Head's up

[murphyz]

The Head's Up championship is currently being shown on Sky travel on Monday night's. I've never really watched head's up before and my experience with it is that when down to the heads up stage it's more of a case of hitting something on the flop and going all in - instead of the cautious betting and 'chipping away' at the other people that you see on the TV. I guess most pro's would no doubt fold at that stage if you went all in unless they had the nuts.

Anyhoo, after it finished I thought I would go onto PStars and try my luck at the head's up - not something I would normally play when I'm tired and after I've had wine, but I had had a profitable evening and thought $5 wouldn't make a difference, so I sat at a 4 man 'tourney'.

I was down $500 during the first few hands, just trying to buy the pots pretty much...and thought at this stage that I had to get my act together. I stopped raising most hands pre-flop and waited to see what the flop brought. I stopped trying to bluff at anything and waited until I had a hand (well...maybe not all the time). All in all I just slowed down a lot and took it easy, thinking there was no rush whatsoever (something the winner on the other table disagreed with, he finished his game in 5 minutes and had to wait for us).

About 20 minutes into the game I was leading with 2000 against his 1000, and managed to check pretty much to the river on a hand where I managed to get a flush - he went all in with a pair of queens and I called, winning the hand.

The final table was very different, and the guy I was playing was very aggressive - raising most hands pre-flop and betting strongly. I tried to slow him down as much as possible and managed to get a small lead by folding most hands and not trying to bluff too much. I finally hit two pair on the flop and he went all in with a double ended straight draw. My two pair held up and I won.

This part of the match lasted about 5 minutes, whereas my first round had lasted about 20.

So - is there any way to play at the head's up stage which seems to work out better than others?

The second guy I played was quite aggressive, which I have heard in the past is the way to go, and he went through the first round very quickly. Against me I did have the best hand with 2 cards to come, but he could easily have made the straight.

I'm normally quite aggressive myself, and I guess that works as many times as not...it's just watching the game on TV last night made me think there's perhaps something to be said for taking it easy and not playing overly aggressive.

Which do you prefer?

Mxx

[T.G]

Im a better short-handed player esp. when it gets down to 3 or 4 players rather than when there's 10 players as its much easier to "take control" of the table. Also by playing aggressively people will eventually get fed up of you and will try re-raising and by this time you might actually have a genuine hand. It all depends on your chip stake, current confident (good/bad day/week) and what other players on your table are like ...

What do i prefer? Strong, agressive poker! Very rarely happens though.