You're a Bunch of Factors

So, heres the situation!!!
Been playing npl since first season and i have racked up a total of 10 2nds!!!!

It is driving me insane!

I cannot crack the big one. friendly advice from dakota was to be very aggressive etc etc. i try to be and always seem to get unlucky somehow.

So.... i need some tips and ideas haha

from the bridesmaid of poker

HAVE YOU SEEN DAKOTAS RECORD?????????

3 HANDS TOPS AND HE'S GONE.

AND YES JUST LIKE YOU I ALSO TOOK HIS ADVISE.........LOOK AT ME NOW COMPARED TO LAST SEASON!!!!!!!!


WHAT WERE WE THINKING LOL

If Dakota is dealing and you have 1 out on the river, it's in the bag!

Heads up is a completely different beast to standard eight or short handed play that you are used to. Unfortunately the turbo structure we have by the time it gets to head up you have to be aggressive and generally it's all pre flop action. You have to rely on a lot of luck at this stage of the game, but my few rules for heads up are this:

1.) If you are the first to enter the pot, do not limp unless you are trapping, but otherwise raise with your speculative, marginal hands. If you are not willing to raise with it, just fold your hand, but remember that you cannot fold too many hands as a SB will account for about 5-20% of your stack by now. It amazes me how many people will play QT or Jrag suited to a raise when eight handed but come short handed, final table or heads up, are so scared of playing these types of hands. When quite often you are ahead.

2.) BET if your opponent checks to you twice. If your opponent is showing weakness, it doesn't matter what two cards you have. Bet and make them fold. And when I say bet i don't mean the minimum, I mean at least the pot on the flop, maybe half to three quarter pot post flop.

3.) Bet more heavily on your draws than you normally would. You hit an up and down draw or a flush draw, and you don't think you opponent is super strong, bet your draws heavily even re raise if they bet. The good thing about this play is that you can quite possibly steal the pot looking super strong or even if your bet is called it is improving your implied odds and means you will get paid big time if you do hit your draw.

That's it for me for the time being.

okay Renee,
Here's the major prob with ur heads up. When u reach heads up, u are usually out chipped by ur opponent 1-15 and even sometimes 1-20 times. Ur chances of winning are very neglible at this point, ur relying on the dealer to dig u out at this stage.
Here's what u have to consider, the majority of the venues that u play at has 40 or so runners, with chip ups and poker passports, ur looking at 100-120000 worth of chips floating around. With this many runners, heads up will hit u at 5-10000 blind levels. To give urself any "poker" chance u need at least 25% of the chips(25-30000).
U play very tight throughout the course of the game, which is fine to get u to the final table. The final table, is a different game altogether, and heads up is also is a different game in itself. So when u do get to the final table, u do need to take a few risks here and there and build a stack, so that u do have a fighting chance when u get to heads up. There's no point just sitting back and watching somebody else take everybody else out, because if u do, 1 side of the table is always going to have the majority of the chips, and guess what? It's not ur side.
It's really hard to bluff, or push when only have 2 blue chips in front of u and blinds are 5000/10000. If u want to win the tourni renee, u need to start making ur move a lot earlier prehaps say when it gets down to 4-5 runners at least. Get a stack in front of u before u get to heads up, and then follow what Garth has outlined.

Good post Dakota, I see your point now too. And you are a good teacher, just look at Sammy....................... I said "JUST LOOK AT SAMMY" LOL

Cool, thanks everyone.

yeah i know dakota, im hardly chipped up when i get to the final table, but take two weeks ago at smithy, 45 runners i was gettin some killa hands before final table and come to think about it, i was playing a bit more aggressive and calling lots more than usual and that did pay off. i ended up at the final table with 54 thousand!! i had sooooo much more than everyone. i played a couple of hands with success then it was down to the last 3 with me still way in front with the chip lead and i get dealt pocket 5's, limp in guy in next position raises so me trying to be "aggressive" re raises all in and he calls and smashes me with trip queens!! there goes my chips and i finish 2nd again!!!

and i get what Garth is saying too, thats some good advice.

i'll keep trying and will take all the tips i can get! i'll win one one day!!

renee hopefully u make finals and win when it counts most, that would be the perfect first win

Well, I had heads up tonight. And unlike most heads up I've seen, it wasn't over quickly. All in all, heads up probably lasted about 20 minutes - the longest I've seen it last in a looong time.

Blinds were 10,000/20,000 and first hand, with our blinds in, we had about the same stack. His 60k to my 70k.

So for about the first 8 hands we didn't see a flop. One of us either raised all in, or folded. Nothing changed, really. I had the chance to knock him out by calling another 20k on top of my BB, but I was dealt 3 5 and wasn't risking that. He showed KJ anyway.

Then I'm BB. Dealt 7 5 off suit. He calls, I check.

Flop: 2 A 2. I checks, so does he.

Turn: 5. I'm all in. He calls.

Turns over 2 4. Slow played me on trips.

It was very well done, and after that demolishing I was left with 15,000. 10,000 was in for the SB, so I threw the remaining 5 in. He calls and FLOPS A STRAIGHT



I didn't mind, I was happy with 2nd. Congrats to Dan, he came back from FT shortstack to take down the tournament.

the longest heads up i have played in was at the old spot back in season 1 against Big Fil.

we ended up playing for 2 blind levels (5-10, 10-20, and most of 20-40) before i trapped him with QQ and won my first tourney.

ah, good times