Will Tipton answers your Heads-Up questions

Heads-Up expert and author Will Tipton answers your questions on maniacs, rake, assessing your edge and more.

"The rake is hard to beat at micro stakes heads-up"

jbpatzer: Have you tried playing HU against PokerSnowie, and if you have, what did you think about its strategy? 

Will Tipton: I haven't played PokerSnowie, but their obviously dishonest marketing doesn't inspire confidence.
 
bbosstjan: Do you think it is possible to build up a BR starting from microstakes (NL10)? Most people say that playing NL HU under NL50 is just plain stupid, due to insanely high rake in HU games?

Will Tipton: Well, rake depends on the site, but yes, the rake at micro stakes on most sites makes the games hard to beat. 

Rake is much more reasonable in HUSNGs at low stakes, so I'd recommend starting there, even if you plan to switch to cash games later.

lucker9200: How would you construct your c-betting strategy in position on a dry lowish board with something like bottom/mid pair 100bb eff vs a reasonable player @ nl hu table. For example on a 952r board, how would you play your 2x/5x type of hands - would you cbet all 5x/2x , would you cbet some of them , none of them or just the 2x or just the 5x or specific 5x/specific 2x etc when checked to?

Will Tipton: I usually polarise my c-betting range (i.e. bet good and bad hands while checking back mediocre ones) until Villain gives me a reason not to. This makes my c-betting range playable and most opponents don't punish my checking back range enough to discourage it. Correct adjustment in the BB to such a strategy and subsequent re-adjustment in the SB is a major theme in Volume 2.

"I've learned a ton from discussion forums and videos"

pepan47: What do you think about 4 player heads up games?

Will Tipton: I guess you mean 4-man single elimination husngs? I used to play a lot of them. I believe they're higher variance and higher EV, since you're essentially playing one normal match and then one match for twice the stakes. 

I liked having the opportunity to watch the other first-round table to get a feel for my second round opponent's play. Depending on the site and stakes, they can take a while to fill up, so you should probably be comfortable playing other tables while you wait.

alabardarnmd: With all the good stuff someone can have for free from forums, youtube videos ect, is still a book one of the best choice to learn a poker strategy nowaday?

Will Tipton: Well, I wouldn't have bothered to write a book if it was just to regurgitate information that's already out there. I know my books contain lots of info that isn't publicly available elsewhere.

If you're interested in beginner-level material, there's plenty of that available, but of course there's lots of bad information on the internet mixed in with the good. Books are supposed to be somewhat more authoritative.

All that said, any poker player should have a voracious appetite for information. Learn from any source you can get your hands on. I've learned tons from discussion forums and videos.

lemon36: I struggle with high cbet % nowadays it's standard to raise >80% to 2X/2.5X which leads to super wide calling ranges. And it's just really hard to rep a hand on e.g. dry flops with check raises etc.

Add to that our weakened range as we 3bet top X% hands where he has 100% strong hand combos in PFR and we are oop, without initiative with range disadvantage on most boards.

What are the main points you'd suggest for a ring player that ventures into HU to start combating this? Is having leading ranges on flop or turn an answer?

Will Tipton: Well, your question is basically “how do I play HUNL?” 🙂 and answering that is sort of beyond the scope of this interview. Here's one idea, though; try taking note of spots where you're unsure what to do. Then, spend some time away from the tables doing deep analyses of those spots, using math, discussions with poker playing friends, etc. Then next time the same spot or anything similar comes up, you should have a much better idea of how to react.

mrkhaan: What, in your opinion, is the best way to deal with maniacs/overly aggro villains in HU?

Will Tipton: Well, I think the first thing to do is to think a little more precisely. It's rare to find an opponent who is just uniformly maniacal – almost everyone has some more specific patterns that you need to identify. I mean, if the guy simply puts a lot of money in the pot no matter what you do, then beating him is easy. Just wait until you have a good hand and then put a lot of money in the pot (This approach might mean limping pre and curtailing your cbetting a lot – there's no need to make a habit of building pots early in hands if Villain makes it easy for you to decide to play a big pot later).

But most “maniacs” (and players in general) aren't actually like that. They are at least somewhat selective with spots where they attack. As one example, some guys will call preflop in the BB and call a flop cbet with a lot of very weak hands, and then after the turn goes check/check, they bomb the river. And that could work very well against you if you tend to raise and c-bet a lot but give up your bluffs on later streets. These same guys might fold a lot of their weak hands on the turn if you double barrel.

