[wazik]

From my limited knowledge the key to heads up is aggression, moreso than in any other form of poker. The situation you use as an example here is a great example for many reasons. If you are playing aggressively and the other guy is check/folding a lot what difference does it make that your hole cards are QQ here, they could be 27 makes no difference. If you play very aggresively and raise most hands its very easy to get your opponent into a seige mentaility and he will play even tighter. You have to be careful at this point because when he does start to play back you have to give him credit for a big hand, if the opponent isnt very skilled the most likely outcome will be him dumping his stack to you with AK on a flop of 278 rainbow with you holding 78s. He will leave thinking you are a lucky donkey and you will have his cash. When you back someone into a corner they find it hard to lay down a big hand even when its no good on the flop as they have been waiting so long for it. The ideal situation here is when you are holding this bad boy when he has A rag and decides its time to play back.

When I was into playing the HU tourneys I would fold every hand (except the very best hands) against someone who was very aggressive at the start. I would fold everything for the first level (5 minutes) and they would think I was just waiting for the nuts. Depending on the player I would either play a few more hands passively in the 2nd level or just continue folding until the blinds were decent at the 3rd level. Once that hits I would go crazy cos I know he is raising every hand with nada, raise, re-reraise bam. For the first couple of times he has to give me credit for a hands cos I have been continously folding, after maybe 5 or 6 hands like these he has something like A2 and re-raises my bet. A lot of the time here I would just go all-in with anything half decent, whats he gonna do? call with A2? At this point the games over and bar him getting lucky I have all the momentum and he is sitting there feeling like he cant do anything at all.

Its all very player dependant though and obviously against a tight player that wont work. I would advise that against strangers play passively for a while at the start and observe how they play, cheap showdowns are great as it gives you an insight into their raising/calling range preflop and how they play each card. Once you have a handle on their game its only going to cause confusion when you change gears into a different style, a skill most players dont see to have. Keep us updated, I like heads up discussion. I always mean to get my old thread resurected but I never get round to it.