Heads up poker is entirely different than playing in a Multi Table Tournament or a conventional Poker Tournament. In heads up poker you are directly competing against one other. There are many factors that you will need to take into consideration when you are playing one on one against one.
The Heads Up Pokerlounge99 Summary
Relatively low limit gamesThere are many reasons for this, but perhaps it is because our opponents are often much stronger than normal and sometimes as weak as they are inexperienced.
90%-90% of the time you will fold your hands in heads up play. Although, some of you may still call or even raise based on the strength of your hand, but you will see a lot more flops as opposed to open ended trips, blanks, and so so so so.
The heads up poker advice I give in this article applies for cash games and for tournaments as well. Although it is different from playing against many other players, the heads up poker advice I give in this article still holds true when it comes to being able to play profitable heads up poker.
Make sure you are Read and LearnMore than you PlayHands like this, where you are almost certain you are the better player, make money. I still believe that you can be a losing player and have some success by learning more about how others play, at your level of play.
If you ever watch a Poker Tournament you’ll see a lot of players going all in after some horrific beat, with not quite knowing what they are doing it’s easy to prevent this happening to you.
Just the other day in a Full Tilt Sit and Go I watched a player pre-flop all in with K-8 against an aggressive player. Later on during the hand, the same player hit a flop of K-8-6 and got his opponent to put him on a small pocket pair.
Hitting some nice hands as an example, someone can be on a flush draw and you can call any bet in late position with K-8. Stay away from making these kind of calls, unless you are to call a raise, you’ll have a high percentage of your opponent calling any bet you put him.
Other players, especially those online, can play a set amount before folding, so if you’re betting small you can often get your opponent to fold with a small set.
aries in late position can play a set amount as well, so if you’re on the button in late position and no one has raised you can call a bet there, about the only time you should call a bet in late position is when you have a premium hand pre-flop or on the flop.
When you call a bet on the flop, make sure you have a hand. The odds are, your opponent hit the flop for another reason, and you still need a better hand to call.
Don’t call a bet unless you think you have the best hand.
The TurnAnd again, the turn can be your best option since you still need a hand for the majority of the hand. Since your hand will probably not be good enough to win in the majority of cases, calling can open up your bluffing game a little bit.
Calling a bet on the turn is your opportunity to bluff. Since most hands are often good enough to win in the majority of cases, calling can help you get in cheap chips, in case you have a very strong hand.
Reading your opponent
Your opponent’s actions on the turn and the river will give you a lot of information. The actions tell a lot of story about the hand the opponent is holding.
For example: Did he slow play any draws? How many outs do they have? Is there a possible straight or flush draw? What suit is he playing, and what suit could he be playing another high pocket pair?
Online there are some tells (clues) you can look for when dealing with players who use the Poker Calculator. Did they raise or fold quickly when their turn came? Did they add a lot of chips with a certain hand? Did they showdown? Why did they showdown?
The best thing about the Poker Calculator is that it has all your stats and everything for every hand from every table you play at. That means that the odds the program thinks you have are actually the odds the computer thinks you have. It isn’t science, but it is the nearest thing to science that the programmers intended.
Why didn’t the programmers put a ‘plus’ or ‘minus’ sign in front of the odds to see how odds would actually play out? They didn’t because they are the odds, minus, not plus. If a plus sign was in front of the odds, the odds would be ‘push’ or ‘not so sure’ as to whether to bet.