Heads up (HU) poker is considered the King’s discipline of no limit Texas Holdem, and that for a reason. It is the most challenging, action-packed and honoring game format poker has to offer. Heads up poker is comparable to boxing, if you beat your opponents consistently, you become the champ, gain glory and most people would never want to. The Best Heads Up Poker Strategy How to Play Poker The overwhelming majority of the poker you play is going to be against multiple opponents. Even when you’re playing casually with friends, you’re going to seek out a full table because the crowd is just part of Texas Hold’em poker.
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If you are a live player or new to poker, youmight not know about the popular variant of Holdem that poker players playonline. It is called heads up. One player against another one. Both are tryingto outplay each other and win money. If you are confused about who posts theblinds and who is the button, then this article will be perfect for you.
If you doubt if heads up poker is beatable, check this article I wrote and keep in mind that the graph in the YouTube video show profits in millions of dollars.
The blinds and button in heads up poker is placed as follows; button will always post the small blind, while the other player will post the big blind. Post flop, the big blind will act first, and the person who posted a small blind (button in our case) will remain in the position. Next hand positions of the blinds and the button will switch. And the player who was big blind before will be small blind and button now.
In Heads Up poker, the button acts first preflop and last postflop. This is quite different from the 6max or full ring tables where small blind will always be first to act postflop, followed by the big blind.
In HU, the player on the button (BTN) will play more hands compared to the button on 6max and full ring games. If we are on the BTN on an HU game, we have already invested half of the blind and can raise to 3 big blinds (bb) total and have a chance to win the pot immediately. Let me remind you that the main goal in poker is to win the pot, and winning only the blinds with a random hand is a great result already. We risk 2.5bb – we already posted 0.5bb as small blind (SB) – to win 1.5bb.
Preflop Heads Up Play
Playing the Button in Heads Up Poker
A simple and straightforward explanation of who is a small blind in heads-up poker – a person who has the dealer button is the small blind. After the hand ends, the other player gets the dealer button and is the small blind. This gets repeated every hand.
A button will be first to act and decidewhether he wants to raise, fold, or call. Usually, you would want to raise ifon the button. Sometimes you might limp a few hands, sometimes none. The veryworst hands, you would go ahead and fold.
Depending on the opponent, you might also develop a different strategy where you limp more or play tighter in general. Especially against maniacs that 3bet you almost every hand, you need to consider opening smaller. You can even consider limping, but generally should be avoided as by limping you cannot win preflop. But against an average player raising most hands should be your priority.
Like I mentioned, the standard raise on the BTN is to make it 3x total preflop. And you should be opening around 70% of hands. Stick to opening that much hands on the button: Later, you can adapt depending on the opponent’s play style.
Now it is on the big blind (BB) to decide if he wants to call or 3bet you preflop. In a game of poker, a position is crucial. If you put up two players with the same skill against each other, they will always win on BTN and loose on BB.
If you are deep, 200bb, and more, then the positional advantage is even more important. Deeper, you are the better it is for the guy that has the position. Now I would be opening almost all if not all hands. If I get 3bet, that’s fine, I can defend wide, as we are deep. Plyer out of position will have a much harder time playing in deep pots.
If you play with shallow stacks of around 50bb, then you should also be opening less. Big cards count even more. Don’t rely on hitting too many sneaky straights as there are not many implied odds to ht your draws. With implied odds, I mean how much we are to win when we hit the draw.
Playing the Big Blind in Heads Up Poker
A simple and straightforward explanation of who is big blind in heads-up poker – a person who doesn’t have the button will be a big blind.
It is very, very hard to win playing out of position in heads up. Primarily we need to consider that we lose 1bb by posting the big blind.
On the BB, we will defend with much fewer hands than we will open on the BTN. The majority of mediocre hands are just folded. With semi playable hands, we can call. With the very best of our range, we will 3bet. In total, I play around 35%-45% of hands on the big blind. This includes my 3bet range. Our 3bet strategy depends a lot, depending on what the opponent calls us with. If we dominate a lot of hands that button defends with, then we can get away with 3betting more. I like to 3bet somewhere in the range of 15% hands.
If you want to know which hands are those, download Equilab from here and put in 15% range of hands. This tool is completely free. Go to Poker Tools and scroll to the bottom. It is under free tools. It is an excellent free software to practice your preflop and postflop ranges.
Postflop Heads Up play
The big blind is first to act post-flop. It sucks to play out of position (OOP). We don’t want to build the pot if we missed the flop. If we have a draw, we have a hard decision again.
I could write a few articles just about out of position strategy when playing HU. In general, you want to stick to play straightforward. And avoid huge pots if you don’t have good hands.
If you are a button, then postflop is your bread and butter. You will play in position the rest of the hand. You can either decide to take the pot down by a continuation bet. You can check to keep the pot small and seeing a free turn card. You can make a delayed continuation bet on the turn after checking back the flop. You can mix up your strategy and keep opponents guessing every time how good hand you have.
