01- 7-05, LearnTexasHoldem:

Heads Up Play Against A Rock

Question: Hi,

I have a question about heads up play. I was playing in a $10 buy 8 man tournament the other night. It was down to 3 handed and I was second in chips. The chip leader busted the other player and had about a 2 to 1 chip lead over me going into heads up play, which I dont consider to be a huge advantage considering if I doubled up once or won a big pot I would be the chip leader. When I play heads up I like to open up my game alot and I will play almost any two cards (aside from complete rags), so my strategy is usually to be calling and raising with marginal hands trying to get some action. I find that my heads up strategy suits me very well and I usually win more than I lose in these situations, except this time my opponent was a complete rock, and I mean really tight. Any raise preflop he would fold without a good hand and he wouldnt call bets or raises on the flop without mid to top pair. I found it very frustrating to play against this type of player and I began calling r aises knowing that I had the worst hand just to try and get lucky on the flop and bust him. After a while of my stack dwindling away mostly due to blinds and a minor dry spell, I had A9c and went all in, he called with jacks and won when no ace hit. I know that towards the end of the match I went on complete tilt after not being able to get any action. I tried limping with Kings and other big hands only to have him fold the instant I bet or raised. It was very frustrating and I was wondering if you could reccommend any good strategies for playing against super tight players in heads up situations like this one. Thanks.

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Answer: You assessed the situation well, just your delivery was off. If you know that another player won't call you (even for a small raise) unless he has a solid hand -- and if you are heads up the person most of the time won't have a solid hand -- then raising him relentlessly is smart. The problem was that you ended up calling his raises in return.

What you should have done is to keep the pressure on, but if he played back at you, then give up unless you had something legitimate. This goes back to the concept of being an aggressive player or just a loose player. An aggressive player would bet a hand, but not call with the same hand. The loose player won't differentiate between the two. When you are up against a rock like this, what hurts your bankroll the most is your own stubbornness.

I'm sure after you lost it was easy to look back and assume the guy had a decent hand when he put his chips in. Being open to the signs and being able to let go of a hand is essential. Also, look at how difficult it would have been for him to win against you if you had not been willing to call his hands. He would have lost more than 2/3s of the blinds. His only way to win would be if he was lucky enough to get you to call with a weaker hand.

Poker is interesting because often times we have a good idea of what we should do, but we fail to do it for other reasons. I think what happened in your case was that you didn't have confidence that the selected strategy would succeed.

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