How To Play Heads Up Poker Online
Heads up poker is the purest form of the game and is one of the most profitable game types for skilled players.
Heads up poker format means that you will have to play the blind every hand and hence will have to play LOTS of hands - in some cases 100% of the hands you are dealt.
It's a high-pressure environment, that's for sure.
For a proficient player, this gives the opportunity to impost their skill set onto weaker opponents every single hand and can mean higher win-rates when compared to 6-max and full-ring games.
The key skill in heads up poker is the ability to adjust to your opponent and exploit them - that is what we will be covering in this article as we try to adjust to another professional player and target his leaks and weaknesses.
Americas Cardroom - Widest Range of Stakes. Americas Cardroom, the premier brand on the. Heads Up Poker can be referred to the type of poker that is either played between two players only or it can also occur at tournaments and single table games after the elimination of every other players. Alternatively, heads up poker may be performed on purpose, either in a cash game format, or as an SnG, where only two players play.
- 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 involve themselfes fighting with you. But, if you are a noob and play against an experienced heads up.
- Why aggression is important in heads-up poker. Concepts to bear in mind on each street; Heads-up No-Limit Hold'em requires the mastery of all the classic elements of poker - maths, psychology, hand reading and heart. For players craving action and the ultimate test of their skills, heads-up poker.
Adjusting Your Heads Up Strategy
A winning player's heads up poker strategy consists of a malleable game plan ready to go from the onset. Solid ranges they’ve developed that they look to adjust as new information is learned about their opponent.
Playing against a past challenger allows you pick-up where you left off in your previous encounter. Looking for ways to get an edge. Exactly what I was doing in a recent heads-up poker SNG tournament battle where I was pitted against a coach from Japanese poker site, www.pokertrainingjp.com.
I had won 2-1 in the previous bout of HU SNG’s, but Akinori issued a new challenge. He was keen for revenge since the games would be recorded for content on the Japanese poker training site.
Free MTT Poker Training:
The Underused MTT Skills Essential For Success
- 5 Day Email MTT Poker Training Course By Poker Pro Kelvin 'Acesup' Beattie
- 3 Key Skills That Will Take Your MTT Poker Game To A New Level
- 1.5 Hours Of Professional Poker Training
The key to defeating Akinori again was all in the adjustments. His style was ‘TAGish’ which leaves you particularly vulnerable in short-handed and heads-up games.
My plan was an aggressive blitz. Constant aggression allowing me to win the majority of the pots. Chipping away at him until eventually, I’d finish off his dwindling stack.
This is also a very common scenario when heads-up in an MTT.
MTT poker players often lack a heads up poker skill set and are easily exploited since they aren’t used to playing the wide ranges necessary to be competitive heads-up.
Check out the video of the match and then we will discuss the strategy involved:
Heads Up Poker Strategy: Preflop Starting Ranges
I planned to open around 5% wider than I would against a tough opponent. In hindsight, I think opening 100% of hands would have been a reasonable strategy. This would allow me to exploit his tendencies to over-fold preflop, and 3bet at a low frequency. A style which was confirmed in the replay as he made some questionable folds.
Conversely, against his open raises, I didn’t plan on folding much at all.
Versus his 2.5x open raise I was calling more than 5% wider than I would against a tougher player. The pot odds would be 2.3:1 to call. Around 30% ‘straight-up‘ equity required. When considering the all important equity realization, with some of the weakest calls in my range like 63o, I’d need to realize equity as follows;
Equity realization required = pot odds / equity = 0.3 / 0. 334 = 90%.
I was fairly confident I’d be in this vicinity given Akinori’s tendency to be a little passive post flop, especially on the later streets. This is common for a lot of ‘TAGish’ players when they get to heads-up.
They know a good strategy is to open a lot of hands preflop, but this translates to them being out of their comfort-zone on later streets when they’re frequently left with much more marginal holdings then they are used to. Typically resulting in a lot of turn and river checking.
This passivity on later streets would allow me to realize a reasonable share of my equity OOP. Again evident in the replay as some of my weaker out of position floats did get to the river where I was able to steal some nice pots (Q2, J9, etc).
Defending The Blinds Heads Up: 3betting
Part of the HU strategy to defend frequently from the big blind included 3 betting a lot.
A typical strategy might include a mix of:
- weaker suited hands,
- premium hands,
- and a mix of suited connectors mostly for board coverage protection.
All at a frequency.
Equating to around a 15-20% sort of range spread. I planned on pushing this a bit further to 20%+ by including a mix of high-low holdings (as we saw with Q2s, J4o), and some weaker combinations at a low frequency. Aiming to profit from my opponent's over folding ways.
Key Strategies To Beating Heads Up Poker
Heads Up Poker Online
Overall the adjustments pointed out are not huge. However, they help set the tone of the match, as well as lay the foundation for post-flop play. Increased opens, more defending from the big blind including a lot of 3 betting.
This style makes it really tough for a 'TAGish' type of opponent to get into a rhythm as it keeps them constantly under pressure. Their likely response is to attempt to steal less, which has the profitable result of allowing for more walks from the big blind.
This tough preflop play is then backed up postflop with frequent cbets and barrels, as well as a good mix of raises and floats. Which will be the topic of next article as we continue this heads-up series!
What About VS Loose Heads Up Opponents?
Each type of opponent presents different challenges to overcome. Loose opponents allow you to me more patient with your offense. Reducing your bluffs whilst increasing your value bets - Since your opponent will be doing more calling.