If an opponent shows weakness, you can put a lot of pressure on him, if you have a read on him. Weak players will often play very straightforward OOP and will basically tell you when they have a good hand or if they missed the board. But remember it is worse if you choose the wrong hands to try and bluff with than play straightforward.
On low stakes, you can get away with playing straightforward OOP and still make money. Firstly focus instead on the preflop game and your button post play. Once you master those, then you start learning OOP strategies.
Adapting to the opponent in heads up games
One vital thing that many low stakes players disregard is adapting to our opponent. Readless, we will do fine by opening 70% of hands and raising to 3bb preflop. Consider making the following adjustments if your opponent doesn’t play as the majority does:
- If you see opponent folding a lot, then it is time to raise more than 70% of hands on the button
- If the opponent is passive and a calling machine, then value bet our stronger hands bigger. With weak hands. It doesn’t make much sense to bluff him, so check back with weak hands and take free turns and rivers.
- If the villain is 3betting a lot, then start opening less than 3bb preflop. It is a good idea also to fold more preflop. Someone who 3bets a lot is usually also aggressive postflop. Against such guys, you can slowplay your good hands and let them bluff.
- If the opponent plays very straightforward and shows weakness, then bluff more on flops turns and rivers.
Example 1
Let me demonstrate the following case. Weare up against a maniac, who 3bets almost every hand. With our QT offsuit weare in a range advantage against him preflop. I gave him a range of 75% of hishands. So our QTo is good enough to defend. My preflop adjustments against suchplayer would usually be:
- Tighten my preflop raising range so that I can protect more vs. his 3bets
- Make smaller preflop raises. 2x or 2.5x. This makes it cheaper for us to fold to a 3bet or keeping the pot smaller when we call the 3bet.
- Someone who is a maniac will bluff a lot postflop. Often we could slowplay our stronger hands. In our case, this wasn’t needed as the opponent made It obvious he wants to commit by betting large on the flop.
The action played as follows. He makes a continuation bet on the flop I make a small raise and opponent shoves. His hand? 79o. And we won a nice 202bb pot, and half of the blind went away because of the rake. If we are smart, then we get a big portion of the rake back. That is called Rakeback.
Example 2
Let’s have a look at one more example. Itis a shallow table with 50bb. Here we hold QQ preflop. And the read on ouropponent is that he is passive and a calling station (calls a lot, another termis call machine). We raise to 3x because we want to get value for our goodhand.
Flop is perfect for us. It has quite somedraws, and the opponent could have a draw or a pair here easily. We value betand get called. On the turn, the only draw that completes is 56, but there aremany more that missed. So our decision with pot-sized bet left is easy; weshove all in. Opponent calls and shows A9 of clubs. The river is a king ofdiamonds, and we win a nice pot.
Against calling stations, you should focuson getting value with your good hands. Do not bother bluffing as they don’tfold. If they are passive and they start betting, you can be sure they have hitsomething decent.
Winrate Playing Heads Up
In heads up poker, you can expect to make more money than in 6max or full-ring play. I am a no expert in playing HU, but I am a winner nonetheless. If you are an excellent HU player, then you can expect to make close to a double of my winrate on low stakes.
As you can see from the winnings by position, I am doing good on SB (button) and losing on BB. This is entirely normal and expected. In fact, I should be winning even more on the button. My winrate for the big blind is decent enough.
Just like I told you, I play around 70% of hands on the button. You should cbet a decent amount on flops. I think around 75% is fine if you are not getting check-raised often. My 3bet of 17% is also in the standard range.
How Long Does it Take to Learn Heads Up Poker?
Playing heads up is always beneficial as it helps you understand the game better. You will be a better hand reader if you decide to move to 6max or full ring after.
This answer depends much on your current understanding of the poker game. If you already play professionally, then a month should be enough to beat the games. If you are starting and want to learn heads up, then it takes longer. I would say anywhere from few months up to a year to be able to play professionally. And around 2 to 6 months to be a winning player at lower stakes.
Your time will be reduced dramatically if you find yourself a proven winning heads up poker coach. Instead of losing money at the tables when starting, it makes a lot of sense to join a poker coaching website, like this one. It is not too expensive, and it includes in-depth strategy videos from the guy that has won millions playing heads up poker against the best players (plus it also has some free quality learning material).
Now you have everything, from basicstrategy to links to resources where you can learn this beautiful game indepth. With enough willingness to learn, you can become a great HU player.
Can you Count Cards in Poker?
It is impossible to count cards in poker in a similar way that it is in blackjack. In poker, a deck is shuffled after every hand. In every new hand, you will receive completely random hands.You can, however, count your outs to win the hand.