So pay attention to villain's patterns – try to figure out exactly what lines he puts in a lot of action against.  Play your big hands this way and not your weak ones. This may involve playing very differently than your normal. For example, continuing with the previous opponent, maybe you'd want to never stab just once with air on the flop (always make 0 or 2+ bets) but checking back strong hands on the turn to let him bet river.

The big idea is that you can't just say your opponent is a “maniac” and expect that to be enough info to start planning a counter strategy. You have to work a bit harder and figure out exactly what he's doing.

"Working out your edge is hard"

itsnevereasy: A player who you perceive to be a probable fish joins your NL600 HU table. How would you go about gathering information about him. And what conclusions would you be able to make about him in the first 10-15 hands of play. Obviously a very broad question, but could you give some examples please?

Will Tipton: Yes this is really broad. I think the big idea is to just pay very close attention. Of course, every time you see a showdown, you should go back over the hand with his hole cards in mind, thinking about every decision he made with those hole cards. What does each decision say about his strategy? Would you have played the same way in each spot?

If not, why not – that is, why is it wrong? And how are you going to take advantage of it?

Furthermore, even when you don't see a showdown, you should think about all the hands he could have played that way, what each case would say about his strategy, and how you might be able to use the info of each of those possibilities. I give more thoughts and some examples on this topic in Ch 16.

metza: How easy is it to accurately gauge if you have an edge on someone HU? For whales its obviously super easy, but for regs is it often hard to know who is actually better?

Will Tipton: I agree, it can be very hard. I always try to figure out very specifically what my opponent is doing wrong and have a plan to take advantage of it. If I can find a couple spots I think I'm winning money in a match, I'm generally happy to play, but who knows, he could be doing the same thing.

Figuring out your winrate vs one opponent is a pretty similar question to figuring out whether you're a winning player overall, versus your player pool. This is something we can attack mathematically, and results are that it takes something like hundreds to several thousand games, depending on the format of the matches (I.e. how much of an edge a winning player will have) and how confident you want to be in the result.

larsonk7: What do you think of limping a wide range in HU hyper Sit and Go's, 500 starting chips, blinds 10/20, with 2 minute blind levels, as a strategy?

Will Tipton: I still play a mostly-minraising strategy by default when I'm on the button since I think the field is still too tight passive at 20-25bb in the BB on average. However, I think it works well when the BB is appropriately aggro, and I believe GTO play involves much more limping at those stacks than is currently standard. I discuss this extensively in Ch 16.

sincauser: What would you recommend for a NL200 6max player planning to make a transition to HU games in terms of bankroll, stakes and poker sites?

Seems like HU sessions can be quite time consuming as there is a lot of waiting, so could you also share your advice on improving endurance and focus during long sessions?

Will Tipton: Well, the waiting isn't nearly as bad in HUSNGs as in HU cash, mostly because players who sit first can't refuse action from those who sit second. My general advice on stakes would be to start low-ish and move up quickly as you feel comfortable. Tons and tons of analysis on bankroll management has been done elsewhere and depends strongly on your personal goals, risk tolerance, etc.

serverm07: I'm assuming you have played live poker at point or another and I'm also assuming some hot shot challenged you to a hu4rollz, what was your answer? Or perhaps if that hasn't happened, what would your answer be if you were to get challenged to a hu4rollz? 

Will Tipton: Well, I play very little live, and this has never happened to me. I do try to keep a level head at the tables, and I can't imagine any normal circumstances where accepting a HU challenge that was actually for my whole bankroll would have positive expected utility, so I imagine I'd usually pass, but it sounds like a good spot to try to set something up with a more modest side bet.

mblazic87: How close do you think short stack HU games (25bb hypers) are to being solved given that regs >$200 buy in level hardly beat rake anymore against each other? And will we see you demonstrating your knowledge against top regs again soon or will you not play untill poker is regulated in US again?

Will Tipton: I actually think there's a ways to go before the game is nearly “solved” even at 25bb. The results of calculations that I discuss in Vol 2 lead to strategies fairly far from currently standard play. 

Additionally, the pseudo-equilibrium strategies I present are very highly mixed – I.e. the very often involve taking multiple lines with the same hand with various frequencies.  It's very hard for humans to do this well, so I imagine you'll still be able to pick up patterns in opponents' play for quite some time.

However, beating the rake is kind of a high bar – I imagine there are lots of strategies, more easily human-playable, that can't be beaten for more than the rake. 

As for me, I don't plan on moving out of the US, so I won't be rejoining the international player pool until there's some progress with legislation.

Thanks very much to Will Tipton. The five winners of his new book have been announced in this thread. 

Buy Expert Heads Up No Limit Hold'em: v. 2: Strategies for Multiple Streets