What Is Heads Up Poker
May 28, 2020 Heads-up poker refers to any form of the game in which the hand is played out between just two players. Head-to-head poker in other words. Virtually any type of poker can be played heads-up. Advanced Heads Up Poker Strategy. In the advanced heads up pokerstrategy section you will find some more advanced pointers such as how to read your opponent andhow heads up play differs from 6-10 person play. You will also find some analysis of how some of the top pros play their heads up poker game. General Poker Strategy. The general poker.
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).
Many consider heads-up cash-game poker as the biggest showcase if you have a skill advantage over your opponent. The nature of the game is that everyone can beat anyone on a single given day. But long term better player will always come ahead of an inferior opponent. It can be heartbreaking when you keep losing to a player who seems to play way worse than you, and you might start to question this game format.
Heads up poker is a very profitable type of poker. Of course, luck has some part of it when it comes to a single session of heads up play. But longterm, a better player will continuously create more profitable scenarios and in the end, always come ahead of the weaker opponents. Being more skilled is just one of the factors that determine who will win.
For a single session, it also matters a lot if you are experiencing the positive or negative side of the variance. As we know, poker is a game of odds, and we do not influence how cards roll out. But it is on us to make a correct decision based on math and information we have, every time. It is crucial to maintain our mental focus at the time of playing. Being tired or annoyed will, for sure, hurt our decision-making process. And one of the most significant factors, if we will win or not still, is on us. It is called tilt.
What is Tilt?
Tilt means making suboptimal, rashed decisions that end us costing a lot of money. Professional poker players work on their mental preparation outside of poker games. There are many mental coaches, which train poker players to tilt less and how to recognize the tilt is creeping up in them. This is all to be prepared next time when you are running bad at the tables. So you know when to close the tables, if you can’t avoid tilt or take proper steps and not start tilting and keep playing your optimal A-game, despite running bad. At the end of the day, heads up poker should be the most profitable cash game option.
Why is Heads Up Poker so Profitable? With Winrate Example
In heads up poker, you get to play only against a singleopponent. This means every single hand you can exploit opponent weaknesses. Ifyou have a significant skill advantage over him, this is the best thing thatyou could wish for in poker and the opponent tilting, of course.
It is not uncommon that poker pros have double or more the winrate when playing HU compared to 6max or full-ring. You get to play almost every hand in the small blind and quite some in the BB. Compare this to 6max, where an average pro will play somewhere around 22-26% of hands. So you get to play three times as many hands. And all of those hands are played with you having the skill advantage over the player on the other side.
Sometimes poker pros would intentionally sit down against another poker pro, believing they have an edge. It often comes down to ego. To show your superiority or falsely believing you are better than your opponent. You should avoid these ego battles at all costs. They just cost you money. You sit into a table to teach an opponent a lesson, but instead, you get crushed and start tilting. Play only when you are focused and leave your ego outside of the table. Stay humble and focus on your plays and do your best to recognize the opponent’s errors.
On a rare occasion, poker pro would knowingly sit and play against a better player. This is a strategic move and gives the weaker player a chance to learn something out of a better one. In poker, making a better decision often comes in the form of making the mistakes first and then learning from it. It is how I was learning until I discovered a far more efficient way to improve my game, that cost me far less money. By joining instructional poker coaching sites likes PokerStrategy or UpswingPoker.
In fact, UpswingPoker was created by one of the best heads-up players of the time and it is a great resource to learn how to play heads up poker and start winning some serious money.
The far more common scenario you can encounter nowadays if you have a glance at the poker lobbies is noticing a bunch of Heads up tables being occupied by a player and waiting for someone to sit-in. Usually, the person that waits is a regular, often a poker pro, especially at higher limits. And the person who joins him is just a regular Joe wanting some action and enjoy a game of HU. I encourage you to do the same as the pros do. Sit on an empty table and wait for someone else joins you. This should increase your chances of playing against a weaker opponent.
There is a downside of heads-up poker being so profitable. More and more pros are stating to play heads up poker online, but luckily there is still space for more, you just need to look for a good tables a bit more.
Example of HU poker pro
To get a perspective of how profitable HU(heads up) poker can be, let me show you a YouTube video of famous HU poker player and nowadays a YouTuber, Doug Polk.
Around a 2 minute mark, he shows his graph. He played over 330 thousand hands, and his profits are consistently going up. Although, even for a great player like him, it’s impossible to escape the variance. At one point, he was breakeven for over 50 thousand hands! Let me demonstrate to you how many hours that are. Playing one table of Hu poker online usually gives you around 200 hands per hour. So it means he didn’t win for 250 hours! That means two months of playing for a poker pro and could easily be half a year to a year for a recreational player, if not more! This shows the poker variance and how, in the long run, a better player will always win. Over 330 thousand hands, his green line (profits) looks extremely smooth and continuously going up. His winnings are over $3.4 million during this time. He is earning over $10 per hand. Winrate of over ten big blinds per hundred hands (10bb/100) isn’t the best if he would be playing low stakes. You can and definitely should do better. But for his nosebleeds (highest stakes poker games), that is spectacular. He would not be able to achieve that on 6max or full-ring games.
HU vs. 6max comparison – Which is easier to play
Your winrate is indeed higher if you play HU poker. But whichone is more profitable?
What Is Heads Up Poker
When playing heads up, you generally play one or max twotables. Anything more than that and you start playing like a robot. Compared to6max where it is not uncommon to play 4-6 tables and still have a pretty goodidea of how everyone plays.
Heads up:
- Most regs play 1 to 2 tables at a time. Anything more than that and you start playing like a robot. It becomes much harder to follow the action and get solid reads on your opponent
- Playing more than 65% of hands is common
- Getting around 200 hands per hour per table
- Can make detailed notes
- Involved in hands all the time
- Need to focus always as there is no off time
- It is harder to grind for hours together
- Gets to play against weaker opponent all for yourself
- Need to wait for action, unless sitting down and playing against a good player
6max:
- Most regs play 4-6 tables
- 60-80 hands per hour on a single table
- Playing 22-26% of hands
- Can make detailed notes. But you could miss a detail or two if you weren’t involved in the hand and were focused on other tables.
- Have some time off when not involved in hands. This is due to playing fewer hands in 6max and having some time off to observe other tables in the meantime.
- Quite easy to play 2-3h together
- Can play immediately but tables aren’t as soft as in HU
The list above comes from my personal experience. I played both formats. While it is true I played way more of 6max than HU, I still have put in around 100 thousand hands of HU in my poker career.
For me playing 6max was easier. I was able to make longer sessions, and 100% focus wasn’t required every second when I was playing. When HU, my brain was tired after 2h of playing. And playing HU for a living, I was able to put in fewer hours of a grind than in 6max. I know of some poker pros that prefer to sit on empty tables and often wait 1 or 2 hours that someone even sits in on their table. But I am willing to give away the chance to play against very weak opponents all for myself. Sitting down and start playing immediately, even though with less knowledgable players and sharing them with other poker pros, is more important to me.
All of this information leaves you well equipped to make adecision on your own which format of poker you prefer.
Maybe you like to battle it up against another player constantly, and your main goal is not to make money in poker but to have fun. Then definitely just sitting down on random poker heads up table and start playing will give you the thrill you wanted. If not, then follow my advice above, and surely you will see for yourself that heads up poker is very profitable.
Good luck at the tables!
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.
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.
Is Heads Up Poker Solved
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.
Heads Up Poker Definition
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%.