After battling Doug Polk online for three months at WSOP.com, Daniel Negreanu is now heading back to the heads-up poker tables. He’ll be squaring off against a familiar name – 15-time World Series of Poker champion Phil Hellmuth.

On Tuesday, the two poker pros finalized a March 16 meeting on PokerGO’s High Stakes Duel. The showdown brings together two of the biggest names in poker.

When playing one vs one in poker, you can be sure about one thing, and that is action. 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. There is a three-step process you can apply to your heads-up poker strategy. Think of the beginning of a heads-up match as your baseline of sorts. To begin, you should know what your optimal heads-up strategy is when beginning a match. All other things equal, the ability to execute this strategy will give you the best chance to win the match.

Hellmuth and Negreanu officially announced the matchup on PokerGO’sNo Gamble, No Future podcast.

War of words kicks off the duel

There should be plenty of fireworks when the two square off from the PokerGO Studio at Aria. The event has been in the works after some Twitter banter following the Negreanu-Polk matchup.

The High Stakes Duel format sees the two players battle heads-up for $50,000 each. The loser then has the option for a rematch at a $100,000 match.

Hellmuth has done well on the show so far. He’s battled Antonio Esfandiari three times and won every match.

Negreanu has declared himself a 2 to 2.5 to 1 favorite and has already bet a “significant amount” on himself. However, he was complimentary of Hellmuth’s heads-up game.

“I think you’re great at heads-up poker,” he told Hellmuth. “A lot of the things you do against the players you’ve played against, specifically Antonio, actually destroys them.”

That included exploiting flawed strategy by Esfandiari, Negreanu noted. He considers Hellmuth one of the best exploitative players in the game, especially against GTO players.

His argument is that Hellmuth does well against more theory-based strategy players. That shouldn’t be a problem for Negreanu, or at least that’s what he’s hoping.

“For me, I feel like a bad matchup for you,” Negreanu noted. “A bad matchup because of what I’ll be willing to do.”

Poker Brat confident in his skills

Helmuth feels he’s played great in the heads-up format. He also has some major wins over players like Polk, Dan Cates, and Esfandiari.

“I get underestimated a lot,” Hellmuth told Negreanu. “All I do is keep winning. It’s really weird to me how you and other people keep underestimating me. It’s fine because I really think you guys honestly don’t understand what I do.”

If the podcast appearance was an indication, the heads-up matchup should be pretty fun. Negreanu and Hellmuth sparred quite a bit with plenty of trash talk.

Negreanu argues that Hellmuth would lose against heads-up poker specialists in a more drawn-out series like he played against Polk. Hellmuth doesn’t underestimate Negreanu and considers him “one of the great players in poker history.” He also said Negreanu has had some excellent coaches.

The recent heads-up series has given Negreanu some significant heads-up poker chops. However, Hellmuth feels good about his chances.

“Have I studied anything at all over the last two or three months?” he said on No Gamble, No Future. “No, I already know what I’m going to do. It’s worked for me … against everybody I play. So I trust my instincts and I trust my reads.”

Those instincts should pay off, he believes. Hellmuth said if he can make two great folds and three great calls, he can win these types of matches. Here’s a look at the details of the High Stakes Duel:

• Game: Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em
• Location: PokerGO Studio at Aria, Las Vegas
• Stakes: $50,000 match
• Streaming: PokerGO
• Date and time. March 16, 8 pm (ET)
• Specifics: Played in a heads-up, sit and go style. The High Stakes Duel allows losing players to rematch for twice the original amount.

Tale of the tape

So how do these players stack up against each other? Both spoke briefly this week with USPoker about their chances going in. The event should attract plenty of interest among poker fans.

Phil Hellmuth

Discounting Hellmuth’s skills in heads-up poker might be a bad idea. Behind the bravado is a great player. With so many titles, Hellmuth has plenty of heads-up poker experience and regularly closes the show.

He describes himself as a counter puncher and feels his style works well in the heads-up game. That includes constantly adjusting and attacking when needed as well.

The detractors certainly motivate Hellmuth and he said as much Tuesday on No Gamble, No Future. Esfandiari had also declared himself a favorite as well, however came out on the short end. Hellmuth remains firm in his skills, especially in a live setting.

“I have zero analysts and zero team,” he told USPoker. “I might watch some sessions of him live to see if I can spot any tells.”

Here’s a look at the Poker Brat’s statistics:

• Live tournament winnings: $24.6 million
• WSOP titles and winnings: 15 bracelet, $15.1 million
• WPT titles and winnings: 0 titles, 5 final tables, $1.6 million
• Intangibles: Hellmuth has excellent instincts and fares well in the live format. He seems to thrive when in the underdog role and has a record of success.

“Daniel says he is a big favorite,” Hellmuth said. “I have won roughly 18 out of 20 of my last heads-up matches. Antonio said he was a big favorite over me, but I beat him three times in a row.

“I also beat Doug Polk and Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates in live heads-up matches, who the kids said were the two best in the world at the time. What am I, chopped liver?”

Daniel Negreanu

Unlike the series with Polk, Negreanu doesn’t plan on as much preparation for a single event. He’ll ditch the coaching and plans on using a “basic fundamental strategy that I think is effective against Phil.”

Negreanu loves the High Stakes Duel format and thinks he’s perceptive enough to uncover Hellmuth’s weak spots. Against Polk, he employed solvers and a complete strategy team After studying so much over the last few months, Negreanu has been playing at an advanced level.

That’s a notion even Polk agreed with. He battled Negreanu for 25,000 hands and won $1.2 million. Polk believes Negreanu improved, learned a lot, and would beat most players heads-up. That includes beating Hellmuth in this match.

Some in the poker industry initially listed Negreanu as the favorite in the -150 to -160 range. Hellmuth has been in the +125 to +145 range. Here’s a complete look at Kid Poker’s statistics:

• Live tournament winnings: $42.1 million
• WSOP titles and winnings: 6 bracelets, $19.6 million
• WPT titles and winnings: 2 titles, 9 final tables, $6.4 million
• Intangibles: Negreanu has excellent reads and now has extensive knowledge at playing heads-up. Losing to Polk over 25,000 hands gave him even more insight into the game.

“Outside of maybe Fedor Holz, I don’t think there is a worse matchup in the world for him,” Negreanu told USPoker. “I’ve played with him for decades and my game matches up very well against him.”

* Lead image courtesy PokerGO

* Hellmuth and Negreanu photos courtesy World Poker Tour

If you are interested to get the best rakeback deals and private promotions on poker sites head on to PokerPro website (PS: there are plenty of options to choose from also for the USA players).

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.

Video Poker Strategy Card Printable

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:

1. Tighten my preflop raising range so that I can protect more vs. his 3bets
2. 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.
3. 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.

Best Heads Up Poker Strategy

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.

Heads Up Poker Tips

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 2^nd 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%.