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Best Way to Play Heads Up Poker

titleEvery poker player has their own methodology for how they play heads up poker.

Heads up poker is a situation that all poker players will experience in their time at the felts, at least once in their time as all tournaments come to it, cash games offer the chance of the situation too.

Heads up poker offers as totally different game to playing in a multi player tournament or cash game as the majority of the hands dealt are seen as playable. In a multi player situation hands such as Ace - 5  would not be a hand that most strong poker players would enter into a pot with, but in heads up poker that strength of the hand changes to been a strong hand to hold.

Due to the speed of heads up poker, players are limited to their thinking time so working out pot odds is very much a split second decision meaning that alot of players enter into pots without working out what the other player could be holding due to only having time to think about what they have in the hole.

The general rule for heads up poker playing is to become the aggressor or become the victim of one, as players tend to call all hands as long as there is a small amount of strength within their hand. This rule means that you are more likely to come up against 8 - 9 off suit than you would be when playing multi player games.

If you are going to become the aggressor you would want to be looking to take as many of the blinds away from your opponent for free as you can force, this is seen as a great way to enjoy a boosted stack without seeing the hand played, but be prepared for the opponent to call your raise as they will not want to surrender free chips to you, so make sure that if your going to make that raise your happy to see at least a flop with the hand.

There are 20 main hands that are seen as playable within the ‘Heads up’ section of a game of poker, with some of the larger multi player hands lower down the rankings that many players would have thought.

The top for ranked hands are the ones that you would expect to see dominating the hand rankings with A - A, K - K, Q - Q and J - J holding the top for positions. This shows that there is no difference in hand strength when playing multi player or heads up with these 4 predominant hands. After these hands there are a few hands that most would have thought would have been lower down the listings. The remaining 16 places are filled by:

5 – 10-10
6 – 9-9
7 – 8-8
8 – A-K (suited)
9 – 7-7
10 – A-Q (suited)
11 – A-J (suited)
12 – A-K (not suited)
13 – A-10 (suited)
14 – A-Q (not suited)
15 – A-J (not suited)
16 – K-Q (suited)
17 – 6-6
18 – A-9 (suited)
19 – A-10 (not suited)
20 – K-J (suited)

I’m sure that there will be a number of shocks there for alot of players, having seen huge numbers of players hold A - K in too higher regard, watching it fall to a low pair.

Once your aggression at the table starts to pay off and you create a chip lead you need to start to vary your play, becoming more aggressive as the chip leader, forcing the opponent to make fast and unthought out decisions.

That is the main objective of heads up poker, lead your opponent into a point that they feel they are in a whirl wind, not having the chance to think about the calculation of chip odds and when could be within your hand.

This is the way that you are going to become the winner, be getting into the opponents head and basically playing their game for them.

The main object of playing heads up poker is to out wit your opponent, leaving them thinking that they are up against a player that is better then them, so showing your cards at any point of a heads up contest is not something that we would advise as this will give your opponent an insight into your game and your betting pattern, you have to think that some players out there do make notes on players as they play and showing that you have made a huge raise to beat them out of a pot they had you beat in will be one thing that will trigger their note writing to start.

Ok well we have covered becoming the aggressor at the table, but what if you are short stacked and your opponent is the aggressor at the table? Do you really want to be betting into their blinds if they are playing aggressively and beating you in hands where you are having to withdraw after placing a large amount of your chips into the pot?

Now we’ll cover how you can stand your ground on the aggressor to make their attacking stance work for you.

If you have entered into a ‘heads up’ situation with a more aggressive player, it could be time to change your stance within the game.

If you find yourself in this situation you have to plan out your hands very carefully, giving away small amounts of blinds on low ranked hands will seem like you are giving free chips away, but as they bet into you, you are going to come into one of the stronger hands very soon enabling you to re-raise the pot to see if their hand does really possess any strength or if their recent stealing of the small blinds have caused them to over bet on their hand.

The majority of the players will call a small re-raise due to the amount of chips that they have within the pot already, so if you are going to re-raise on the aggressor make sure that your cards rank within the top 20 hands listed above and then make the raise at least double what the aggressor has already placed, this will place them onto the back foot and make them rethink if their hand is worth placing double what they placed into the pot to scare you out. Anything smaller than double the raise will find a call from the opponent.

This method would be a good move should you be holding one of the top 5 ranked hands, allowing them to enter into the pot to see the flop. With them doing this you run the risk of them hitting on the flop but it also allows you to make a play to allow more chips to be placed into the pot, hopefully multiplying the amount of chips that you are going to win.

To show strength within your hand its recommended that you make ‘plays’ on your opponent, making them enter into the pot thinking that they have the upper hand, a great way to allow player to believe that they are ahead is to use the ‘check - raise’ method, checking the action to the opponent allowing them to bet into you to which you then re-raise the pot, symbolising strength within your hand.

avatorThe ‘check - raise’ method is a powerful tool but one that also comes with high risk. The risk comes into the hand as you are effectively passing the power to the opponent to choose how they want to play, also allowing them to opt to see a ‘free’ card. This allows the opponent to see the next card without having to place any chips into the pot, so there is a risk that the ‘free’ card is going to add strength to their hand.

Another way to stamp your mark on to the hand as they raise into your hand is to move ‘all-in’, placing all of your chips into the pot. Players often use this to show others that their hand is a strong hand and they intend to see the hand through to the end, placing their status within the game on the line.

It is recommended that player refrain from using the ‘all - in’ call unless they are using one of the top 5 ranked hands from earlier within the post as the participation of the game remains in the balance, depending on the outcome of the chosen hand.

The biggest tips that are offered to players that enter into these situations are to firstly ensure that your limits are comfortable for you to be playing at, allowing you to focus purely on the game at hand rather than the money on the table clouding some of your judgement.

The last piece of advice is that blind stealing is a strong tool in these situations so make raises with strong hands and aim to eliminate the opponent before the flop, allowing you to offer a sign of strength.

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