If you are playing in a heads up sit and go tournament or you have been able to make it to heads up in a tournament you should be aware that your heads up style should change drastically depending on whether you have the big stack or the small stack heads up. In this article we will take a look at the differences in style between playing with the large stack and the short stack.

Playing with the large stack

This is obviously the spot you would prefer to be in because you have more chips and are closer to the win. In this situation you should be applying pressure to your opponent and forcing them to make difficult decisions for the rest of their stack. Your opponent should feel like he has to risk his entire stack in order to win the pot. With the large stack you shouldn’t be calling your opponents raises very often. Instead you should either fold and lose the blind or reraise and put the pressure back on the short stack.

If your opponent has less than twenty times the big blind in chips then a 3 times the big blind raise by you will basically be threatening his entire stack. If he calls a fifth of his stack pre-flop he will be playing for his entire stack on the flop if he decides to continue in the hand. Continue to apply the pressure and let him know that he will have to double up soon if he hopes to get back into the tournament.

If the short stack gets below ten times the big blind you should start pushing all-in with any average or above average hand. At this point there will be no raises, it’s all about pushing all-in and either taking down the blinds or the short stack calling and risking his tournament life. You are both getting random hands at this point, with the only difference being that you can afford to lose. Pushing in and stealing his blinds is great at this point in the tournament because as he gets closer to elimination he will have to call with less of a hand and even if he doubles up he will still have very few chips.

Having the large stack in a heads up tournament is a huge advantage. Continue to apply the pressure and force your opponent to make the difficult decisions. As long as your opponent doesn’t get super lucky you will win by using this strategy.

Playing with the short stack

Being the short stack heads up isn’t a bad situation, considering you made it this far and are likely in for a big payday regardless of the outcome. You still have a shot at first as long as you play your chips right and get a little lucky. The strategy you should employ is a very aggressive strategy taking away the big stacks bullying power. The cards you can push all-in with have a much larger range than the cards you should be calling all-in with.

Pushing all-in is a very good strategy because often times your opponent will fold and you can build your stack by collecting the increasingly large blinds. Of course eventually the big stack will call, but this won’t be that bad of a thing anyways because most of the time you will have at least a 35% chance of doubling up, and it only takes a few double ups to be right back in the game. In order to call your opponents all-in you should have a pretty solid hand. Your opponent will be pushing with a lot of hands, but in order to call you want to be fairly certain you will have the best hand.

If your stack dwindles below ten times the big blind you should be pushing all-in or folding. You should push all-in with any average or above average hand and calling all-in with any top 25% hand. As your stack decreases in size the range should increase and vice versa if your stack size grows. When you’re the short stack the best you can do is play aggressive and give yourself a chance to win. As long as you aren’t blinding out you can double up a few times and be right back in the tournament.

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