Poker Heads Up Sng Strategy

4/9/20224/9/2022

Heads up sit and gos have risen dramatically in popularity. These games would have been considered a small niche just a few years ago, but are now among the most popular in online poker. Heads up cash players, too, often switch over to the heads up sit and go games when a few bigger games are running.

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Poker Heads Up Sng Strategy Game

Heads Up Strategy When you make the heads up stage of a super turbo SnG the blinds will usually be around 50/100 or higher. Since there are only 2700 chips in the tournament this means that at least one player will likely be under the 10 big blind limit for the majority of heads up play. General Heads Up Strategy Tips As a basic principle, heads up strategy is about being aggressive, and playing as many pots as possible. The more pots you see, the greater your chance of hitting a monster and trapping your opponent. The reason you have to be aggressive is that you only have one opponent to beat. Sit N Go Legend Collin Moshman Discusses SNG Strategy. Staff November 12, 2020. Colossos Helps You Avoid Making This Mistake On The Flop (Shorts EP 11) Staff November 11, 2020. This Poker Training Video Will Help You Move Up In The Microstakes. Staff November 10, 2020. Watch Carroters Give Advice On His Students’ Hands – Questions And. Sit & Go tournaments, or ‘SNGs’, are a great way to learn to play poker because they cover all the fundamentals of tournament play, but don’t take anywhere near as long. However be warned that SNG strategy differs in a lot of ways from traditional tournament play for a number of reasons, so make sure you check out our SNG poker articles.

If you watch the HU SNGs on PokerStars.com, expect to see the biggest names in poker playing $2,000-$5,000 games. Heads up sit n gos are very profitable, but with strong profits almost always comes a lot of competition.

As a result, you will need to put in a lot of effort if you want to truly reap the rewards that heads up sit n gos have to offer. There is a moderately steep learning curve that might seem like it never ends, but eventually you will find that heads up play is quite systematic. The routine nature of heads up sit and gos will likely cost you money in the beginning when you face tough opponents, but it will be your primary source of profit in the end.

Consistency is one of the most vital aspects of any heads up sit and go player’s skill sets. If you can’t play the same way on a regular basis, you will inevitably get eaten up by the flood of sharks that full up these tables. Variance will certainly be a challenge to deal with, especially for players who are unused to it.

The most consistent heads up players, be it in cash games or sit and gos, are almost always the players who win the most money. It is very little coincidence that the top heads up players are all able to remain calm and even keeled no matter what happens in their games. The importance of emotional control and general consistency in your approach to heads up sit and gos should never be undervalued.

One accidental slip up can easily cost you a buy in, which could then lead to two or three buy ins. There is next to no room for error in heads up sit and gos, and there is even less room for error in the mid stakes and high stakes games. If you are prone to tilting and/or losing your concentration, you would be better off looking for a different game.

Small Stakes Heads Up Strategy

The small stakes heads up sit and gos are some of the easiest games in all of poker. Lots of players join these games without any real idea of what they are doing. You will run into the players who are either trying to get better so that they can play higher stakes, or players who are just after a quick fix and are trying to double their money. No matter who you are playing, the same basic approach should be applied.

Don’t try to force anything until the blinds start to diminish your stack. There is plenty of time to go after uncontested pots in the beginning of a SNG. If you are playing in a turbo/ultra turbo SNG, you have no choice but to pick up the pace rather quickly, but you will still have a chance to play a few hands with postflop strategy in mind.

The overall goal in these limits should be to pick apart the other player’s weaknesses. Now, this is your goal in any form of poker, but it is exponentially easier when you only have to beat one player. If you can identify some areas of weakness, it will be somewhat easy to capitalize on them. Go for the kill after you have established an edge.

Don’t try to win the whole match within the first few hands (unless you can do it safely). Work on chipping away at your opponent and pushing them to the edge. Because players at these limits are not all that experienced, you will be able to force your opponents into mistakes just as easily as you will be able to outplay them.

Mid Stakes (+) Heads Up Strategy

The mid stakes and high stakes heads up sit and gos are where the games start to really get tough. If you haven’t been able to beat the small stakes games over a significant sample size, don’t even waste your time trying to compete at these limits. The players that you will face in mid stakes games have practiced over thousands and thousands of games, and that is at the very minimum.

