Advanced Poker Advice: Heads Up Poker

by David Williams | Jan 22 2008

With NBC's Heads Up Poker around the corner, I thought it might be a good idea to start thinking about heads up play, since it is so different than nine- or 10-handed, or even short-handed poker. I am making this a two-part article, since there are a few basic understandings of heads up play and a few advanced moves that we'll get to once you've mastered these first couple plays. After you make the adjustment from your full table strategy to one on one, we'll cover some more advanced plays you can make to start turning a profit in head-to-head combat.

As I write this, the strategies and ideas behind winning heads up No Limit Holdem sound, more than any other form of play, like dummy poker: Top pair is the nuts. Raise every time you're in position. Float or call the flop often with just an ace high.

On paper, this sounds like the easiest poker game you've ever played. However, if you think this way, please stay away from the heads up Sit and Go tournaments online, unless I'm sitting at the table. My point is that there is a common misconception that because you are only playing one opponent, your decisions are less thoughtful and everything is robotic. In full table poker, you often have something to call with, and if you have nothing, fold. In heads up play, it's often true that you don't need much of a hand to win with, and if you have nothing, you can often get away with a bluff. Now don't take that advice to heart, because we are going to go over some situations where it makes sense to practice these plays.  

Trust me, heads up poker play may be the purest form of psychological warfare this game has to offer. It's no wonder why the old westerns and Rounders and every other poker movie always comes down to a one on one battle between the good guy and the villain.

To get started with our strategy, let's review those tips I went over before, but let's discuss them in more detail. Then you can pick up on the right way to interpret them:

Top pair is the nuts. In reality, you have to feel out your opponents before you determine this. Most of the time, it's not wise to lay down top pair, because unlike a normal nine- or 10-handed table, you only have to beat one opponent. Now while I'm not a hardcore math guy, I do know that it's not easy to get a pair, and in fact, you only flop a pair in Holdem something like 30 percent of the time. Say the flop comes 9-7-2, and you have 9-4. As weak of a holding as that is, if you bet the right amount of between 50-75 percent of the pot through all streets, your opponent will likely be calling you down with hands like A-7, 7-8, K-2 and even ace or king high! Your opponents know how hard it is to flop something, so if you're not facing reraises and all-ins, your marginal holding might be the best hand.

Raise every time you're in position. I am a heavy advocate of raising on the button around 80 percent of the time heads up. I tend to fold only 2-3 offsuit and other similar hands. And I often only do that if I am short stacked, since I won't have the ability to call if reraised.

More important than the value of your cards is pressure. Again, going on the philosophy of how hard it is to make a pair heads up, your opponent is making a mistake by calling you with a wide range of hands, since he will be out of position for the rest of the hand and will be virtually clueless on where he is at in the hand. To make this style of play profitable, however, you have to be willing to put out the continuation bet on the flop, often times with no pair, just to keep the pressure on. You’re going to win more pots with nothing heads up. Therefore, you must also be willing to give up on the hand if your opponents play back at you. For the number of times you'll be chopping away and winning the small pots, you have to be willing to let a speculative hand go if you face resistance, since the style you're employing is working well enough that you don't need to get yourself involved in a large pot without the goods.

Float or call the flop with an ace high. While this is the most risky play discussed, it is another adjustment you need to make from nine- and 10-handed play to heads up. Floating the flop, which I have discussed in previous articles, is used more frequently in heads up play, often to counteract the types of plays I discussed earlier in this article. While you will be applying pressure on the button and raising often, you will often find that your opponent might have the same strategy.

When this is the case, the best way to find out if the bet he's making on the flop is for value or for bluffing purposes is to call the flop and see what happens on the turn.

Now, there are many different ways to interpret your opponent's turn play. If your opponent bets the same amount or smaller on the turn, it could be because he is a bad value bettor and is looking to extract what he thinks is the most from you, or it means he’s stabbing at the pot a second time because he feels obligated to do so. If your read on the situation tells you that this is the case, then a feeler raise of two to five times what he bet should be enough to find out if you can take this pot or not. If your opponent checks, the pressure must be applied. We aren't giving your opponent any free breathing room where it isn't necessary. We gave him enough to hang himself in the hand, and now he's seemingly giving up, so that pot belongs to us.

In part two of this heads up poker article, I will tell you about trapping heads up, playing hands out of position and heads up pot control.

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