WPT GTO Trainer Hands of the Week: Heads Up Play on Shallow Stacks
This week you’re playing heads up for the win in a tournament. As you play these hands, you will alternate being in the Big Blind seat and on the Button and will mimic the game flow of heads up play. Be sure to recognize which seat you are in before taking action.
With only 15BBs in the effective stack preflop, this is a very shallow spot. Since the Button open raised in these hands and the Big Blind just called, the Big Blind will rarely have Ax hands in their range. Those hands would have been reshoved preflop at this stack depth.
When you are in the Big Blind with a pair on the river, keep in mind that you can make small value bets that target Ace high in the Button’s range. Ace high is often a hand with significant showdown value in heads up play in the Button’s seat, so don’t be afraid to target those hands with value bets.
READ MORE: LearnWPT Offers Solved Heads Up Play on the WPT GTO Trainer
Since ranges are so wide, most pairs are strong enough to continue on the flop when facing a check-raise. With more vulnerable pairs, you should often come back over the top to deny equity to gutshots or backdoor draws in the check-raising range. As a general rule, pairs that are vulnerable can be reraised postflop at this stack depth very frequently.
When you check from the Big Blind and the Button makes a continuation bet, your check raising range should also have some strong hands such as top pair.
Keep in mind that King high on the flop is in the upper part of your range from the Big Blind (since you almost never hold Ace high) and you should usually continue with it against small c-bets.
To see more examples and test your skills, you can play through five free solved hands from this scenario.
To access the free five hands, visit this page.
Regular play on the WPT GTO Trainer will help you adjust your decisions closer and closer to GTO strategy.
You don’t have to be the world’s best player to use GTO Strategy, and thanks to the WPT GTO Trainer, now you don’t have to buy expensive software or have expert level knowledge to study GTO.
Why use the WPT GTO Trainer?
The WPT GTO Trainer lets you play real solved hands against a perfect opponent in a wide variety of postflop scenarios for cash game and tournament play.
If your goal is to be a tough poker player then you should try the WPT GTO Trainer today.
Register a free account here (it only takes your e-mail address to begin) to play hands and see true GTO strategy in real-time.
The WPT GTO Trainer has over 4 billion unique solved flops, turns and rivers that are fully playable.
As you make decisions in a hand, you receive instant feedback on the specific EV loss (if any) and Played Percentage for every action you take as compared to GTO strategy.
The full selection of scenarios for the WPT GTO Trainer are only available to members of LearnWPT, however we’re giving PokerNews Readers free access to the Trainer on a regular basis with the WPT GTO Hands of The Week.
Use this series of articles to practice the strategies you learn on LearnWPT (or at the table) and test your progress by playing a five-hand sample each week.
