For me, when a tournament is nearing it’s conclusion and you reach heads up play, you need to be the person that takes charge, if the size of your chipstack allows you to. Often your opponent will start applying pressure immediately, and I personally feel that firing back with reraises and aggression is the only way forward. If you are timid and allow yourself to be pressured into folding every hand preflop, your opponent will be taking your blinds one after another and you cannot afford for this to happen.

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It is true that giving an aggressive opponent some of their own medicine may mean you get knocked out of the tournament, but at least you have gone out with a fight rather than being raised into submission.

The advanatge of putting your opponent into a defensive style of play cannot be understated when you are heads up with big blinds. It doesn’t really matter which poker variation you are playing, although Texas Holdem is especially good for this type of strategy because of the amount of time you do not get dealt a playable hand. If your opponent expects every hand to cost them all their chips to play, they will be putting down hands with the slightest of pressure, and giving you their blinds which soon add up. Within only a few hands, you have often made enough extra chips to be able to take your opponent on with a weaker hand, providing you have them comfortable out chipped that is.

Certainly the most important thing about heads up play I feel, is to be the aggressor and take control of the match at all costs. The moment you do this and make your opponent fold their hands straight away while they wait for something to move in with, you have them on the run, and the momentum is with you.