The best way to play a player that you sense is quite a bit better than you, is to just push all-in instead of playing tricky. You won’t be able to trap these players typically. They won’t fall for it. They will bluff you, but as soon as you try to trap them, they will not call the all-in, or reraise your all-in . The donkeys will do this, the pros are much more difficult to trap. You almost need a set or full house to get them. So – instead of dinking around all day trying to trap them, you are better off just going all-in with the top 30% of all hands. This is outlined in the probe section.
Go all-in and hope to get lucky. It should take them a couple blinds before they realize what you’re doing. Once they do – look out. They will start calling your all-ins with any top 30% hand. They won’t keep giving their chips away. This is the mark of a good player in heads up. They react to your play as you react to theirs.
Summary
Of all the sections in any SNG tourney – the heads up is by far the most complicated to use a system with. There are so many variables that can affect your play. A basic set of rules is not going to work. You need to be adaptive, take note of what they do – do they bluff(if so provide an opportunity for them by checking to them when you have a hand), do they check raise (if so trap them, make a weak looking continuation bet when you actually have the nuts, let them reraise you, then push all-in with your 2pr or set).
For further study, do more research on ITM play. In particular Heads up. This is a very interesting subject. In many ways it should be the easiest. To be good at heads up – you must be very well studied and very patient. You must understand odds – that even with AK, you’re really only about a 60/40 favorite to two undercards. Because of this, play super aggressive if your opponent is tight. If he is playing super aggressive or loose, set up a trap for him and reraise all-in with any pair – or even any face card.
For heads up play – if you play aggressive you generally can’t go too wrong. You will naturally grow your stack. By the time your opponent takes a stand – you will hopefully be about a 2:1 stack favorite.
As far as technical details go for the system – that is it!
