edge in the late stages of the tournament based on how poorly weaker opponents will handle the dramatic changes to stack depth. Do not be afraid to try out plays that are suboptimal in theory in order to gain an exploitative edge. If Villain seems solid, however, then the above charts will equip you with a healthy strategy in this phase of the Spin & Go.
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