Anyone got any tips for 1 v 1 hold-em?

[chala]

I haven't been playing hold-em very long. I used to play on the low stakes, no limit tables at B365, but now I've started playing the single table tournaments, as I was fed up of getting beat by people playing ridiculous hands like 27o. Anyways, enough of my grumbling. I seem to have been doing abit better on the single table tournaments (until today). I find that I can usually get down to the last 2 or 3, but my problem comes when I get down to the last 2, I am not winning enough of these head to heads. Obviously your strategy has to change when your one on one, but I just wondered if anyone had any tips on some hands they would play in a one on one situation that they definately wouldn't play normally. Too many times, I seem to fold away letting the blinds eat my stack. For instance, would you play? 23o to 56o? 68o to 8To? Any help, or any links to somewhere where this may have already been discussed would be appreciated.:ok

[Jezza]

Re: Anyone got any tips for 1 v 1 hold-em? ok I take it you are asking about 1 v 1 situations here at the end of a STT......not a 1v1 heads up tournamant (which is a LOT different as the blinds start small and you have a lot of room to play). Typically at the end of these STT's the blinds will be very high (over 1k to an avg stack of 5k or something I think). This puts RAISING preflop as a must play - the positive expectation no matter what you have in raising your opponents blinds is high. This is because you can win in two ways 1) Him Folding or 2) Him calling and you winning. IF you only flat call/play the board you can only win by you beating his cards on a showdown. You must NOT wait for premium cards to be the raiser - the blinds are so large you should raise with just about anything. Certainly any ace any pair any big K or Q and to be honest just about anything else - even 23o against AK is not that much of an underdog if you look at the maths. (Remember you are committed to call him AI in these cases regardless of what you have practically). The key is aggression....and never let your stack drop to the point a double thru would put you even just go on anything before that Jez

[chala]

Re: Anyone got any tips for 1 v 1 hold-em? Cheers Jezza :ok That's probably what some people have been doing to me and I've been too stupid to realise it! I'll come out fighting now, when I get down to these 1 v1 situations!

[Kirkie]

Re: Anyone got any tips for 1 v 1 hold-em? Jez I was facing the same problems as Chala. So when I read your reply to his post it was of particluar interest to me. I decided to take your advie ang give it a go I suppose its still early days for me but you were absolutely spot on. I actually managed to win a STT last night using that strategy having been in 3rd place (3 at table). Thanks for that mate.:ok