Heads up – Preflop

Developing the right gameplan

- Gather all information about your opponent

- Stats (Avr. Buy in, ROI, Background)

- Final table play

Scared money, bluffcatching & bluffing behaviour, shortstackplay/bigstackplay. You get better
information about a player when his tournament is at risk, when he is short/mid stack. If he doesn’t
play a lot of hands and don’t go a lot all in when short, his tendency is that he is scared money and
more nit. Good indicators are that he is tight, doesn’t make bluffs, etc.

If someone is very aggressive/loose in 6/9 handed, he will be in HU. However, someone tight doesn’t
mean that he will keep being tight on HU.

- Most opponents are very unexperienced in HU games

- Having a solid HU foundation will already give you a tremendous edge over the field

- Ranges are extremely wide, don’t make crazy herofolds. People can have all sort of bullshit hands.
If the guy is tight and x/R you on the river, you can fold.

- Randomness in HU is relatively big!

- People will wake up with hands you might never expected (esp. unexperienced HU player)

- It is the toughest game since ranges are wide and it can be quite tough to put your opponent on a
range

If someone is better, just relax, play normal and with your strengths. Don’t try anything out against
them and that’s it. You will decrease you edge if you try things you never did.

IP – OR <25bb

Very important to have as many reads as possible.

- Raise/Limp 20-25bb – 87%

- Limp/Shove 15-20bb – 85%

- Limp/Shove 10-15bb – 80%

- Limp/Shove 8-10bb – 77%

The shorter -> the less hands you can play

If you raise a lot, you have to decrease your range and give more walks to your opponent and if you
raise too much, your raise fold becomes too high and you opponent can just jam anything against
you. By limping only, it allows us to maintain a 85% from the SB. We are also limping our strongest
hands.
Be aware of your raise/fold or limp/fold gap

The ranges of 4Betting/Shove are 55+, ATo/KQs+. ATs to AKs limp/jam. AA limp/call but you can do
whatever you want with them.

The strategy here is to protect our equity as much as possible. If we have too many hands in our
raise/call range, our limping range will become very weak and our opponent may take advantage
from it. If the opponent overfolds on raises, you should raise more; if he is very aggressive and 3B or
jams a lot, then you have to increase your limp/call hands. If the opponent is very weak on limps,
limp more hands. And even raise the limp/jam hands, because you want to get value from those
hands too.

Never overadjust. He can have a hand even three times in a row, so be very careful about that.

A player should attack your limp around 40%, so if he does it only 2 times out of 10, then you can
limp more hands rather than folding.

- Play very exploitative vs Fish:

90% 20-25bb, lots of raise/folding.

We keep raising a lot fish vs with 15-20bb: we don’t have to think about equity protection because
we will face less 3B.

If fish is aggressive -> adapt

In general, they 3B less and isoraise less -> We can play more hands and have to worry less about
protection

- Important stats:

Raise vs Limp: 37%-42% (10bb+)

3Bet: 27%-30% (10bb+)

Use SB raise first in/VPIP in order to design your BB defense & 3bet range

Check/raise postflop (use reads from FT!), the more passive the more limping. The more passive the
more you bet on the flops.

If villain doesn’t play SB enough times, you have to adjust and def less and 3B less, but you will get
more money from his walks.

IP – OR 25-50bb & 50bb+

- Raise only

If villain is 3B a lot, then you can add a limp/call range

- Against aggressive opponents you can use <25bb

- Vs Recs, Play straight forward

- If you give yourself a huge edge, avoid marginal spots

You should be able to name specifically in which spots you have an Edge!
A leak and an adjustment is key to get a better edge against villain.

There’s a lot of ego in HU. Even more when you played like 15/20 hands. If you are being outplayed,
don’t listen to your ego that makes you try to recover and start doing bad plays. It can be that you
are just hand cut.

Folding is also great, more if the opponent is in the passive/tight side.

OOP - <25bb

- Ranges close to GTO.

For example: Raise vs Limp consists of some very loose raise/brokes. If your opponent is never
capable of jamming light, raise/fold hands like QTs, JTs (don’t worry about protection since his
jamming range is tight anyway).

- If your opponent is playing similar VPIP from SB, you should rejam and isoraise the same ranges
(future EV -> walks). If you don’t 3B, he will raise a tone. If you 3B a lot, he will start limping more
and you will play more hands, if he can see that you are not afraid to put your tournament at risk.

You have to bluff less with the 3b. If someone is capable of 4Bet jamming, you have to add the low
suited connectors.

- The wider your opponent openraises the more you should rejam (hands marked as grey on the
table ranges)

- EV (rejam) > EV (flatcall)

When he is OR more than 80%, you collect the money so often with the rejams.

General tips OOP:

- Playability/(reverse)implied odds vs calling range

- Ex: Isoraise 65o vs limp instead of Q3o

Q3o is better to just call it in a bluffcatcher mode with a top pair. On the other hand, 65o is a hand
that is hard for our opponent to believe us when we hit top pair, doble pair, straight, etc.

- Domination + boardcoverage (easier to make good folds).

- Barrel potential (folding out K/Q high floates)

OOP 25bb+

- The deeper we are, the stronger our bluffs

- The deeper the more linear we 3bet for value

- 3bet/broke, 3bet/fold, 3bet/call 4bet

- 3bet linear vs fish/callhappy/passive opponent

TAKE ACTION

- Review 3 HU

- Watch 5 Scoop/Wcoop HU

- Identify your biggest preflop leaks

- Play 5 online HU homegames vs a friend/pokerbuddy. Simulating a real MTT HU.

Deploy the preflop ranges

How could you “exploit” your opponent? What are his leaks?