1️⃣ Limp very wide by default. Recreational players will ISO too rarely, and a simple c-bet will often be enough to take the pot.
2️⃣ Also include min-raises (MR) in your range to exploit your opponent’s passivity. MR is more profitable than limping with many hands because the BB folds too much and 3-bets too little.
But don’t overuse it — or your opponent might adjust.
3️⃣ You should also open shove some hands to exploit poor calls. Ax, Pocket Pairs, etc., generate more EV when shoved — especially against loose or poorly constructed call ranges from recreational players.
The SB in Heads-up is the second position where you earn the most money in Spin & Go (~20/30 CEV / game).
You always act last postflop, which is a significant advantage.
Working on your HU SB game is highly profitable. Along with BTN in 3-max, this is one of the positions where you’ll get the highest return on your study time.
Many beginners make the mistake of folding too much in the SB — even Heads-up.
But with only one opponent to beat and the advantage of postflop position, folding should remain very rare.
Even GTO limps the vast majority of hands. And against recreational players — who ISO too little and play very predictably postflop — it’s even more important to defend as much as possible.
Here are the average ISO raise frequencies of BB vs SB limp:
Observation: Recreational players ISO way too little — especially below 12bb.
You have very little risk of getting punished when limping wide.
Even your weakest hands can be played comfortably with a limp — you’ll see the flop very often.
And since BB often lets you realize your equity, a simple limp + c-bet will frequently be enough to take the pot right on the flop.
Between 14 and 25bb, the average recreational player folds 12–20% in SB — compared to the recommended 0–6%. This mistake causes a significant EV loss.
Against recreational players, minraise is often more profitable than limp, for a large part of your range.
Why?
Because recreational players:
Observed frequencies of fold vs minraise (MR) from recreational players:
Observed frequencies of 3-bet vs minraise (MR) from recreational players:
Since BB folds too much and 3-bets too little, you’ll realize your equity easily, and can often take the pot on the flop with a simple c-bet.
MR thus becomes a EV+ and low variance action in these conditions.
However, in practice, if you overuse MR, even a recreational player may adjust quickly:
They will naturally start defending wider, and increasing their 3-bet shove frequency.
Against a competent player, it would be necessary to limp some strong hands to avoid being “face-up.”
But against recreational players — who won’t pay attention to your patterns — you can simplify:
Recreational players don’t adjust to sizings.
You can exploit this by adjusting your raise size based on your hand strength:
In general: between 2bb and 3bb, depending on your stack and your perceived hand strength. The stronger your hand, the bigger you should raise — to grow the pot.
Example: With 20bb, raising 2.5bb with KQ is a good sizing choice to extract max value.
Minraising at 9bb is not an outright mistake, — and can even be +EV with certain combos.
But the issue is not theoretical EV — it’s pot management.
A simple MR creates a 4bb pot — almost half of your stack.
👉 This exposes you to very high variance spots postflop — often hard to control.
Under 10bb, it is often more optimal to limp or shove directly:
There are two main reasons to go for a direct OS:
Between 14bb and 25bb, recreational players will often call an all-in with poorly chosen hands.
It’s not so much that they call a lot more than GTO (though they do a little), but rather that they call differently — and often sub-optimally.
Example:
You can see that recreational players tend to overcall hands like A4o, A3o, A2o or KTo, K9o
Conversely, they tend to fold hands like T8s, T7s, which GTO would call.
In this context, an OS with AJo becomes more +EV than a MR, because it directly punishes these loose calls.
➡️ That’s why our ranges recommend OS with A9o+ as early as 25bb against these profiles.
To illustrate the box above, here is HRC’s EV difference between Open Shove and the second-best option (usually min-raise):
You can see that some hands like 66 or A6o are slightly more +EV as OS than MR.
However, since the EV difference is minimal, our Exploitative ranges recommend MR to keep a low-variance game.
Starting from 14bb, some hands like small pairs (22–66) or small Ax (A2–A5) are tough to play postflop.
They still hold decent equity against opponents’ call ranges.
Example: with A3 or 55 on a flop K82, you often still have the best hand — but you’ll find yourself in an awkward spot for betting or defending.
A preflop shove allows you to:
➡️ The shorter the stack, the more certain hands — which were too high-variance to shove before — now become perfect shove candidates.
In practice, below 12bb, recreational players don’t call enough vs a shove — and when they do, their range is poorly constructed: They fold hands they should call, and call hands they should fold.
Call frequency of BB vs SB shove:
Since BB folds too much, you could theoretically shove more hands.
But...
Even if these shoves are slightly +EV, they increase variance — and can get you eliminated for a marginal gain.
➡ Against weak profiles, it’s better to preserve your stack and use it in more profitable postflop spots, where your technical edge can shine.
That’s why our charts recommend fewer shoves than GTO below 12bb.
Not because the shoves aren’t profitable, but because the gain is too small compared to the risk of early bust-out.
Under 6bb, your technical edge fades — it’s harder and harder to play postflop well or build good exploitative lines.
➡ The best strategy becomes a simple and highly effective “push or fold” approach.
Effective stack (the stack of the shorter player) has a huge impact on your profitability.
In Heads-up, SB vs BB, GTO does not win the same number of chips at all stack levels.
Here is the theoretical EV of the SB depending on the effective stack:
GTO gains lots of chips between 4 and 6bb — so this is an important zone to master. And that’s great — because it’s purely preflop play: just “push or fold.”
Well — that’s it for SB in Heads-up! This strategy guide was long because it’s a very important position — and I really wanted to give you all the useful information so that you can master this spot too.
