You don't want to play too tight heads up. Remember that most flops will totally miss heads up - if you wait around for top pair or better to play you'll lose one small pot after another until your pile is gone.

Can you be more specific about what your problems are? Are you finding that your stack i sgetting blinded away, are you getting trapped a lot, or what?

Originally Posted by muhcat

I only started playing poker about six months ago. I am 20 years old and female (I know, some people say females shouldnt play because we're too emotional.. which is probably true for me!). I have developed a tight/conservative way of play and always make it to the final 2 in our home games, but I always seem to crumble during heads up. Has anyone got any fantastic tips?? Other than "practice"?

Stop dressing up as a woman: Your 48, very large and have recently given up truck driving to take up more energetic activites like spamming ...

Originally Posted by muhcat

I know, some people say females shouldnt play because we're too emotional.. which is probably true for me!

Bullshit.

If you wanna tag a stereotype on yourself as a woman, I see the female insecurity that is really the only thing that holds many women back from being very strong poker players- with men, it's the arrogance that holds them back. Poker is dominated by men and I think that that's an advantage for women. You always wanna be your opponents' opposite. If they're tight, you're more aggressive and if they're aggressive, you can sit back and be more conservative. It's the same with gender. Women know men VERY well, but men can't figure out women. Women can see patterns is a man's nature that men can't even see. Use these observations to your advantage. A woman's intuition is her strongest suit.

i'm 20 years old and female. so what? i don't think your age or gender are handicapping you...if you're too emotional for poker, then that's you. there're a lot of boys that aren't much good at heads up either. but it really bugs me when people say that women can't play poker, and a girl saying that perpetuates that kind of stereotyping. (thank you alex...liked your post )

ok on to constructive advice...

girevik and alex's advice is good. pay attention to betting patterns. i raise with any hand that's probably above average, and i'll make convincing bets along the way if i sense weakness. don't be timid. there's about a 36% chance, i think, that your opponent made a pair on the flop, if the flop has three distinct numbers (if it's paired there's less of a chance they have a pair you don't have). if you have strong cards, you're probably winning. that's not to say play stupid aggressive, but be confident. just because they're betting doesn't mean they have anything. after they show down a few hands, you should have a feel for how they bet according to what they have. some do change it up, but most you can get a feel for. being more aggressive heads up would be especially effective for you, i would guess, because you say you play a tight and conservative game, so they have an image of you as someone who doesn't bet without something. if the blinds are big relative to the stacks, stealing them a few times may be all you need. you need to be a lot less selective preflop because, heads up, they're probably playing worse cards too and you just don't have enough hands to wait for AK or something unless the blinds are really, really tiny.

and yes, practice.

Originally Posted by missy

practice.

This is really the only thing that you can do. Heads up and shorthanded play can only be improved through practice. There are cheap online heads up SnG's for you to practice on. Now the math on starting hands- a lot of them. I play almost every hand I get heads up. Keep the pots small and pick them up. Aggression wins heads up poker. Don't invest a lot of money unless it's worth it because you'll see so many hands that you'll get better ones and your aggression will lure your opponent in and will give you oppurtunities to trap.

Practicing will help you to pick your spots and create the right flow.

I might have this wrong but if you look at Muhcats posts they

1] Say little or nothing
2] Feature her sites URL
3] Are everywhere on the forum.

PFO is highly rated in Google. What I think is happening here is that muhcat is posting all over simply to get her URL and site more highly rated when the spiders do their next harvest...

Check out her URL- its actually poker.com - a newpoker site.There is no community forum there.It is a start up which is trying to get a search engine placing....

If I'm wrong then I apologise.....