Beating lower-limit heads up SNGs, Part Four

Staff : December 30th, 2008

This is the final installment in our four-part strategy series on beating low-limit heads up sit and go tournaments. Part four covers closing strategies; part three covers information gathering and image-setting and can be viewed here.

Putting Down the Hammer

With all of the betting you’ve been doing, you’ll often have a slight chip lead at this point of the match. Other times, your stack will be slightly smaller than your opponents. Either way, you’re now in a position to start taking advantage of the leaks you’ve discovered in your opponents game.

Your constant betting will make you appear aggressive in the mind of your opponent. It’s likely he’s called you a donkey in the chat area once or twice at this point. Perfect – you’ve got him right where you want him! At this point you’ve figured out his game, and set him up at the same time. Since you haven’t been playing what appears to be a smart game, when you do start to make them it’ll catch your opponent off guard. He’ll give credit to your good luck instead of your skills. He won’t believe your raises anymore, which means you’ll get more action when you do make a hand. Your opponent is also likely to start getting fed up with all of your betting, making him susceptible to making a big mistake at the wrong time.

Playing Against a Weak/Passive Player

Now that you’ve been playing for a while, the blinds are worth stealing. A weak/passive player will let you steal blind after blind, so continue to do so at the rate he told you is enough to get him to fold. If he told you that he’ll call with weak hands for double the big blind, but fold for three times the big blind, make it 3 times the big blind over and over again. By doing this every hand, your opponent will never be able to put you on a hand, yet when he finally calls, you’ll know he holds a hand with some sort of strength. After folding that hand, go right back to what you were doing and keep the pressure on. Eventually you will grind out a significant lead, and passive opponents like him rarely have the courage to change up their game. When they finally come into a pot, thank them for making their hand strength so obvious. Folding to their very rare raises may actually cause you to laugh, noticing how easy it is to read this guy. Do not pay this guy off when he comes in for a big raise. Fold that hand and get back to grinding him down on the next one.

If you are in first position post-flop, always come in for a continuation bet about 2/3rds the size of the pot. Passive players that miss the flop will almost always fold in these spots. It’s your job to give him the chance to fold. If he flat calls, now you have to decide if he’s slow playing a monster, is holding some sort of made hand, or is on a draw. This is when you go back to the information you learned about him in the early stages of the game. Most passive players will flat call here with medium strength hands and draws, and possibly with their monsters (slow-playing). If your opponent hasn’t shown a propensity to slow play, you can continue to move through the hand with the assumption that he holds a medium strength hand or a draw. If the turn doesn’t seem to make a draw or improve their hand, throw out another bet. If he has shown that he likes to slow play his big hands, you should slow down if he calls your flop bet. Don’t give him another chip unless your hand has a solid chance of beating him. If he checks behind you, he’s more likely on a draw or a weak hand. With that said, knowing that you’re ultra-aggressive, it’s always possible that he could be giving you more rope to hang yourself with on the river. Either way, if the river card doesn’t make an obvious draw (like a flush or open-ended straight) you have to come out firing. Make your bet big enough to get him to fold his weak hand or missed draw, but not enough to hurt you if he holds a stronger hand and calls you. Regardless of what happens, get right back on track with your strategy of grinding him away on the very next hand.

When your opponent checks the flop in first position, bet at him and try to get him to fold. The strategy against passive players is to bet them into oblivion with smallish sized bets. Determine what amount it takes to get him to fold, then use that against him as often as you can. When he wakes up with a sign of strength, back off and let him have his little pots. When you hold a monster, do the same things you always do and mask your hand strength. Eventually he will get grinded to death, or he’ll make a big bet with the second best hand and you’ll crack him. The benefit of making all these small bets is that 1/ you’ll win tons of small pots, and 2/ he’ll never know when you hold a monster.

Look for situations where you know he won’t be able to get away from his hand when you know you have him beat. This is the only time that you should make a dramatic change to your style. If you hold a hand like 9, 3, and the flop comes down A, 3, 3, be sure to bet big. Since he finally called your pre-flop raise, it’s very possible that he holds a strong ace, and he’ll pay you off if he does. If your opponent is in first position and comes out firing, make a solid raise back. Don’t be afraid of pushing him off the hand. He likely holds an ace and will either call or move all-in at this point. If he does hold an ace, he’ll likely call for all of his chips, ending the match right here. Find a way to get all of his chips in the middle when this situation presents itself.