This means that you roughly know how many percentages you have to win the hand. Let’s say you hold a nut flush draw with no pair on the flop. Your outs are all cards that complete the flush and maybe all of the aces if the opponent has only a pair. So that is 9 outs for the flush and 3 outs for the Ace. This gets you very close to a coin flip. It still depends if the opponent blocks any of your outs. Maybe your opponent has only a 2nd nut flush draw with no pair on the flop. Now you are a big favorite to win the hand.
Those outs might not be always live outs. Let me explain. Let’s say you are holding an open-ended straight draw on the flop (87 on 562 flop). You think you have 8 outs to hit your straight. So about 32% on the flop. If your opponent holds blockers to your hand (pair of nines), then you might have only 6 outs, so you are down to around 24%.
Online Poker » Best Poker Sites » Best Freeroll Poker Sites
Best Heads Up Display Poker
Even before online poker first appeared on the market, heads up poker was a very popular activity with players that could not find enough players to fill a table or at the end of tournaments or ring games. Heads up poker exists in two forms - as a natural end point of poker tournaments or elimination games and as a game in and of itself, with two players competing against each other using the same rules as would apply during normal ring game play.
Offline poker rooms were often not able to sponsor heads up games as the amount of rake generated from only two players did not justify reserving the table for such limited play due to overhead in the brick and mortar establishment. However, online poker sites do not have these expense and the best heads up poker sites have become well known for sponsoring this competitive and lucrative game type.
Best Heads Up Poker Site - Full Tilt Poker
Full Tilt Poker is the best heads up poker site as they offer both normal and deep stack No Limit Texas Holdem games - hundreds, in fact. There are also a variety of stakes available for players with the lowest being $0.25/$0.50. There are much higher stakes available for high rollers. In fact, the $2000/$4000 stakes allow players to take on Phil Ivey in heads up poker play.
Best Heads Up Poker Site - Absolute Poker
Absolute Poker specializes in smaller stakes heads up poker play with games for as low as $0.01/$0.02. There are also higher stakes games that extend into the $200/$400 range. Absolute Poker ranks as one of the best heads up poker sites because of their offering of heads up sit and go tournaments and tournaments available for Frequent Player Point buy ins.
Best Heads Up Poker Site - Bodog Poker
Bodog Poker offers heads up poker tournaments with buy in levels ranging from $5.00 + $0.25 to $110.00 + $6.00. In addition to normal heads up poker play, Bodog Poker also offers turbo blinds that can make heads up poker play even more intense and fast paced.
How Heads Up Poker Works
Heads up poker refers to poker play between only two people. The best heads up poker sites offer this type of game play as the entire game while other poker sites sponsor natural heads up poker play that occurs when only two players are remaining in a game or tournament. Heads up poker play can occur in any poker variety such as Texas Holdem, Omaha, Stud or Draw. As there are only two players, neither are ever safe from a blind (in games where this obligatory wager is used). Because of this, much of the play tends to open up as both players are much more likely to see a flop during each hand. This is one of the reasons that many poker players and spectators enjoy heads up poker play.
With only two players at the table, there are several other things to consider during heads up poker play. There is less of a chance that either player at the table received goods hole cards so hands of lower quality become more valuable. Many players enjoy this aspect of heads up poker because it means that you will likely be playing in every hand and bluffing post flop can become a very powerful strategy. Before the development of heads up poker games online, poker players only got to experience the game variety at the end of games when there were only two players left and both players were close to finishing top money. However, the best heads up poker sites have begun offering heads up only games where players can experience heads up poker play during the entire game.
Choosing a Heads Up Poker Site
Poker Heads Up Display
The best heads up poker sites should offer a wide variety of standard cash games where only two players are allowed at the table. These are the most popular types of heads up poker games. These sites should also offer a variety of other heads up poker formats such as SNG games and multi table tournaments. In multi table tournaments, there are still only two players at each table but eliminating the other player at your means that you can move on to face another single opponent until there is only one player left. These heads up poker tournaments do not allow as many players as other tournament types but can still run rather long.
Heads Up Poker Strategy
One of the first things that you will find when playing heads up poker games at the best heads up poker sites is that most players will play very aggressively with a raises before and after the flop. One of the few ways to combat this is by playing aggressively yourself. Many players are tempted to sit back and wait for a good hand when facing off against an aggressive opponent. However, with only two players at the table, you will face a blind every hand and could quickly begin to see your stack shrinking until you have lost any stack size advantage over your opponent. Bluffing becomes much more successful in heads up poker play as, although your opponent might be aggressive, there is a much smaller chance that they have a powerful enough hand to keep up with your aggressive play.
Best Heads Up Poker App
However, it is very important to play close attention to how your heads up opponent responds to your play and handles various bets and raises. The best heads up poker sites include statistics and hand histories that can make this process a little easier. Always remember that your opponent will be attempting to gain some information on you as well. Follow a series of raises with a series of simple calls or checks and a few puzzling folds. Varying your play and taking advantage of position over your single opponent can help you be successful against players at the best heads up poker sites.