$26 Heads-Up Tournament - Full Tilt

Full Tilt runs a nice low-limit ($26) tourney at 6:30pm daily that usually attracts somewhere between 220-300 people. This is a really weak tournament overall and the blinds are set at a very good structure providing you get a player who plays fast along with you. What usually happens is that if there are more than 256 players to start it will play down one round to eliminate the people to get to 256. It is a bracket style tournament where each player is given 2000chips and the blinds start at 10-20 (very reasonable 100 bbs to start). I have played this tourney probably about 6-8 times ever but have yet to make the money in it (that usually entails winning 3 heads-up rounds to reach the final 32). Since this is my first full day away at school and I figured to have to go to bed early I only played 3 MTTs and 2 qualifiers, cashing in the 6pm and failing to cash in the other three. I played well and was able to make a real good run of this tournament winning all 8 of 8 matches against some very weak players.
I am really enjoying heads-up play of late, though I am certain it is the weakest part of my game. I am positive that I would get murdered by the guys that spend a lot of time play heads-up. However, in this field I was able to play againsta much weaker players than would ever see in a standard heads-up tournament.
I approached each match very similarly and use the players weakness and fears(or lack thereof) against them.

• I look up there stats on officialpokerrankings.com and find out if they are a profitable player or are they able to cash alot. Also in what stage of tournaments do they go out the most. This I find important in that if they are often going out within the first 10-30% of tournaments, I would consider them to probably be jumping into a game while their wife makes dinner and just wants a quick fix. I would like to play small pots against them as it is likely that they will play fast with and without a hand. This is by no means accurate, I know some very solid players who attempt to get lots of chips early in MTTs and are willing to go out in order to get them, but when they get deep they play well. However, you must start somewhere with a player and unless I have seen them play before, it is unlikely that I will have an idea of what they do
• After I get an idea of the 'type' of player they are, I will begin nearly every match by playing snug, limping and betting small, attempting to get an idea of what kinds of hands they will call down with raise, and fold. I like to find out if they 'min' bet works and in what spots it works. If I find a player is not responding to this and is raising me a lot I will usually do one of two things. 1) tighten up like mad and check big hands to let him know I will check down good hands/nuts. This will not last for long, I am only doing this to show a couple and earn more check behinds after I bluff flops and value bet 2nd pairs on the turn out of pos. If the player seems too dense for that 2) I will do something that stupid players always recognize, Bluff in a dumb spot. When I say bluff I mean to play a hand pretty much backwards to what my mind is telling me, I'm saying call the flop with 4high and min raise the turn and bluff 2xmin the river with nothing. I will show him that I will bluff, and that he must call my bets. I won't do this type of play for much of my chips but in a spot that will look so weird that it will stand out in his head for the rest of the match.
• No matter what the player does, after he adjusts to the way I want, I will be persistent in my 2/3 pot value bets, check a lot of flops with ahigh when I can't stand a raise and still have some value in bluffing the turn/picking up some over-outs and I will min bet bluff any spot in position. Once I see his mode of operation, it is usually a matter of time before the weak players get so frustrated that they play a weak hand against me and lose, then enter in the chat box how lucky I got. This happened in the match of the final four. I played a really weak player and from the beginning he check folded, limp called and folded the flop and was just waiting to pick a hand against me. After 12 hands, he had won only 2 for about 1bb profit and I had won the other 10, having 3200 of the chips in play. On the last hand, I got KK in the bb and he limped, I had been raising but not once in the bb preflop, though Im sure he didnt notice. He limped for 20, I raised to 80 and he called. The flop came Jc5s6d and I lead out for 120, he raised to 480, basically committing himself, I moved in and he called with J9h. Nothing came to help and he gave me $500 without a fight.
• My main recommendation for low limit heads-up tournaments is to find out your players weakness in the first 10 hands, it might cost you 10-15% of your stack but it will be worthwhile. Work your way back and you will own them, be persistent, dont tank on hands, people get anxious around isnta-bets and will make mistakes.

I was able to get heads-up versus a player who was weak by their stats, but the payout was so uneven ($1769 for 1st and $1011 for 2nd) we made a deal, we each took $1365 and played for $50. I beat him about 6 hands in when I limp called a raise on the button with j6h. The flop came all hearts, Qhigh. We got it all-in and I beat his KdKs.

$1397.44 for 1st. Not bad for my first day in North Bay playing micro tourneys. Gotta get to bed, its 1am, gotta be up in 6 hours ugh.