At the end of any match against a passive player, your hand history should look something like this: Win small pot, win small pot, win small pot, win small pot, lose small pot, win small pot, win small pot, win small pot, lose small pot…and so on.

Playing Against a Maniac

If your opponent is a maniac who constantly comes over the top of you, play more patiently and let him walk into your big hands. The biggest thing that distinguishes a maniac from a skilled player is that a maniac overbets everything. When the blinds are 15/30, he raises to 200 pre-flop. When there’s 100 in the pot, he bets 400 at it. Maniacs can be beaten the quickest, and with extreme ease. If you just give them the chance, they’ll hand their chips to you.

When you make a big hand against a maniac, make him pay for it by letting him bluff at it after the flop. Maniacs don’t tend to leave their chips out there unprotected, they’ll generally make a big bluff after the flop. At the same time, depending on how strong your hand is, you may or may not want to slow play this hand any further. If your hand is close to unbeatable, flat call his flop bet and let him bluff again after the turn. If you’re concerned that he could catch a card to beat you, then be sure to come back over the top after his flop bet and make him fold right then and there.

This strategy of setting traps will often find you being the one getting grinded down. Since he’s raising pre-flop a lot, you know he’s often putting out chips with weak starting hands. Start coming over the top of him pre-flop with your strong, but less than premium starting hands. A player like this generally doesn’t want to tangle in big pots, and he’ll often give you credit for a real hand if you’ve been folding to his pre-flop bets a lot. Find hands like K, 9, and come back over the top of him for sizeable, but not stack risking raises.

This is really all it takes to beat a maniac heads-up player. Once you learn how to beat them, it’s almost funny how easy it is. Trap, trap, trap, and let them commit suicide.

Against a maniac, be sure to maximize the amount of chips you win on your winning hands. Since you’re giving him a lot of small pots, you need to get as many as you can on your winning hands. Eventually, the maniacs will bluff off all of their chips, if you’re patient enough to give them the opportunity.

Playing Against a Calling Station

First, don’t get a calling station confused with a skilled player who plans on stealing the pot post-flop. Because it’s so hard to put a calling station on a hand, some very skilled players will often make themselves appear to be calling stations. While a calling station will call you down with weak hands, a strong player may call a lot of raised pre-flop hands, just to steal them later during the hand. The most common time they do this is when you are on the small blind. After the flop, turn and river, they will be the first to act. If they continually call your pre-flop raises, then lead out for big bets post-flop, this is not a calling station. This is a much more dangerous opponent, don’t get these two very different types of players confused.

Calling stations in heads-up matches are extremely poor players. They can often be tricked into calling big bets post flop when you hold a monster. Since they call everything and rarely bet, they’re difficult to put on a hand. They give out little pre-flop information other than the fact that they’re willing to play weak hands for too many chips. The best thing to do against this type of opponent is to keep it a skill game. Your opponent is playing a luck based game hoping that they make a hand somewhere along the way. The way to beat them is by playing aggressively post flop, and by making them pay you off when you hold big hands. Instead of coming in for big raises pre-flop, see the flops as cheaply as you can. If they check the flop in first position, come out firing somewhere around 2/3 the pot size. If they call and you don’t hold a hand, you should slow down and see if the turn or river gives you a made hand. While I hate to slow down after making a bet on the flop, calling stations will often play top pair all the way down to the river without ever making a bet. Although they don’t bet often, they’ll call just about anything you put out there.

If you are in first position after the flop, come out firing and see what they do. If they finally come over the top of you, you need to fold your unmade hands. If you hit a big hand however, one that you feel confident is a winner, go for the throat right here. In general terms, calling stations are such poor players that you can get them to call big bets with weaker hands than most players. Make them pay for their weaknesses.

Don’t give away the farm by bluffing off your chips to a calling station. If you hold onto your chips, a calling station will eventually give them to you when you hold a real hand.

Playing Against a Strong/Aggressive Player

This is the best player out there, and this is the player you are looking to become. They are tough to beat because they constantly mask their hands, and they never give you an inch. They make it hard to gather chips against them. They tend to win most of the big pots, and give away very little on their losing hands. These matches can become great mental challenges, but there are ways to beat them.

When two very skilled players are heads-up against each other, it’s a game of cat and mouse. They will often trade the chip lead back and forth many times, and get deep into the blinds. I’ve played in matches that were so grueling, that I found myself literally sweating from the hard work I was putting in. While these matches will improve your game, they also eat up valuable profit making time. Instead of blasting through a maniac in four minutes flat, you can find yourself grinding it out for an hour against a worthy equal.

