Tactics!

Solksjaer

A question(s) , I've been thinking of appropriate tactics when playing heads up and in the small blind (LIVE of course) OR when it's folded around to the small blind on table. Against an agressive player if you just complete the small blind generally you are reraised (probasbly as you should be)

SO I was thinking is it a good tactic NOT TO LOOK at your card at all and just complete the big blind, then when aggro head is deciding whether to raise you or not, he has NO TELL by your bet . If you mix this with actually looking at your card , would this unsettle your opponent....

just musing ..OPINIONS? ..

NOTE: Tactics do not work with my granny as she will play ANY two cards. (different advice being sought here.....she OWNS me now).

Goodluck2me

-ev id say the ol blind calling. i doubt he needs a read on you if he is aggressive he is going to raise you more often than not, so why would you limp in blind, him raise, you look down at 27o and fold. its -ev.

El Stuntman

funny someone else was talking about playing HU blind on here the other day and just betting based solely on opponent's tendencies...'twas a losing strategy!!

Mr. Flibble

It would depend alot on what BB does if you raise from the SB.

I would think raising/folding medium hands and limping strong hands would be a better tactic, until they caught on of course.

Ste05

When playing Heads up and in the small blind, the main advantage is that you will be last to act after the flop, hence you should be looking to play raised pots with your opponent. If he is habitually raising his BB then he will be very easy to beat, because all he is doing is creating raised pots when he is OOP. These sort of players, will usually raise PF, the fire a continuation bet on the flop. So all you need to do is pick off a couple of these continuation bets to keep your head above water waiting for a hand to bust him.

You should look at your cards, and use a mixed strategy for raising and calling with both good and bad cards. i.e. sometimes raising with good holdings and sometimes calling with these cards and vice versa with weak holdings, this way your opponent will have difficulty playing against you.

Obviously this all depends on there being some play left in the game, if you’re down to push bot poker then, whatever, it’s not worth talking about really, it’s just bingo.

HU is difficult to discuss because by the time it gets to that point there’ll be loads of history between yourself and your opponent and it’ll all be very - he did this that time, and he knows I do that, etc. etc.

gocall01

Won a PPP tourney last night.
HU I was about 3 to 1 underdog against the guy who had been chip leader since it was down to the final 3 tables.
He had been IMO very aggressive winning a lot of uncontested pots.
(The correct play when massive chip leader).

Completely agree with Ste05 on playing a mixed strategy.
Calling & raising with good & marginal hands keeps the other guy of balance and unsure of your moves.
Sure, sometimes he will actually have a hand but the majority of the time you are taking nice pots and also getting him riled up.
("Just wait until I get a real hand *&$%").

The fact is while he's waiting, you chip away at his stack.
And as it happens he will in a certain percentage of cases come over the top right into your monster.:D

That's how it happens, right...

Bandana boy

in Hu competion you should always at least complete the Sb
Due to the postion advantage you gain on the flop
I will often call raises from the BB while in Small that i would not call from the small while in the big

When playing on a cash table and it is folded around to the blinds I will fold more than call from small blind
in a tourney i probably raise 95% of the time especially after a couple of levels and of course villain dependent

Scouser in Dub

There have been some interesting discussions on 2+2 about playing blind.

Anyone who has read them would probably put the argument across much better than I but one person was contending that as 70% of pots are won without a showdown your own cards are less important.

I don't get that at all, if a person folds to a bet they are doing so mostly because they are weighing up their hands against what their opponent in the hand has. If they can measure their hand against a random hand which yours becomes if they know you are playing blind then they are less likely to fold in most circumstances. There will be times when a person folds because there is a draw heavy board that they have none of and odds prevent them from continuing with the hand even against a random but I can't see that would be the enough to leave playing blind as anything but -EV.

That goes for B&M obviously there is a very different dynamic when you play your hand blind and the opponent does not know this

dvdfan

Ste05 wrote:

When playing Heads up and in the small blind, the main advantage is that you will be last to act after the flop, hence you should be looking to play raised pots with your opponent. If he is habitually raising his BB then he will be very easy to beat, because all he is doing is creating raised pots when he is OOP. These sort of players, will usually raise PF, the fire a continuation bet on the flop. So all you need to do is pick off a couple of these continuation bets to keep your head above water waiting for a hand to bust him.

If i remember correctly in one of harrington's books he goes into detail about heads up and i taught he mentioned a good strategy was to raise if your the big blind because if you see the flop then your out of position so its best to take down the pot preflop and not give your opponent a cheap look at the flop with a marginal hand that could hit the flop and then your out of position. What you said contradicts this. So im just wondering what other peoples opinions were. Then again its a while since i read it so maybe im getting it aszways???