You can 3 bet wider for value if they aren't folding to reraises preflop. Proceed post-flop by cbetting less, but look for 'thinner' value. Especially on the later streets when you have more accurately identified your opponents range.
Floating out of position which works well against tighter opponents, should be used carefully. When calling a flop cbet with a marginal hand, along with some hope of improving to the best hand, the chance to steal the pot on a later street often makes this play profitable. However loose opponents often call the river with a wide range. So bluffing in a lot of spots can be a futile play. Stick to solid holdings and contest the pot more aggressively in position.
Positional advantage offers you the opportunity to take more free cards, value bet confidently, and fire small ball bluffs. Remembers a loose opponents range will often be wide, so timely bluffs should be an important part of your strategy. Attack when their range consists of numerous weak holdings, and the board heavily favors your range. Don't push the aggression but rather look for boards that develop favorably when firing multiple bullet bluffs. Moves like this can be quite risky against a loose opponent!
Summary: Strategical adjustments made this match
Having played against my opponent previously, I'd gained a good feel for the way Akinori was playing. Overall a little too tight, in, and out of position. This provided me with an opportunity to make some adjustments to gain an edge in the match.
Starting with preflop. Raising more on the button and defending more aggressively from the big blind. Setting the tempo of the match, I kept my opponent under pressure and was clearly winning the majority of the pots. By adjusting and gaining an edge in the game, I was again able to claim a 2-1 victory in this heads up poker match.
Make sure you check out the video below for some more heads up poker strategies:
Get Access to Lesson 5.8 From the Road to Success Course which is a 45 minute video covering important heads up strategies.
Want more videos like the ones in this blog post? Check out the PokerNerve Road to Success Course where we have almost 100 videos like this to help take your game to the next level.
In this post, we look at some examples from playing Heads Up Hyper-Turbos on PokerStars where the sit n go starts with 500 chips with blinds at 10/20, so 25BBs effective.
Look to check-raise all-in with draws
Be aware of the stack to pot ratio of pots when playing draws, if your opponent is bet happy look to check-raise and close the action with maximum pressure. We can also balance our plays by doing this with strong hands like good top pairs and better.
Don’t be scared to play for all the money pre-flop
We need to have a range that includes hands we will not be folding to 3-Bets, this can look like ATs+, 77+ against most players, but don’t be scared to widen this drastically if your opponent shows they are willing to 3-Bet wide.
In this example, we end up jamming A9o with a pre-flop 4-Bet because our opponent had previous raise called off with A8o, so we are perfectly within range to gamble against their range with our hand.
Our opponent ended up 3-Bet calling with KQo… Poker is about pushing our small edges so having near 58% equity in this pot is a big edge in the long run, but there will be times we dominate our opponent playing this wide having hands like A2–A8 in their range means we will often have around 70% equity instead.
Raise Limps with our Playable broadways, Good Pairs
We can profitably play for larger pots when our opponent is limping with hands we will dominate, look to raise hands like QTo+ JTs+ K9s+ KTo+ A8s+ ATo+ 77+ allowing us to still have good hands in our checking range like A5s and A9o which will be less playable post-flop.
When the blinds get larger we could look to simply move all-in with a tighter range over limps to win the pot pre-flop or play for all the chips with our range advantage, this might include hands like 22+ A2s+ A7o+ KJo+ KTs+ etc
The reason is winning the pot pre-flop is going to be better for us than trying to realise our equity out of position in a shallow SPR spot.
Raising these types of hands will allow us to flop well with hands against our opponents’ slightly weaker range and win bets from them post-flop…
Look to Barrel semi-bluffs
How To Play Online Poker In Us
Betting our draws on the flop can win us the pot there with no showdown value or can build us the pot to win at a later point…
Look to apply more pressure in spots like this where our opponent’s range is capped, in this pot, the turn is an Ace, well we would have to think our opponent would have wanted to move all-in with pretty much any hand that includes an Ace.
So this is perfect spot to size up a little and apply some pressure, we can balance this by betting with our strong hands with a sized up bet so we can play for stacks on the river too.
Put opponent’s in a tough spot with 3-Bet Sizings with Big hands
We are going to occasionally pick up huge hands, we are going to want to put our opponents in tough spots with small sizings which will allow them to call with weak holdings or possibly think there is room to 4-Bet all-in.
If we 3-Bet too large in these spots we will drive out our opponents worst holdings that we want to keep in the pot and they will never think they have fold equity with any 4-Bets.
Continue with small post-flop sizings, this will allow mistakes like calls or all-ins…
Head To Head Poker Game
In this pot, our opponent ended up raising all-in with just 25% equity after hitting a pair on the flop. This is exactly the kind of action we want to induce, if we had raised too large pre-flop they could have gotten away from the hand and if we bet too large on the flop they might be able to find a fold too.
Choose a Site with Good Heads Up Action
888Poker has some of the best Heads up Hyper Turbos around in our eyes, with around the clock action at all stakes up to the games in the thousands of dollars… and we have a great sign up offer for our readers…
Sign up today with our great offer and get FREE MONEY!
888Poker is home to many great game types including these heads up games, tournaments, jackpot sit and gos and a vast range of cash games including a fast-fold mode known on the site as SNAP Poker.
Use the link below and claim your FREE PLAY on this great poker site, without even having to deposit!!!
This is one of the only Poker Sites offering this to new players, so jump in the action today and win some money…