Range Rover
Up until the middle of last week I really hadn’t been playing much Heads-up poker lately, I’m a firm believer in specialising in specific formats of poker to learn the subtle nuances of each, the devil is in the details, and so is the profit. But having used the super turbos available on the I-Poker network to rapidly build up a bankroll on skin Black Belt Poker I had found that I had become a bit adverse to HUP poker. Actually after six weeks of HUP turbo poker I would rather have spent the afternoon throwing up in a bin that playing the mano-a-mano variety of the game, specialisation for the win, but a change is also as good as a rest!
Having reached my goal of running my initial $50 deposit to just over $1,500 in double quick time, about six weeks all told and then taking a break last week I was really looking forward to playing some quality Heads-up poker at the $50+ levels, slow structure games. After all the HUP super turbo strategy I had been employing is effective but simple and extremely repetitive and I was concerned my poker instincts might have become a bit dulled.
Sorry to digress but if your interested in trying this king of spin-up it for yourself here the formula, start at the $2 games with whatever you can afford, move up stakes every time you have 35 buy-ins at the next level and drop down every time your bankroll dips below 30 buy-ins. I found that the simplest strategy was the most effective, so I was limping with any marginal holdings and playing as many flops as the bad players would allow me too, hopefully I would flop big and they would make a mistake. If no opportunities arose or my opponent turned out to be decent I would just sit tight for the small amount of time it would take to get to the push and fold stages of 7BB effective stacks then start pushing any Q and calling with any K, it really was this straight forward.
The real trick though is in the volume, I can comfortably four or five table super turbos because as I say the strategy I employed was so simple, these super fast games attract the steamers and the gamblers so when you add an element of high volume you can really iron out variance the variance and this leads to a profitable recipe. If you decide to try it yourself good luck and let me know how you get on.
Anyway having been concentrating on this rather simple yet manic format when I returned to my staple games I found my ranges sort of all over the place. All of a sudden I was limping buttons with crap against good opponents; this might be ok against weak players but death against stronger opponents. My three and four betting range was all to cock too as I was somewhat stuck in the mode that any king high was good! It’s so easy to fall into strange and bad habits, its good to have the number to fall back so dug out an old 2+2 post that was generally agreed as a solid HUP play.
Betting Patterns of a Good HUP Player
1. Percentage of raises on the button, 70%+
2. Percentage of calls from the button raise, 20-30%
3. Percentage to 3-Bet the button, 5% -15%
4. Percentage to 4-Bet from the Button, 2%
Of course everything is relative and adapting is a key facet of all winning HUP players, but if you’re not too far from these stats then you’re not going to be doing that much wrong.
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[...] admin wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAfter all the HUP super turbo strategy I had been employing is effective but simple and extremely repetitive and I was concerned my poker instincts might have become a bit dulled. Sorry to digress but if your interested in trying this … [...]
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptUp until the middle of last week I really hadn’t been playing much Heads-up poker lately, I’ma firm believer in specialising in specific formats of poker. [...]