I am posting this here instead of the MTT forum, because I us tournament players aren't as good HU as the people who specialize on this.

I ve only played with villain on the final table, he seems extremely competent to me, has been very aggro attacking my SB limps with a very high frequency when we were 3 handed. Also, location says he's in Malta which is a sign he's a pro.

If this is a regular table, a B vs BB confrontation, this is a spot that requires at least some thought, as people don't bluff enough. But HU, this seems like a snap call, because lol we are HU and he could have anything.

I guess my question besides what do I do in this spot is how do I approach HU, because with me lacking experience in HU, it's tough for me to range people and I always assume that their ranges are wide. Not sure that's the case though.

PS. Also very tempted to get it in on the flop, but I decided to call to keep his bluffs in.

Vs anyone who's not ultra passive I think you just snap river and call it a day. I think your line here seems fine. The 8 here is a bit of a rough river (QJ gets there which I guess will take this line with a super high frequency), but at the end of the day an aggro opponent not great at hu will probably be (over)playing enough hands like JT-KT like this, pps (and boats) are basically not possible, so I don't think you can get away from this just because QJ/93s/T9 beat you here. And of course some bluffs like KJ, J8, bricked hh, or even total airballs are possible at some frequency.

Ranges hu getting to the flop tend to be super wide, but keep in mind that's not the case after cb/xr/c flop (or in other lines like cb flop double turn -- ranges narrow quickly as you fold most low equity hands otf and start folding hands like bottom and even middle pairs ott depending on betsize and texture). Granted, compared to more "standard" forms of poker (deeper 6m + fr play) those ranges will still be pretty wide, but not nearly as wide as at the start of the hand. I don't know if this is super useful as general advice, but I'd just say be aware that ranges in hu can be restricted pretty quickly depending on the action in the hand.

This is indeed helpful, because it does comport with my experience as well.

Two questions:

- Shouldn't I also assume that people don't bluff as much as they should, just like they don't in FR MTTs? It's strange to assume that people who don't bluff as much in FR, they suddenly start bluffing or overbluffing HU. If you see a person who's attacking you, it's more likely he had a good run of cards rather than he's exploiting you.

- If people's ranges narrow down significantly after they call, my question is how can we keep a semblance of GTO in our own play? When I play HU, it's very hard finding enough bets on the flop as bluffs that would keep my flop betting range somewhat proportional to my preflop range and as a result I end up either betting complete air which most of the time has to give up on the turn or be extremely passive in checking a lot while fearing my opponent will understand that my check range is disproportionallly weak and attack it; which in turns either makes me feel bad in folding or calling with utter garbage.


Let me put it another way. Since we are playing so many hands, it feels that at some street, I have to overfold, overbet or overbluff. How do I deal with this?

Yes, I think in general field basically underbluffs in just about every game, and that probably extends to mtters playing hu in mtts. In this case though I don't think you can get away...between whatever bluffs an aggro player might have and the fact that some guys will try to vbet too thin here it just is what it is.

Your second question is a reasonable one, but now we're getting close to the territory where I don't really want to talk about strat publicly

Suffice to say that you're onto a pretty rough problem and you should think about how to construct your barreling range accordingly. If you do any sort of hu gto study you can quickly notice that solid range construction isn't as linear as you might think. That said, if you think your opponents will be underbluffing at most points then it's maybe not a huge deal to be overfolding in some lines? It's also worth keeping in mind that you can vbet more thinly than in games with more players, so you'll have more vbets to go with hands you might consider bluffing. What matters isn't really the raw number of combos but the proportions of your ranges.

So I can post strategy.

If you think he never bluffs, then you need to ask yourself 3 things on the flop:

-will he pay me off if i hit a flush?
-will he bet large/shove the turn on a brick (with no bluffs)?
-is he checkraising draws on the flop to gii?
-can I call it off on the river on bricks (assuming he doesn't bluff enough- no)?

This should help you decide how to play your specific hand.

In terms of protecting your checking range, first see if the board should have a check range (e.g. AJ3r, JJ2r prob shouldn't).

If you should check, start by checking hands that are invulnerable (AA, sets- especially top set, flushes and on some boards 2ps but basically never straights), or get little value (tp no kicker). A good rule of thumb is if you can barrel 3 streets on the average turn+river runout. You also should check some draws the choice of which is heavily dependent on stacksize, board texture and overall betsize strategy.

Why not shove the turn?
After turn small bet lots of hands are Drawing, floating...
On the river we beat only bluffs. Still there are not much hands which valubet us QJ is most probable

Shoving turn is overplaying your hand here. We never get it in good and only fold out hands we're crushing as opposed to keeping villain's bluffs in and taking river IP with a ton of equity and a good hand.