If that’s the case, try to find a way to end it before you invest too much time. Even if you lose this match, if you lose it fairly quickly, it may be more realistic to go and beat two weaker opponents in the same amount of time as it takes to beat this one opponent. Another problem with a match like this is that if the match gets really grueling, you can find yourself mentally drained after the match, hurting your chances at any following matches you play.

Since you’re in what is likely a coin-flip match anyway, I suggest looking for situations to get your money in when you likely hold a slight advantage. If you can get your money all-in with pocket 9’s against AK, you’re about a 55/45 favorite. In the long run, this is a profitable play. In the short term, you have a slight advantage, plus you’ll open up time to go play against a weaker & more profitable opponent.

If you decide you just have to beat this guy no matter what amount of time you have to invest, the best thing to do is to never give him an inch. Stop calling his pre-flop raises with weak hands. Start raising pre-flop more often. Start looking for chances to set traps, then be sure to get every penny you can on your winning hands. Any time you think he holds a strong hand, but one that you can beat, you must go for every chip he’ll give you. You should also mix up your game as much as possible, even showing a couple of bluffs and trying to tilt him. Do whatever you can to get him out of his comfort zone. When you hold a big hand, overbet it and make it look like a bluff. You must have courage if you’re going to beat this guy, and you have to be willing to take steps that will set him up for a punishing loss later.

Another area where you can gather a few extra chips is by betting the river more often. If neither player has shown much interest in a pot, don’t be afraid to stick a pot sized bet out there on the river.

Try some bluff-calling on the flop when you’re in first position. If you check the flop, then your opponent bets out at you, call him regardless of the cards you hold. Then, lead out on the turn for about 2/3rds the pot, making it look like you want a call. This play will work sometimes, and sometimes it won’t. But, by doing this, you’re giving yourself a chance at winning a sizeable pot. You can also try a check-raise after the flop, but this is a move that gets over used, and carries less weight in the minds of skilled players these days. Since both moves require about the same chip commitment, try it as a bluff-call, with an attempt at stealing the pot after the turn.

Be sure to bet your big draws against strong opponents. For example; You hold Q, J, and the flop comes down 9, 10, 4. In first position, be sure to come out firing, giving yourself two chances to win this pot. He may fold, winning you the pot right there, or he may call. If he does call, you still have a reasonable chance at making your hand. If your opponent is in first position and he comes out firing, come back over the top of him with a strong raise. In either situation, if he calls, you have 8 outs that will give you a straight and 6 outs to catch top pair. Don’t play these hands weak, you must go after these pots. In the long run, whoever wins more pots like this one will generally find themselves in the chip lead.

If you have a sizeable chip advantage over a strong player, keep the pressure on by forcing him to have a hand. While you don’t want to give away a lot of chips, you also don’t want him to see cheap flops with weak hands. Bet out at flops any time you’re in first position. If he doesn’t have some sort of made hand or strong draw, he has to fold. Grind him down, but beware when he finally decides to get all his chips in the middle. The idea here is to win as many small pots as you can and continue to grind him away.

If you find yourself as the one with the small stack against a strong player, he isn’t going to want to give up that chip lead on one hand. You have to stay aggressive any time you’re in first position, but be smart if he comes over the top. Don’t allow yourself to get grinded down too far, look for starting hands to get all of your chips in any time you think you’re likely to hold the best of it. He likely won’t call, and it may keep him from getting too aggressive against you with weak hands, fearing that you’ll move in on him. If he does call, you’ll have a strong chance at doubling up and getting back into the match.

This is the guy you need to have the most courage with. As a skilled player, he’s more likely to lay down hands when he faces a sizeable bet, so stay on top of him when he shows weakness. The player that is able to dictate the action will usually win. Play smart, but never go down without a fight.

Final Bits of Advice

Heads-up tournaments are damn good fun. Those who like to play every hand, think fast, and love mental challenges can become great heads-up players. Anyone who wants to make more money playing poker should be learning how to improve their heads up game against all types of players. The next time you sit down at a sit and go and find yourself heads up against a highly skilled heads-up player, you’ll have a realistic chance of beating him. Bad players will get wiped out by you and never see it coming. Cash game players will be amazed at your ability to reads their hands, and how you consistently beat the game. There is every reason to become a great heads-up player, so give it a shot. Print out this article and read it however many times it takes you to get it stuck in your head. Eventually you’ll be able to make decisions like a machine, knowing what to do without even thinking about it. When this happens you’ll be a deadly player.