I am a super newb at heads up sitngo's. I had one hand that I wanted some opinions on. Sorry if this is super standard but it gave me some thought and
I do not know if I made the right choice.

Opponent had been limping over 60% of his hands and was only raising from the button around 25% of the time. Was very passive on checking almost everything except top pair or middle pair with a good kicker down.

I felt like I had a decent edge on him which is why I am wondering if I made the right decision. He open shipped on the button 25 BB Deep a few hands into the match, but besides that this was his second open ship of the match.



Merge - $0+$0.00|<> NL (2 max) - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

SB: 1,175.00
Hero (BB): 1,825.00

SB posts SB 50.00, Hero posts BB 100.00

Pre Flop: (150.00) Hero has 2 2

SB raises to 1,175.00 and is all-in, fold

SB wins 200.00



I feel like I have a decent edge on this guy and that I can outplay him post flop and at the time I was thinking that I can find a better spot then a coin flip (at the best) against this player. Even if I think I have a decent edge is this usually a instant call 12 BB deep.

if you think u have an edge, just fold. his range has small pp better than yours and it is flipping otherwise.

Pushing 22 is fine with these stacksizes but calling is flipping at best.

Thanks for the replies. I thought a lot of people were going to tell me I have to call. Being that I could be flipping for winning the sng and if I lose I still have 700 to work with.

What would be the lowest pocket pair to call here. 55?

if he shoves A2o here, calling with 55 seems good. i also don't expect many people to shove TT+ here, especially not QQ+, so your 55 just got a lot better, since some of his monsters might just minraise or even limp.

22

I understand all the arguments that at best we have a coinflip, but I think I call nevertheless. The argument that we don't need this flip because we have a postflopedge is not very true this short. Where is your edge 12BB deep Postflop. I am not saying that folding is bad, but I think we have to call.

And btw there are already 150 chips in the pot, so there is not much wrong with flipping

Interesting point would be when the next blind increase is. If we have 75/150 in a few hands i am even more inclined to call

some horrible comments in here... this has nothing to do with your postflop edge or other bs, if the call has a better chip expectation than folding, then you call.

you need 45.7% equity to be good here (op, i don't know how familiar you are with the math, you might want to check it).
you have to make the best assumptions about his range you can make and then decide whether to call or not. for example, this range would make this a call:
{TT-22,A2s+,KTs+,A2o+,KJo+}

I think next blinds on merge would be 100-200 and would of been about 50 seconds after this hand.

I have no idea how to go about checking the math on this. This push was not standard from him and even at these blinds he never did it prior to this except for what i mentioned. I saw him limp pocket 6's and checked it all the way down a few hands before this at these blind levels. I would guess his pushing range would be a lot tighter then that range you put there.


I guess I should ask what the highest his range could be to make this profitable?

Pretty sure folding a pair here for 12bb readless is very bad...

As said, you only need ~45% equity, unlikely a random fish is shoving premiums and raising/limping mediocre hands. You'll be flipping a ton, but when you only need 45% to call a flip is a good thing.

don't we need higher equity if we think about rake? or does that not matter to much here?

I strongly disagree here. If villain has been extremely transparent the whole way through and we are confident of their tightness and have picked up on their tendencies we can definitely still have a greater tournament expectation by folding. Against this opponent we should be winning the majority of pots and will win so many pots without showdown that there isn't any need to risk it. The math argument is flawed because other factors are important. For example, If we have been winning 75% of pots (very possible against a player like this) then we are crushing him so there's no need to take a marginal spot when we have enough information to avoid that. I'd say against this player 10-11 BB is enough maneouvrability to exploit their weaknesses.

Against the very worst players (and tight and transparent are pretty much two of the worst traits going) you can 'cheat the math' a little sometimes very effectively. I don't want to give too many hints away but there are many tactics that can be used to exploit the weakest of opponents but calling in at best a flip situation isn't the best way to beat these fish.

As an aside point, it seems you have given this particular villain much too wide a range. In my experience, a player of this description is shoving a lot tighter than this and the limp with 66 before is evidence of this. I'm not contesting that the math is a winning strategy but it's not the most profitable.

It's clearly not readless though. We know opponent is very tight and transparent. That is the optimal player type to justify a fold here.

OMG, I thought it was 25bb deep. I will call 12bb deep unless I have HUGE edge at post flop which does not happen.

Yeah i fold too against this opponent.

On a sidenote i'm not the advocate of waiting for a better spot crap,but at lowstakes where your edge can be pretty big,you can fold in some spots where you have good reads.Llike this spot where you hope you are breakeven or slightly +ev at best. People forget they pay rake which is huge,forget they play against really bad players and copy things they see at higher stakes thinking it's best. And then you see them complain about variance,when they have a 1-2% ROI gamestyle vs terrible fish,can even become -ev when they are tilted because they play a higher than needed variance game.They get stuck between levels at low stakes,thinking they are either very unlucky or just not good enough.