Joined: Nov '10
Location: Serbia
Age: 37 (M)
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I've decided to make few articles about HU play so I have serched internet a bit and found some good articles so I rearnged them, delited stuff that I dont agree with and wrote some of mine opinions. Hope you will like it! This one is about most common thing when you are playing low BI HU.
Playing versus an aggressive opponent heads up is extremely annoying. These players like to constantly apply pressure by raising, 3-betting and pulling off plays like check-raises or bluffs. These players just don't give us a break.
Many players tend to react to this in a negative way. An action I've been guilty of taking (and I'm sure I'm not alone) is becoming frustrated or tilted. Worst thing that you can do is to fight fire with fire - or aggression with aggression.
The problem with this more often than not is that it is blind aggression. We're being aggressive simply for the sake of being aggressive. This eventually leads to further irritation, spewing of our stacks and possibly even damage to our bankroll and/or confidence.
The best approach to facing these players is to remain calm and make tiny adjustments in your strategy. I prefer to make one adjustment at a time. A few of these adjustments include how wide I open or defend post flop, my overall bluffing strategy and the thinness of my calls or value bets post flop.
The adjustment I make for aggressive players is to adapt an opposite style of play. In other words, I will be more passive and calling station-y. This is actually common advice (to do the opposite of what the other player is doing). The most popular example of this advice in action is versus a tight opponent. It's often suggested that versus a tight player you loosen up and steal his or her blinds since they'll only play strong hands. All other pots are up for grabs.
When I'm opening versus an aggressive opponent, the first question I ask myself is, "can I call a 3-bet?" I mean, I'm playing verses an aggressive player. I have to expect that he'll 3-bet me often. If I can't continue to a 3-bet, I'll generally fold my hand or in other words, I'll narrow my opening range. My range will only include hands I can 4-bet (and call 5-bets) with or defend to 3-bets with. All of these hands should more or less be for value. So my "thought" behind my action here is more or less based on his aggressive tendency.
The bluff adjustment that I make is to avoid bluffing with a high frequency - if I choose to bluff at all. Most of my actions versus an aggressive player are going to be for value. If I can't withstand a check-raise, 3-bet or shove, then I shouldn't be doing anything that can provoke that action.
Someone will call me fish or nit but to me it doesn't make a lot of sense to c-bet a flop if you know that 9 times out of 10 you're going to get check-raised or shoved on. Most times, because c-bets are bluffs a large portion of the time, you're going to have to fold. That adds up to a lot of money only to give up. So instead, I choose to avoid it altogether and come up with an alternative strategy. Either I'll go for a delayed c-bet (c-bet the turn) or just check behind since I should expect to have showdown value a majority of the time.
Versus some aggressive players, you might be able to get away with an occasional bluff in the form of a check-raise, c-bet on a super dry board or something to that effect. As with anything poker related, it's player dependent.
Important thing in post flop play is to not call big raises with weak hands. If you have 3rd pair and your opponent is betting pot, even if you suspect he have nothing you should fold! Reason is simple: If you call him there he will bet turn also and board will most probably be even more scary so you cant continue with hand. If you decide to continue with it anyway you should be prepered to call big raise on river too. You DONT WANT to call him down all the way with such weak holding! Because, even agro maniac can have strong hand. And if he does have it you are busto. Howewer, If you decide to fold on turn or river fact is that you just donate lot of chips to your opponent and that is another bad thing to do. If you manage to come to river for cheap you should consider making tin calls. You are making a call with a hand such as 2nd or 3rd pair, or even ace high. So,what you need to do is to analyze the situation and if the aggressor's line doesn't make sense and he makes an odd river bet, than a thin call might be in order.
Summary of How to Play HU Poker Verses an Aggressive Opponent Playing versus an aggressive player can become frustrating, tilting even. The most important thing you can do is to remain calm, analyze the situation and come up with a strategy to overcome your specific opponent. You'll find that by doing this and coming up with minor adjustments on the fly that you can tame even the most aggressive of players.
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Canada
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 1660
That all makes a fair bit of sence to me, and my heads up game is something I could probably use some improvement on as I don't get to do it too often. More often then not with an aggro player I will fold until I believe I have the better hand and then raise hard preflop hoping to recoup losses and maybe get a favourable all in.
Joined: Mar '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 6714
Nice. The only thing I would say is if you are not playing aggressive in HU, then you are being played, your overall strategy is to survive the viciousness, that said your game has to adjust to the player, I just like to start with control. I tend to find most villains to tighten up dropping lots of blinds and when they do hit back they overplay and lose all value, most actually end up just going AI for 3-4bb, mainly IMO because they feel they will be out played on the flop or think I will call with bad range, either way I'm the captain. The play that tends to put me in my place is the manic, If my game is all about being aggro, then when someone is as aggressive or more than me then I lose my edge, and am forced to tighten my range. You suggest playing passive and calling station, yes, but don't become to loose, and when you do this I change too, I will drop my c-bets, no check-raises, easy folds, but I will bluff, yep, I know you shouldn't, but if you have had to change your natural game then you are forcing yourself to play a style you are not comfortabl with, then I can still bluff you as you are not really a calling station just representing one. For me HU is about control, if you are lucky enough to get a player who stays aggressive then the strategy is fine, but the like of me will start aggressive until you change your play, then I alter mine taking back control, leaving you to have to change again.
