Was I correct (heads up)?

[Godders]

Hi all, Shortly after I found myself leaving this table with nothing, I was convinced that in the follwing game, my opponent got lucky on 2 occassions to beat me. However, in the cold light of day, I'm wondering if there was anything I should have done differently. 13 hands into a $1.00 $0.10 heads up SNG. I've built up a healthy stack by taking advantage of my opponent's aggressiveness. Seat 1: Godders1984 - $2,120 Seat 2: fergie2o08 - $880 Moving Button to seat 2 fergie2o08 posts small blind ($75) Godders1984 posts big blind ($150) Shuffling Deck Dealing Cards Dealing [Js Ad] to Godders1984 fergie2o08 raises to $880 (all-in) Godders1984 calls $880 Godders1984 shows [Js Ad] fergie2o08 shows [Kd Qs] Dealing Flop [4s 7h 8d] Dealing Turn [Ks] Dealing River [Jc] fergie2o08 has One Pair: Kings fergie2o08 wins $1,760 with: One Pair: Kings Seat 1: Godders1984 - $1,240 Seat 2: fergie2o08 - $1,760 And that's pretty much how it stayed for the next 9 hands, until the last: Blinds are now $125/$250 Button is at seat 1 Seat 1: Godders1984 - $1,240 Seat 2: fergie2o08 - $1,760 Moving Button to seat 2 fergie2o08 posts small blind ($125) Godders1984 posts big blind ($250) Shuffling Deck Dealing Cards Dealing [Ac Qc] to Godders1984 fergie2o08 raises to $1,760 (all-in) Godders1984 calls $1,240 (all-in) Returning $520 to fergie2o08 uncalled Godders1984 shows [Ac Qc] fergie2o08 shows [Kc Tc] Dealing Flop [4h Td 3d] Dealing Turn [3c] Dealing River [5d] fergie2o08 has Two Pairs: 10s, 3s fergie2o08 wins $2,480 with: Two Pairs: 10s, 3s Seat 1: Godders1984 - $0 Seat 2: fergie2o08 - $3,000 Would anyone have done anything differently?

[Woodie]

Re: Was I correct (heads up)? Super standards. I would of played both the same.

[GaF]

Re: Was I correct (heads up)? Both hands are short stacked hands - AJo and AQs are monsters in this situation heads up - in my opinion they're no brainers - get the chips in. On both occasions you had the best hand when the money went in - you made the right choice - the result of the hand is totally irelevant.

[SteveO]

Re: Was I correct (heads up)? :eyes

[averick]

Re: Was I correct (heads up)? You mentioned your opponent was aggressive + both of you were pretty short stacked, especially for the second hand. I would have played both hands in exactly the same way.

[TastesLikeTuna]

Re: Was I correct (heads up)? Yeah just as GaF said, AQ and AJ are absolute monsters with around a 10bb stack. Essentially at this stack size you cannot play any poker, all you can do is push/fold. You could profitably shove hands like K4s here face up. If you want to know more about push/fold and which hands you can shove profitably, then google "nash equilibrium chart poker". You should find a pretty little chart that tells you an unexploitable shoving range relative to the number of BB's in your stack. Good Luck

[Dr Who]

Re: Was I correct (heads up)? you're ahead in both hands, nothing wrong with either hand

[Dodger]

Re: Was I correct (heads up)? With the opponent first to act and shoving all-in both times you are sat with juicy heads up hands, with the only options being call or fold. I don't quite see what stack sizes in relation to the blinds has to do with this...surely these hands would demand a call whatever stage the game is at. :unsure The point is we are not looking at shoving with these hands but calling a shove with them.

[TastesLikeTuna]

Re: Was I correct (heads up)?

I don't quite see what stack sizes in relation to the blinds has to do with this...surely these hands would demand a call whatever stage the game is at. :unsure

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. You're saying you don't know why the strength of our hand changes as the blinds become a larger % of our stack? This is why short stacked play is often so profitable, because people are so clueless as to the effect the increasing blinds have on your decision and hand strength. If the blinds are 250/500 and you have a 2,000 stack, you have less time to wait for a premium hand. So hand strengths change and hands like 9Ts become automatic calls/shoves with 4 big blind stacks. Whereas if you had 20,000 and blinds were 100/200 we've got 100 big blinds and therefore a lot more room to maneuver. I wouldn't be willing to put a 100bb stack in pre-flop with 9Ts but with 4bb's it's a great hand. Also in Heads-Up, the stack size and therefore our decision is based on the effective stack. The effective stack being the shortest at the table. So we take the 20,000 stack and the 2,000 stacks from our examples above. Effectively we're playing a 2,000 stack because we only stand to win/lose 2,000. So we play as if we only had 2k in our own stack and disregard the fact we have in fact got 20,000 because that's irrelevant. Maybe haven't explained it all that well but please feel free to ask any questions about short stacked play or HU poker in general.

[atkinsonj]

Re: Was I correct (heads up)? Cant see anything wrong with your play in both hands it is just one of those things :\