Ask yourself the question: what is tournament poker? The truth is that tournament poker play is all about survival, and if you want to win any tournament, you can’t avoid heads-up confrontations. If you are an experienced Sit & Go player, you are probably well versed in heads-up tournament play, but many less experienced cash game and multi-table tournament players feel like a fish out of water when it comes to heads-up play.
Adjusting the Value of Your Hands
When you play a full table in texas hold em tournaments, most players will refrain from playing marginal hands. You save your chips and wait for a premium hand to come along before you make your move. This is not an option when playing heads-up poker.
Unless the blinds are extremely large compared to your stack, you will be playing nearly every hand. Since there are only two players at the table, there is no reason to expect that your opponent has a premium hand. You have to be prepared to raise with almost any two cards, and rarely fold anything but the very worst hands before the flop.
Once you connect with the flop – top pair is a very strong hand, and middle and bottom pair is usually playable as well as all decent draws – you have to be aggressive and bet, raise or re-raise. Most of the time your opponent will miss the flop and aggression usually pays off in those cases. If your opponent is a trickier player, there will also be occasions when you have to make a few moves with absolutely nothing.
Specializing in Heads-up Tournaments
Playing heads-up poker tournaments is hard, but if you’re good at it, heads-up Sit & Go’s have incredible potential, since there are so few really good players in these games, yet they are available at all poker sites. If you can handle large bankroll fluctuations and keep your emotions under control, heads-up tournaments are really fun and profitable games.