Heads-up Sit&Gos

One of the most popular forms of sit&go on the internet has always been heads-up. They balance the skill involved in playing heads-up cash games with the limited buy-in of a tournament. Also, the rapidly changing stack sizes and increasing blinds allow for some strategy changes that are unique to the format.

Currently they are available online for stakes as high as $5,600. The speed and instant action also makes them very popular among recreational players.

If you are approaching heads-up sit&gos after playing standard sit&gos or other ring games you will need to radically alter your strategy to succeed. Because there is only one prize, ICM considerations do not apply and your chips have a linear value: in a $15 game with 1,500 chips each chip will always be worth 1 cent.

And because there are only two players, and you must post the blinds every hand, you will need to increase the number of hands you are playing drastically to avoid being anted away.

To what extent you do this depends primarily on your position, but also that of your opponent’s position and the size of the stacks. Typically players start heads-up sit&gos with 1,500 chips and have stacks of 50 or 75 big blinds, meaning they are playing reasonably deep.

Initially, you should be raising most hands on the button in order to put pressure on your opponent and keep picking up the blinds.
This means playing marginal hands like Qc-9d, Ks-2s-7c-5h and 10d-3d much more often than premium ones.

Depending on your opponent you can then adjust this strategy to playing almost all hands if they are too tight (so even 7c-2h) though you might want to make a few token folds so they don’t catch on, or tighten up a little from that range if your opponent is very loose or aggressive.

Playing From The Small Blind

Out of position you don’t want to be calling with many marginal hands as your opponent will be able to put a lot of pressure on you post-flop by betting multiple streets. You can three-bet bluff to counter a player who opens very wide and to help get value on your big hands. For the most part though, because of the fixed stack sizes in heads-up sit&gos you want to use a strategy that is more oriented towards calling than re-raising.

Losing even one large pot will put you in a tough spot. For example, if you end up with 1,000 chips to your opponent’s 2,000, now you have to win two large pots to end the match. Therefore, it is helpful to call with very big hands like A-A or K-K more often than in a cash game, as well as calling with suited Aces and connectors, high cards and small and medium pairs.

Of course, some re-raising is a good idea, but try to balance it more towards hands that flop well like A-K, A-Q, Q-Q, J-J and high or medium suited connectors, rather than hands like middle pairs. Middle pairs can get you in bad situations with these stack sizes.

Post-flop Play

Post-flop you should be continuation betting in position the majority of the time, unless your opponent plays back at you a lot. You should always be trying to make logical decisions about when to go for value, pot control or a bluff based on whether you have a strong, marginal or weak hand.

Thinking about your plan for the hand in advance is also key, not least in overall terms like wanting to get a hand to showdown cheaply or double barrel certain cards on the turn. You should also have a plan for what you are going to do if you bet and are raised, or if you check and certain cards come, as this will help you avoid getting in tough spots.

Out of position you are vulnerable because your opponent always acts last (although you should be countering this by playing a stronger range of hands) and your options are more limited. Typically, if you call, your opponent will continuation bet a high percentage of the time, so you want to check then look to check-call most marginal and very strong holdings on dry boards.

You should also look to check-raise draws and very strong hands on co-ordinated boards as well as some bluffs on dryer ones.
If you re-raise and are called, making a half to two-thirds pot sized continuation bet is standard, although you want to check-raise some hands like draws or big pairs and check on very coordinated flops you have missed or sometimes if you have Ace high.

Of course you will also need to mix these actions up a bit to avoid being predictable and tailor them to your opponent’s tendencies, and learning how to do this successfully is the most important part of heads-up poker.

End Game Play

As play progresses the stack sizes will become shallower, either because one player is winning or because the blinds have gone up. With 15 to 30 big blinds you are in a much more awkward position and you may want to lower the size of your raises to 2.5 big blinds or consider limping in some spots to avoid getting in big pots.

Play at this stage is very much a war or attrition since losing even a couple of small pots can put you in a position from which it’s hard to win and so people often play more cautiously.

If you are able to do some limping or your opponent does, stabbing at a lot of pots post-flop either in or out of position is now a viable strategy as your opponent will rarely have hit. But again you will need to balance this with value bets and check-raises as well as adjusting to your opponent.

Winning just a few of these can give you a chip lead and a few more chips to gamble with without falling behind. If your opponents opens a lot pre-flop, re-raising all-in with pairs, high cards and some suited connectors is a great way to cut him down. He will rarely have a hand to call with.

Once the stacks get very shallow (less than 15 big blinds) you can revert to a simple all-in or old strategy based on the tables found in books like The Mathematics of Poker or Secrets of Sit’n’gos.

But don’t do this if your opponent is very bad. Remember that you can jam all-in with many hands from the small blind since you will often pick up the blinds and have some equity when called. For example with 10 big blinds shoving hands like Js-3s or 9c-7d is standard play. You should also call with quite a wide range unless your opponent is very tight.