Things to Remember Playing Heads-up

Posted by Dave on January 15th, 2010 filed in Poker Strategy

Every hand of Texas Hold’em offers a unique scenario for poker players to encounter. With more experience, players get a feel for timing and managing the right ways to handle different pressure situations. This is especially the case when you are playing heads up.

Throughout the course of a tournament you can afford a big mistake here or there. But the thing that you can’t afford to do it to make multiple costly mistakes because that’s a signal that you aren’t capable of handling the pressure.

No matter how small these mistakes these may be, they show that you are not able to read the game well and other players will not respect your hand. This is why aggressive poker players are able to constantly defeat weaker opponents, in spite of the odds of an upset.

Heads-up Play

At the table, it’s essential to read your opponents eyes. Reading players means observing the playing styles of the players and deducing the methods. Their methods can give you the lead to their further moves. This can be especially useful if you play with the same players often. If you happen to know the playing styles or tendencies of that player, you might easily be able to predict their moves.

In this way, you shouldn’t even be playing your own cards when you are heads up. A good poker player will know what the other person has by the way they call, raise or check. There’s also a good chance that the person will act just a little bit different when they have a good hand.

All-in bets

One thing that you must respect: if the person you are playing heads-up against goes all-in, you have to be very careful if you ever consider calling them.

Here are a couple of important tips:

• How many chips does your opponent have left?

  If this amount is more than 1/4 of the total stack, you should consider folding your hand unless you have Jacks or better.

• Dominate the blinds!

  This is the easiest way to build up a lead in heads-up action. We both probably got 8-5 offsuit or very similar. But if I raise the blind 3 times, the opponent will either reraise (causing me to fold if I don’t have anything) or will more likely fold. This is also the most likely place for someone to try an all-in.

This means that you know their weaknesses and know the right times to hit them. This also means that you can build strategies based on their weaknesses and have an edge over them even if your cards are not really, all that good.

Now of course poker is a game of luck, just as the other gambling games are and sometimes you’ll have a crushing defeat when you did everything right. That’s just the way it is. If you don’t like it, don’t play poker.

But you can develop your skills, knowledge of the game and knowledge of your opponents to reduce the role of luck considerably. If you have better skills, you will be more confident. Confidence leads to aggressive betting and chip stack building.

Aggression is very important in the game. The reason behind this that you are not always dealt the best cards and there is always a probability that some other player on the table has better cards then you and will take you down in the showdown. The only way out is to pressurize the other players into folding with our aggressive and confident moves.

Like I said before, aggression only works when you know when to fold and not challenge the heads-up opponent. They are more often than not looking for an easy way to win or get back into the game. A flip of the coin or better are good enough odds for them to go.

Falling for these tactics can lead you from the promised land to a land of failure.

And such confidence is very useful when you are playing heads-up because you can’t hide from the player who is the only opponent left at the table. The only thing to do is to play the player more than you play the cards.

What to do when you are behind in heads-up play

You can be tempted to do anything, but you have to keep self-control and make the right decisions. You may run out of choices and may have to go all in, almost with every good hand you get.

The advice that I have if you are behind is to play for the blinds. Try to take them as often as possible. Remember that any face card should prompt you to raise and see how the other player reacts to the raise.

You have to scope out your opponent, but if they are not going to bully you with their chipstack, then you can a relatively inexpensive look at the flop, especially on your big blind.

The flop is where you want to do most of your decision making when you are behind. It’s likely both of you don’t hit the flop. When you get any hand after the flop, its a good time to go all-in when you are or are about to be short-stacked.

In case you are playing limit-heads up you and your opponent will have lesser space to move in and this lets both of you have more control over the situation. You should try to position yourself on the button in such cases as from this position you can pressurize the big blind after the flop.

The sensible thing is to attack from the button and defend off it. This will make you have better control. Playing heads up is mostly about handling the pressure well and acting with an alert mind. Use these strategies for heads-up play according the situation you are up against.