Joined: Nov '10
Location: Serbia
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2087
Posted by B1gfoot: Nice. The only thing I would say is if you are not playing aggressive in HU, then you are being played, your overall strategy is to survive the viciousness, that said your game has to adjust to the player, I just like to start with control. I tend to find most villains to tighten up dropping lots of blinds and when they do hit back they overplay and lose all value, most actually end up just going AI for 3-4bb, mainly IMO because they feel they will be out played on the flop or think I will call with bad range, either way I'm the captain. The play that tends to put me in my place is the manic, If my game is all about being aggro, then when someone is as aggressive or more than me then I lose my edge, and am forced to tighten my range. You suggest playing passive and calling station, yes, but don't become to loose, and when you do this I change too, I will drop my c-bets, no check-raises, easy folds, but I will bluff, yep, I know you shouldn't, but if you have had to change your natural game then you are forcing yourself to play a style you are not comfortabl with, then I can still bluff you as you are not really a calling station just representing one. For me HU is about control, if you are lucky enough to get a player who stays aggressive then the strategy is fine, but the like of me will start aggressive until you change your play, then I alter mine taking back control, leaving you to have to change again.
This is about playing maniac donkey, not agro thinking player. Maniac will not change anything in his game no metter how you adjust to it because he does not know to play different. I will make video how to play passive player. I can be really aggro and I can be really passive. Brain is key. You do thing that you think will be most EV+ for you.
Joined: Jan '11
Location: United States
Age: 60 (M)
Posts: 3361
Good read as usual and always enjoy the feedback from others opinions on such subjects. This is definitely an area I need to improve on. HU always makes me nervous and I have finished 2nd more times then first when I make it to HU. Very nice to be back in the BRM forum and see the Mobsters again. Good Luck to you all!
Joined: Aug '08
Location: Canada
Age: 43 (M)
Posts: 658
Great article. I am akin to bigfoot here on a few points. Firstly i firmly believe in the 3-bet all small blinds theory regardless of hands. This strat relies on limiting paying them off and maximizing my own profits.
Alternatively ive also enjoyed some success with simply employing a fold all garbage game and relying on once again maximizing myown gains and limiting paying off theirs.
When it comes to agro players i also find they are relying on percentages and their game solely relies on being in the lead when one does confront them.
A very clever 3 bet player who folds to any aggression will win more then he will lose. I used to listen to the 2+2 podcasts for awhile and all the pros seemingly agreed with this theory then. After the first few orbits a wise aggro player has established enough space to allow himself some insurance and thats assuming he isnt getting below avg cards.
Joined: Nov '10
Location: Serbia
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2087
Posted by gazza2009: Nice copy and paste good job
Its most certinly not copy/paste job. I did use one very good article but only to make my job smaller since it had lot of same points of view like my personal opinion (its lot easier to do it that way since English is not my first language). But, I have delited lot of things that I dont agree with and as I sad put into it lot of my own thoughts regarding this matter.
Joined: Aug '10
Location: New Zealand
Age: 52 (M)
Posts: 87
If the player is being as agressive as you say the correct stratagy to employ would depend on your relative stacks to the blinds and antes. If your M is larger than 100 then I think you advice is sound. Howwvwer is you M is less than 30 you should pick a beter than average hande and make a stand, shove him all-in when he three bets you.
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Canada
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 1660
Awesome, thanks to all the contributors on this one too. This thread has giving more than one thing to think over and try to implement into my heads up game. Hopefully next time I get there I'll have some new tricks. Now I just have to work on getting there more often, ha ha.
Joined: May '09
Location: Spain
Age: 49 (M)
Posts: 1331
Thanks for the article, jovicakralj. Very interesting.
I don´t play HU so few things i can write about it. Well, only one thing. Ultra agressive players (Agro-players i call this guys) are one of the more profitables in poker. They think agression is +bb/100 only to be agression (my bad english working again, lol)
Joined: Nov '10
Location: Serbia
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2087
Posted by Chartoule: Thanks for the article, jovicakralj. Very interesting.
I don't play HU so few things i can write about it. Well, only one thing. Ultra agressive players (Agro-players i call this guys) are one of the more profitables in poker. They think agression is +bb/100 only to be agression (my bad english working again, lol)
And THAT is where most people are wrong. First, its not same to play micro/low stakes and high stakes. In micro stakes when you put in big bluff most people wil just call you with top pair because most of them will say: screw it, its just poket money (if they think at all). Some are so bad that they cant fold top pair. They will call you down with A high just because they think you are bluffing and they dont have any reason for that. Secound, most of them are aggressive just because they dont know to play post flop so they use mindless aggression because they saw Isuldur do that. On high stakes ultra aggressive players are thinking players. They have plan and they play against other thinking oponents who are able to fold trips or weak flush. Plus its serious money and noone can call just to see what you had. Thats the reason why on high stakes ultra aggressive players are profitable and on small stakes they are 99% losers. Just search any maniac on micro or low (up to 30$ HU) and you will see.
Playing aggressive basicly means playing the other player more than the cards. The main reason why it doesn't work in small/micro stakes IMO is that there is too many nits that overplay their big hands. Between those and the maniacs, it becomes pretty hard to read people. It's pretty risky to try bluffs against players you have no idea how they play.
So I agree that the best heads-up style for these stakes is probably to be pretty tight-selective pre-flop and then it's all about finding a way to get value when you hit something. But still, when a maniac raises every hand, I have no problem 3-betting or even shoving a K high if I think it's the best hand. Sometimes you just have to show him that you're not gonna let him throw you around
High stakes is a totally different world, they usually know against who they are playing because of their reputation...
Edited by TheMachineQC (19 December 2011 @ 12:46 GMT)
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 4827
Nice advices. This is the type of forums that are helpful to everyone around here. Newbies can learn something with the more experient players, and the old winners can also give their point of view in some of the points who write. In the end, everyone wins. I will stick to the read, its better for everyone thumbs up for you pal!!
thumbs up for you pal!!
