Heads Up Play at the End of a Tournament

Heads Up Play at the End of a Tournament

If you’ve been lucky or skilled enough to be one of the last two players in a tournament, you have to make some very major poker strategy adjustments. Playing heads up is almost an entirely different game. Before we get into some specific strategy advice, I have to make clear that I’m talking about No Limit Hold’em tournaments. My advice goes for both large multi-table tournaments and sit-n-go’s (both single and multi-table). Also keep in mind that when you play heads up the small blind is the button.

You want to become extremely aggressive preflop when you’re down to heads up. When you’re on the button you should raise at least 75% of your hands. A hand like Q7s suited, which is garbage in any 6 handed or 10 handed game becomes pretty strong heads up, especially when you have the button (when you’re the dealer, in position). I never fold a face card in this situation and rarely fold anything that’s either connected or suited. The only hands I will consider folding are things like T3o, 94o, 73o, etc. Only pure garbage. The size of your average raise should be 4-5 times the big blind. This is slightly bigger than the 3 times average raise I suggest for ring game play. There are a few reasons, but the biggest one is that the blinds are almost always extremely high at this point in the tournament, so stealing them is very valuable. The slightly larger raise gives you a better chance of making that valuable steal. I do not suggest ever limping in when you’re the small blind; it’s too weak and the chips in the pot are too important.

When you’re on the big blind, you must take your cues from how the small blind is playing. If the small blind is tight, you should just let him fold away his chips (while still stealing aggressively as I suggest when you’re on the button). If he routinely likes to limp-in, take the free flops with your poor hands, but try to raise him out of the pot (a 4-5 times the big blind raise) when you have anything decent. Of course, if he limps mostly with his strong hands just check and fold the flop unless you hit something big. If you’re playing against a small blind who plays as I suggest, however, you must fold around 50% or 60% of your hands and three-bet with the rest. It may seem way too aggressive and loose, but it’s how good tournament players take down wins. Against only one player you can’t be scared of monsters under the bed, sure he might show up with a big hand once in a while, but what you lose then is nothing compared to how much can be won constantly stealing the blinds.

After the flop I have a few guidelines that I use. Any ace high or pair is generally good enough to bet (and I like to bet near or just under the size of the pot). Any pair is good enough to raise unless the bettor is extremely tight or passive (in which case you just want to let him blind himself to death, not give him a chance to win a big pot).

Remember that at any stage of a hand, if you’re going to be pot-committed to calling a raise, you may as well just go all-in yourself. That means that if you have less than 10 big blinds left in your stack before the flop, or less than twice the size of the pot after the flop, you have to go all-in if you’re going to bet or raise. That goes for any stage of the tournament, not just when it’s down to heads up.