Heads-up NL Hold’em is one of the most challenging forms of poker in the world. It requires a different skill set than a full ring or even short-handed Hold’em. Some of the best players in the world today are experts at heads-up play. You also have to be at least competent with heads-up play if. Heads-up poker sites will provide you with a wide selection in stakes as well as game variation giving you the ability to play heads up poker in Hold'em, Omaha, and Stud. Heads Up refers to playing one opponent and this page focuses only on the poker sites offering Heads up tournaments or cash games.

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.

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. Schecter blackjack 7 string price.

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

SnapShove

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 Poker hollywood casino pa poker rooms. than the SAGE ranges.

Dec 22, 2016  Atlantis Casino: No poker room! - See 2,917 traveler reviews, 438 candid photos, and great deals for Paradise Island, New Providence Island, at TripAdvisor. The best casino gaming tables are waiting for you in paradise. Enjoy Blackjack, Poker, Craps, Roulette and much more! Book your visit to Atlantis Casino now. Atlantis paradise island poker room. All players are welcome. The Poker Room at Atlantis offers the region's best games, tournaments and promotions alongside tableside dining, a self-service beverage bar, texting for seat availability and state-of-the-art flat screen TV's visible from every table.

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.

When facing a player who shoves or calls too loose, you can just stick to the SAGE ranges. The fact that he is getting it in with more garbage than you just improves the EV of every hand in your ranges.

Heads-up play is where the real money is in a SNG. But because of the short stack sizes, it can be one of the easiest parts of the tournament to play. If you utilize these tips, you should win at least your fair share of SNGs in the long run.

Next week, we'll wrap this series up with a discussion of sit & go bankroll management.

Also in this series..

Ready to start giving sit & gos a try? Put these tips into practice at partypoker.

Everybody needs an account at one of these online poker rooms! They're the biggest, the best, and we get you the best poker bonuses. Check out our online poker section for details on all the online poker rooms around.

• Tags

  tournament strategyno-limit hold’emstack sizesstarting hand selectionpreflop strategysit & go strategyonline pokershort-handed strategysatellite strategyheads-up strategy

• Related Room

  partypoker

Best Heads Up Poker Strategy

Event #16: $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em of the 2013 World Series of Poker kicked off in the Amazon Room on Friday evening. The 162-player field was jam-packed with some of the world’s best players, including defending champion Brian Hastings, Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, and Sam Trickett who is making his 2013 WSOP debut in this event.

With so many outstanding heads-up players in the tournament, we thought it would be fun to ask participants to name three players they wouldn't want to play heads-up against. Among the 16 players we asked were Trickett, Negreanu, Hastings, Nick Schulman, Michael Mizrachi and Antonio Esfandiari. Here is a look at the results:

As expected, the highest vote-getter was Ivey. When we asked players why Ivey was such a tough draw, the majority response was simply, “Because he’s the best.”

Fair enough.

The one full comment on Ivey came from bracelet winner Kevin Stammen who said, 'If I were to play him heads-up, I would just take away all the skill and shove every hand.'

Phil Galfond finished second in the poll, and Ben 'Sauce123' Sulsky and Isaac Haxton tied for third. Haxton did not participate in today's event because he is traveling to Las Vegas from Macau.

Benjamin Pollak on his top three: “Daniel Negreanu would be one because he is so confident as a player. He’s having a really good year, and he just doesn’t seem like he can play bad. Phil Ivey is an obvious one, and my good friend Davidi Kitai because, first of all, he’s a great player. We discuss a lot of hands together, and I think he would be difficult to play because we know each other’s game so well.”

Heads Up Poker Tips

Who would you least like to face heads up? Vote in the poll below.

Best Heads Up Poker Strategy Games

Poll

Who would you least want to play in a $10K heads-up tournament?

We'll have up-to-the-minute coverage of the $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em until its conclusion, so be sure to follow the PokerNews Live Reporting page for updates!

In this table, you can also see the distribution of these games. Slots make up the bulk of all the mobile casino game collections. If you are the type of player who prefers roulette, blackjack, or other casino games such as poker and scratch cards, the choice on offer. Existing mobile casino games available at the top mobile casinos are blackjack, roulette, video poker, baccarat, keno, slots games (including progressive), and a few arcade-style games available through the more popular Asian mobile casinos. https://ninplum.netlify.app/casino-games-for-mobile.html. Home; Mobile; 2020's Top Mobile Casino Apps & Games Independent Reviews of the Best Real Money Mobile Casinos. Great news for gamblers on the go: the evolution of online casino games has made it.

Heads Up Poker Strategy

• Tags

  WSOPPhil Ivey

• Related Room

  Unibet Poker

• Related Tournaments

  World Series of Poker

• Related Players

  Phil Ivey