Pre Flop Strategy for Heads Up Poker
When playing a heads up match it is important to vary how you bet pre flop. If you throw the same bet every time you have a decent hand, your opponent will quickly catch on and know when you've got something. The same goes for your opponent as well. I know your thinking that no one can be dumb enough to make the exact same bet every time they have a good hand, but it happens more often than not especially when the game becomes fast paced.
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Know Your Odds
You may want to look at the pre
flop odds for heads up poker piece that was written recently. It talks
about the number of starting hands there are in a heads up game as well as the
odds of each hand winning pre-flop. It is nice to know that in a heads up
match pocket aces win 84.93% of the time. This is pretty good considering
technically your odds of being dealt pocket aces in a heads up match are 1 out
of 220 hands. However, you shouldn't go by what the odds are all the time.
A good rule of thumb is to study your opponent and think about why he is
making the bets he is making.
Slow the Pace
It is easy to get carried away in a heads up game. Sometime you and
your opponent will fall into a groove of super fast play. While this is
rare, you should watch out for this because this is where you could make a
costly mistake. The faster the play the less time you have to take notes
on your opponents decisions. This is also an easy way to get into the
habit of letting your opponents see the flop for free, and we all know that an
important part of the pre flop heads up strategy is to not let your opponent see
the flop for nothing.
Stay Aggressive
Heads up poker is unique because it allows for more aggressive plays than any
other form of poker. One important thing to remember is to stay aggressive
pre flop and post flop. If you just sit there checking and calling,
chances are you will lose many hands that you could have easily won. In
heads up poker, the level of standards for playing hands is much lower than 6-10
player games. You will see a lot of K-5 like hands being played as if they
are A-K. A good point to remember is to make your opponent think that you
really have a good hand or at least a hand that is better than his.
Checking to the flop is not a good way to show this.
Conclusion
There really isn't much you can say about pre flop strategy. It is
something that is pretty subtle in the grand scheme of things. Some
players like to take the "small ball
poker" approach and see as many flops as possible. This is usually an
advanced technique that can be stalled by making the flops expensive. In
the mean time you can decide whether you are a "small ball player" or a "home
run player".