- Heads up poker is playing one on one against another opponent. There are many ways that you might find your self heads up against another player – playing a simple ring game and all the other players leave the table, it’s down to you and another opponent in a tournament that you are playing or maybe you selected a heads up poker game at your favorite online poker room.
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Heads up poker is playing one on one against another opponent. There are many ways that you might find your self heads up against another player – playing a simple ring game and all the other players leave the table, it’s down to you and another opponent in a tournament that you are playing or maybe you selected a heads up poker game at your favorite online poker room.
Heads up poker games have become very popular and to be successful at it you need a different strategy playing heads up poker than you do when playing at a full table.
Heads up poker is about understanding your opponent. It is more than just playing the cards. Players that do well are players that play a lot of hands and play them aggressively. Being a good player in a heads up game not only requires aggressive play but also requires the ability to read hands well and to be able to play the poorer hands well.
In your typical ring game, you usually need a pretty good hand in order to win the pot. This is not the case in heads up poker. In heads up poker you need to play the majority of hands. If you fold too much then you will end up losing a lot of money when posting the blinds.
Your main weapon in heads up poker is going to be the raise. Especially if you feel you have a better hand than your opponent. On thing to remember is that starting hand values have greatly increased because there are only two players in the hand. Choosing to play high cards can be very effective especially if you play them aggressively.
Low and middle pairs now end up being powerful as well.
When you have a hand that you feel reasonably confident that you can win with, that is the time to get money into the pot and put the pressure on your opponent. When you don’t feel your hand is very strong that is when you look not to raise or put money into the pot.
Texas Hold'em Heads Up Online
If you are up against a player that you know bluffs a lot I recommend that you slowplay a good number of hands on both the flop and turn. Then I recommend that you raise on the river.
Let’s take a look at how that strategy looks in heads up poker.
Our assumption is that because we are playing heads up our opponent is aggressive, sometimes super aggressive. This is when I like to slow play my hands. Suppose that I have a pair of Kings and my opponent raises.
Most of the time in this situation I will call him before the flop to trap him later on. Suppose the flop is K-9-5. Now I like to check and just call again. Let’s say that the next card is a 2 so the board reads K-9-5-2. Now I check again and if my opponent bets, I finally raise. If I trap my opponent here he will be less likely to bluff on every hand, because he knows that I am capable of trapping him again soon.
This is a good example of playing the player.
Heads up poker is fun, it is fast and you can expect some pretty big swings in your bankroll. Fortunately you can find some reasonable limits to play at online. I like to play in $5/$10 heads up games at Bodog Poker. You can actually start out in Heads up games for as little as $2/$4 or $3/$6 at Full Tilt which I think is a perfect limit to start out at if you are new to heads up play.
Heads-Up Rules for Texas Hold’em Poker
Heads up Texas Holdem is one of the most fun, challenging and misunderstood variations of holdem. The thrill of playing a friend or foe in a battle of heads up holdem is unmatched in all of poker. Is he bluffing? Does he have the nuts? Should I value bet my second pair? Well, I will not get ahead of myself just yet. Before you can play Texas Holdem heads up against an opponent, you have to know the rules, right?
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Texas Holdem Heads Up Rules – Button Position
Without a doubt, the single heads-up rule that creates the most confusion is who has the button and who has which blinds?
The first thing that confuses people is that the rules are different if you are playing at certain online poker site or playing live poker. It doesn’t make any sense, but some online poker rooms started setting the blinds backwards from what was generally accepted in live heads-up poker games for decades. I am going to explain the heads up rules for live poker for the sake of simplicity. The following Heads-up Texas Holdem rules apply to both tournaments and cash games.
Proper Preflop Head-Up Blinds Setup:
Heads-up Button Position and Dealing:
Texas Holdem Heads Up Rules
- The button has the small blind when playing Texas Holdem heads up.
- The person who is the dealer has the button and also posts his/her small blind. This means that the other player (without the button) is the big blind.
- The small blind acts first on the first round of betting before the flop (pre-flop).
- The dealer (button) deals the small blind the first card, and the second card to the other player (big blind). Deal the 3rd (total) card to the small blind and the last card to the other player. This leaves each player with two hole cards and the first round of pre-flop betting can begin.
Heads-up Pre-flop Betting:
- The small blind can fold, call or raise.
- If the small blind just calls, then the big blind (non-button player) can either check and see the flop, or raise.
Free Texas Holdem Heads Up
All Other Rounds:
- The flop is dealt (3 cards).
- The person who was big blind pre-flop is first to act on the flop. (In case you forgot, this is the player who does NOT have the button – the button acts last on all streets except pre-flop.)
- The player who is first to act can bet or check. If that player checks, the button can then bet or check.
- If both players check, then the dealer deals the turn.
- Repeat the betting sequence for the turn and the river. (the 5th card)
- After all rounds of betting are complete, both players show their hands and the person with the best hand wins!
Now wasn’t that fun?!? If you think you got the hang of Texas Holdem heads up rules or you would just like to practice for free or for real money, I would suggest downloading Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt is the poker room I rate the highest for heads up play. There are at least one hundred Texas Holdem heads up tables available 24/7.