I looked on the internet and only found rankings for the first 20 hand in heads up play. I was wondering if somebody had a complete list. This would help me so that when I face an opponent and need to play tighter or looser I will know what that actually means.Thanks.
Try downloading pokerstove and then adjust the preflop range to a smaller or larger percent of hands.
The problem with poker hand rankings is that they are all relative...different hand rankings are derived in different ways, making them more or less useful in any certain situation.PokerStove rankings are derived by pitting each hand vs. three random hands. This is to simulate a balance between immediate odds and implied odds, as a hand like 76s will do much better against multiple hands.This assumes there is significant money behind and sufficient implied odds when the hand hits, an assumption that often does not hold in HU play.A single hand strength chart will not be useful in all situations. The most useful chart of this type would be some sort of headsup allin hand rankings, such as Skalansky-Chubukov rankings or the NASH equilibrium chart.During deeper-stacked play, hand rankings will depend heavily on your opponent's tendencies. Against an opponent who limps preflop, slowplays top pair hands and pays you off big if you hit a river flush, 76s is a great hand. Against an opponent who is making large preflop raises, this hand is worthless.That being said, I believe there would be great value in having a small number of basic hand charts, divided into opponent types. These charts would roughly depict how you want to play each hand vs. each opponent.For instance, against an aggro opponent, you "always" raise hand range x, sometimes raise/sometimes limp hand range xy, "always" limp hand range y, Sometimes limp/sometimes fold hand range yz, and "always" fold hand range z.Of course, this is much simplified, but hopefully you get the idea.While a chart like this would hinder your progress if you continued to use it, I think it has great value showing newer players basic strategy.From here, you would need to learn to adapt your play to your specific opponent.
This makes a lot of sense. Maybe it is more a function of playing my opponents until I get a feel for good hands vs bad.You are right that the way the opponent plays will determine hand strength for that exact situation. Looks like I will be posting a lot of player stats and hand ratings.I do think if I put together some hand charts I would need to also take into consideration OOP and IP play.
But yes, if you haven't downloaded Poker Stove, do download that and play around with it. It should be one of your best friends.
Oh yes, certainly position has a huge effect on hand strength as well. I'm not sure how much it changes the actual order of rankings.I still think it would be a good idea to have a handful of general hand charts for beginners to follow vs. "average" players of various types.
I still think it would be a good idea to have a handful of general hand charts for beginners to follow vs. "average" players of various types. Any idea where I could get these charts? Or do I just need to go through the (laborious) task of sitting down with poker stove and making them myself?
Well, the problem is, I don't believe you could do them yourself. The task would need to be guided by an expert, because players with our skill level cannot really lay out exactly which hands play well in which ways against which opponents. It's not something you can just look at equities with and decide which hands should be chosen.For example, if you look at A5o vs. a 45% PokerStove range, you have an equity of approximately 50%. 76s against the same range has less than 39% equity. But against most player types in most deeper-stacked situations, 76s will play better postflop and is therefore often a better hand choice. A5o overtakes it somewhere as the stacks get shorter.
We may get into a large "chart" that gives you common adjustments and tendencies and such against certain opponent types. Cog did this in his player types article in our articles section, and Moshman's book does a good job of talking about it (as do all of our videos, collectively we've probably given advice on just about any player type at any stack level).If we organize something like this that is very basic, it is more likely to attract new players into the game of heads up sng. It will still have to be of value of course, we're not going to knowingly release any content that is not of good standard, but I think you can gain a lot more just by posting some hands and talking about your preflop decision making in specific spots in the hand review forum.Start by making a list of situations you're unsure of. "T7s facing a minraise against a very aggressive opponent 20bbs deep" for instance would be along the lines of what I'm talking about. Once you get a dozen or so of those, just make a thread asking people's thoughts about how those hands play at those stack depths with your reads. From there, it should invoke some good discussion and allow both you and other members to learn more in that area of play.