Heads Up Poker Strategy

To be a successful winning tournament player you have to have a solid heads up strategy. Thankfully you can train your skills playing heads up SNG's that most populair pokerrooms offer. Also, you can specialise in heads up poker and make profit playing heads up only. Here is a solid heads up poker strategy. The absolute beginner falls quickly in the gamblers mentality; they think that when he gets garbage his opponent will get garbage too and it's a coinflip who is going the win the heads up game. Strategy is no longer on their mind, while this is a huge aspect of heads-up play. The Button Every poker player knows position is important in poker and that's also true in heads up poker. When you are on the button you can act first preflop and act last post-flop. Heads up this is a huge advantage on your opponent. For example: You get Kc 5h on the button. Every King or Ace is worth a raise so you raise 3 or 4 times the big blind. With that preflop raise you take initiative of the hand and your opponent has to be careful and he may be worried with your raise. Also, when he calls you act last on every street postflop. So when he misses he is forced to check (or it's a LAG player) and you can take the pot easily with a continuation-bet. So, having no position is a bad situation for you. The best strategy is to pick good hands to play out of position. I suggest you only call raises preflop with suited connectors, any A, any K and pocket pairs. Fold most hands when your opponent raises from the button. You should make big raises when the button just limps and you wake up with a hand. It's better to pick up the pot preflop out of position so you don't have to play on postflop out of position. Hands you can play heads up A common mistake in heads up poker is that you have to play every hand. It's true your opponent has rags the most of the time, but it's important to play good hands in big pots. Let's take some examples. Everyone who has played heads up knows that you get bad hands like; 93offsuit. Everyone knows 93o is a bad hand but most players call the bb with that hand. What flop would you like? 993 ? 935 ? The statistics shows how bad these kinda hands are. 82o against KQs = 30% chance to win. 82o against 9To = 29% chance to win. 82o again 34o = 48% chance to win (against 34o!) 82o against JJ = 11% chance to win. Lets see what the % are against suited connectors like 67s 67s against KQs = 40% chance to win. 67s against 9To = 38% chance to win. 67s again 34o = 58% chance to win (against 34o!) 67s against JJ = 21% chance to win. You gain 10% with playing suited connectors. The best strategy is to just fold when your opponent raises from the button with hands like; 84 / 73 / J2 / 94 / Q4 etc. Phases of heads up poker You both start with a equal stack, probably 1500 chips. You have won some small pots and now the chip count is 1800 for you, 1200 for your opponent. In this phase you don't want to play big pots since at this stage one hand can turn around everything. In heads up it's all about taking the lead and to keep the lead. The next phase is when you have 2000 chips and your opponent 1000. Your opponent needs to get some chips soon, one mistake of him is almost his end of the game. This is the time where you can steal pots by raising big and preflop aggression. But don't raise too big, you don't want to double up your opponent and give him the lead. The last phase is when you have 2500 chips or more and you opponent has 500 or less. Now the game is in your control. Your opponent has to go all-in with almost any hand. Alot of people have no patience and double up their opponent and move back a phase. The strategy for this is; Fold, fold fold and call with any Ace or a pocket pair. When you think your opponent is pushing with rags you can call with hands like KQ/KJ/KT. Have patience and soon you'll win the heads up match. Folding A player misses a flop 2 out of 3 times. So when you have a hand like 75s and the flop is Q85, min raise you opponent because his bet is 2 out of 3 times a continuation bet. When he's fighting back you should fold your bottom pair. In heads up poker it's very common that bottom pair is the best hand so don't fold them too often. Also, when you play with aggression you can have him fold the best hand. Every hand is a fight for chips, bet and raise for information, don't fold too often with a pair, but don't play big pots with bottom pair. Good luck at the heads up poker tables!

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