Heads up in a tourney (help)

camilog

Not sure how to word this question really....

I have been head up in a few tourneys, but I always seem to miss out!!!

I usually play the £2.20/£5.50 deep stacks... do ok... BUT when it comes to heads up I seem to struggle....

Can someone please give me some tips/how you play HU etc....

I dont have no strategy or anything, I just play the hands as I see it at the time....

Any help would be appreciated,

stuarty117

try playing a few HU sit and goes for practice and experiance

FeelGroggy

If you play hands for their core value HU then your going to struggle. Being aggressive is crucial. In heads up play, it often comes down to both players not connecting with the board. In this scenario, the aggressive player is going to win the hand. Made hands are going to be so infrequent that simply playing passively and relying on hand strength alone makes it unlikely you can win.  

I'd suggest you do a bit of research, see if you can find some videos on heads up play maybe on youtube. 

Definitely try and play an aggressive style. Bluff when you don't have it, bet when you do have it, and play yours draws aggressively. You should be playing a much wider range of hands then you would 6 handed. 

TeddyBloat

Actually you can have excellent  win rates by playing a show down heavy style. Especially v non regs.

At low stakes it can be suicide to try and bluff players, against recreationals i rarely check raise draws, and often check back draws on the turn in position. Don't pay people off light, do value bet hard when you have a hand.

For sure widen your ranges, you can play very wide in position:  I don't fold any hands in the SB till around 6bb eff. I'd recommend folding junk like 72o until you gain experience playing flops. Aim to play 90% of your SB hands unless villain is very aggressive preflop.

Oop you can play wide v min raise - 80% or so.

Preflop you can raise most of your hands, but definately have a limping range - generally if you arent raising a hand you should limp it.. Widen that limping range as you gain experience playing flops, and also as you get shallow.  your aim when limping is to stab most flops unless they have 3 low cards.

Look up Nash shove / call ranges. Knowing the theory behind them will be massively beneficial.

You can shove low pairs under 18bb. You can start shoving low Ax and  some suited connectors under 12bb. You can shove low Kx and add some more suited hands under 10bb.

Don't follow nash charts above 6bb - nash stinks as a strategy. You can follow them under 6bb

Play a lot of husngs. It will help you massively.

benc

Posts above pretty much sum it up get in some practise at low stakes HU they will instantly give you an advantage hu as most mtt players will not take the time to do this, it's really important to adapt/ work out how to exploit your opponent as quickly as possible, which playing a few husngs will help you to pick up, basic example if they are folding to alot of raises pre flop you can widen how often you minraise even as far as just raising every single hand untill they adjust, similarly if they are 3betting you aload you can limp a large portion of your range, if they are raising your limps you can put some of your high value hands (high Ax, big pairs 10s+into your limps). The key is continously adapting to you opponent and not just having a static/default approach to heads up( i.e im gonna fold x amount of hands always, play this hand this way every time etc). Play the oppos tendencies/how you percieve their range based on the info you have picked up. I don't play mtts often but would imagine making continous notes on how they play post flop from 4 handed may be very useful, would hazard a guess if they are playing very tight 3/4 handed they will also do so heads up. Drop me a pm if you want a clearer explanation, gl sure you will take one down soon.