As mentioned previously, consistency is the absolute key in these games. Beyond this, you need to be consistent with some very advanced plays. If you can’t pick off light three bets with regularity, the chances are that your opponent will continue making that play. There isn’t a massive edge to be gained once you hit the mid stakes games, so your only chance of winning is to actually be very skilled yourself.

The strategy in these games is not so much taught as it is learned. There are many varying styles that can each work well. Dealing with variance is a necessity because it will smack you on a repeated basis. If you want to beat the mid stakes and high stakes heads up sit and gos, you should have the capability to remain as calm as Phil Ivey, as focused as Patrik Antonius, and as creative as Tom Dwan.

Carlos Welch

Last week, we discussed three-handed strategy for a single-table sit & go. This week, we will tackle heads-up play.

It's important to be able to play the endgame effectively in SNGs. When playing poker online in a standard single-table sit & go, for example, the payouts typically have 50 percent of the prize pool go to the winner and 30 percent to the runner-up.

At this point of a SNG, the effective stack is usually under 10 big blinds or it will be in short order. The shallow stacks tend to make the game simple and relatively easy to play. Generally, you want to be going all in or folding. Which hands you do this with depends on the tendencies of your opponent.

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Facing an Unknown or Balanced Player

When you are facing an unknown or balanced opponent, it is best to utilize an unexploitable strategy. One strategy that has stood the test of time is called the 'Sit And Go Endgame' system, or SAGE for short. It was developed and introduced by Lee Jones back in 2006 and is still relevant to SNG strategy today.

Essentially, SAGE is a shorthand memory trick that helps you determine if a hand is an unexploitable shove or call. Here is how you use SAGE.

First, you must calculate the Power Index (PI) of your hand. Number cards are valued at the displayed amount 2 through 10. Then jacks are worth 11, queens 12, kings 13 and aces 15.

To calculate your hand's PI, double the value of your highest card, then add the value of your lowest card. If you hand is suited, add another 2 points. If you have a pair, double the value of one of your cards, add the other one, then add another 22 points.

For example, with , you double the value of the jack (11 x 2) and add the 7, totaling 29. With , you double the eight (8 x 2), add the 7, then add 2 more for suitedness to total 25. With you double one of the sixes (6 x 2), add 6 more, then add 22 for being paired to total 40.

Once you've calculated the PI of your hand, use the chart below to look up the number of big blinds in the effective stack to determine if your hand has a PI high enough to play.

For example, when the effective stack is 7 big blinds, you must have a PI of 26 or higher to shove and a PI of 30 or higher to call. This means it would be recommended to open-fold (PI = 25), to shove but not call with (PI = 29) and shove or call with (PI = 40) based on our calculations above.

This shorthand is game theoretically optimal for effective stack sizes 7 BBs or below. It starts to break down for bigger stacks, so I am including a second short chart with the percentage of hands you can shove or fold 8-10 BBs unexploitably as recommended by Max Silver's SnapShove app.

SAGE Chart

Effective Stack Size (BBs)	Shove if PI is at least	Call if PI is at least
1	17	Call Any Two Cards
2	21	17
3	22	24
4	23	26
5	24	28
6	25	29
7	26	30

SnapShove

Effective Stack Size (BBs)	Shove Top X% of hands	Call Top X% of hands
8	61.7%	45.4%
9	59.9%	40.6%
10	58.4%	37.6%

These are great defaults to use when you don't know what mistakes your opponent is likely to make. But when you know he is too tight or too loose, you can deviate from this baseline to exploit him even further.

Facing an Overly Tight or Overly Loose Player

SAGE would have you call a 7 BB shove with a hand like (PI = 30). This is great to know against a good player who is shoving hands as bad as (PI = 26), but not against a player who shoves too tight.

If you know this to be true about your opponent, you should call him tighter than SAGE suggests. If you can determine the bottom of his shoving range, just call him slightly tighter than that.

By the same token, the range of hands SAGE suggests to shove is profitable against a player who calls correctly. But if your opponent calls too tight, then you can shove even wider than the SAGE ranges.

Feel free to throw in a few more hands, especially those that contain big cards, but don't go overboard. There are players and situations where you can get away with shoving any two cards — but this approach can quickly become a slippery slope to Spew Valley, so be careful.