Heads Up Poker
To some, heads up poker is the most pure form of poker. In a heads up match you get to pit your skills against one other player and look for ways to exloit each others
style to see who'll come out victorious. In a heads up match, most hands are contested with neither player having much of a hand, most of the time. In order to be successful in these games you'll
need to formulate a plan early on. Our heads up SNG poker coaching is here to help you put the pieces of the puzzle together.
In this article we are going to to focus on the skills that you will need to develop in order to beat HUSNG's (heads up sit and go's).
This will be a constantly evolving page with advice on playing different player types, video demonstrations and general HU SNG coaching advice you'll need to crush the games.
Small Ball Poker
The approach to HUSNG's (heads up sit and goes) that we are going to advocate and teach is that on the small ball style. There are many different ways to play these games, each of which can be profitable but we feel that small balling will enable you as a player to develop better post flop skills, make accurate reads on your opponent with out costing you too many chips and help you maintain a low variance game. Our main aim as a small ball player will be to see lots of flops in position, limping the vast majority of our hands looking to pick up lots of pots post flop with small bets. As the match goes on, the blinds will get higher and all of these small pots that you pick up will really start to add up. Now as well as picking up lots of pots we'll also be looking to see what our opponents are doing and look to adjust to their reactions in a way that will be profitable to us. So what do we mean when we say that we need to adjust to our opponents? Well firstly lets look at the player types to decide the best course of action.Player Types
When it comes to HUSNG's there are a few main player types that you'll often face. So lets talk about how we can spot them and then what strategy we can employ to beat them.Tight Passive Player (The Rock)
These guys are the easiest to play against and the simplest to beat. These guys don't raise much (unless they have a good hand), fold their small blind
more than they should and don't call bets with weak hands.
So how do we play them? We can play 100% of our hands because any two cards against this player type can be played profitably. Why can any two cards be played profitably? Because they fold whenever they miss the flop and they'll
miss 70% of the time. So against these guys I limp about 80% of the time and raise the other 20%. The min bet, post flop is genius against these guys as they'll often give up and because you're betting min, your
bluffs will be super profitable.
Likewise, when these guys limp in, I'll often just donk bet (lead out) with a min bet at lots of dry boards, high card boards etc and expect to take the hand down a large amount of the time.
Things to watch out for vs this player type are things like calling his pre flop raises or raises in general. These guys seldom bluff and as such you should be getting out of the way unless you have a hand.
When they also call your min bets on the flop, you can be sure they have second pair or better (often a top pair) or at worst a big draw. They don't call very often so just give them some respect when they do and don't put any
more money in the pot unless you have a good hand.
Tight Player Videos
Loose Passive Player (Call Station)
The Loose/ passive player is also known as a calling station. In heads up poker I see many players get frustrated playing against these guys
and often end up getting abusive and tilting hard when their three street bluff gets looked up on the river by bottom pair/ no kicker.
The small ball style works really well vs these guys as you'll really want to control the pot until you hit a hand that you're
happy to value bet with.
These guys are easy to spot, when you limp the button and fire the min bet into the pot they'll hardly ever fold. When you get to see a showdown, you'll see that they called your
stab at the pot with all sorts of hands and the very first adjustment you should make is to stop stabbing at pots with air. Your bluffs will be wasted and patience will be needed as you wait to hit a hand.
Thin value betting and large bets can and should be employed to crush these players. By thin value, we're not talking about small bets but betting hands for three streets that you may not do against tighter opponents.
Top pair, is often good for three streets as these guys will call down with second pair and in a lot of cases, second pair good kicker is good the thin value as you'll often get looked up by second pairs with worse kickers.
As always board texture should be considered as these guys love draws.
These guys are passive though and as such you should beware of any raises. Whilst firing three streets with a good top pair will rake in the money, facing a check/ raise will often be a big hand so just feel confident all the time they're calling
but stop to re-evaluate in the face of aggression.
Finally don't spew with your AK type hands when you miss. One of the biggest leaks that we see in players facing the loose/ passive opponent is over playing hands like AK, AQ, KQ etc when they miss. Often the Loose/ Passive will limp pre flop,
we raise with our premium holding for value and the flop comes down say 4d,6d,8h and the guy with AK decides to fire a c-bet. Now against this player type, you're often getting called and what is your plan for the hand on the turn if you miss? Spew more? Give up?
Remember that we want to value bet these guys when we know we're ahead so in spots like this, checking is fine given the player type.
Loose/ passive Player Videos
Loose Aggressive Player (The Maniac)
These guys are the ones that most new players have the most trouble against. These guys are easy to spot as they are the ones that are constantly punishing your limps with pre flop raises, always applying pressure when you show weakness post flop, chasing all sorts of draws and making big bluffs when they miss.
So how do we play small ball against a player who's constantly building the pot?
The first thing we need to do is stop limping in with hands that can't stand a raise. Instead we'll limp in with hands that we are happy to play in a raised pot but maybe not a re raised pot with. hands such as suited connectors, pocket pairs, suited aces, mid to high off suit aces and broadway cards.
Hands that are very playable in position but still can't take a big raise pre flop, hands such as low off suit aces, K9, K8, Q8, J9, those kinds of hands I'd sonner make a small pre flop raise with. The raise doesn't have to be huge, sometimes a min raise or just over is enough just to take the initiative in the hand and give you more options post flop.
Lastly, with my really strong hands like AA, KK, QQ, JJ etc I like to limp in, fully expecting them to raise my limp and then I'll re raise them pre flop to trap them. If they really are loose/ aggressive, you'll often get called and sometimes shoved on which is great news for you.
Aggressive Player Videos
Want to be coached by Brokerstar 1- 1?
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