Heads up poker requires a different skill set than a normal 10-handed ring game, and in this article all poker sites list will introduce you to a good heads up strategy.
Since there are only two players in the game, you’ll have to play a much higher percentage of your hands to compensate for being in the blinds every single hand.
In a 10-handed game, you’re only in a blind 20% of the time. However, in a heads-up game, you’ll be in either the small blind or the big blind every single hand, as they alternate between each player.
As a result of this, you have to play much more aggressively to be a profitable player when you play online poker.
The first adjustment you should make to your game is to open up your starting hand range.
If you are only playing pocket pairs or face cards, you’ll be folding way too often and will blind away quickly.
In reality, when you’re in the small blind you should only be folding the absolute worst of hands. If your opponent is a passive player, which you’ll often find at an online poker site, you really should never fold in the small blind preflop, as you have 3:1 pot odds to make the call.
When you do pick up a decent hand in the small blind, I recommend raising because you will have position on the flop and beyond.
Any hand like 910s or 44 or KJ off suit is worth a raise, because you are highly likely to have a better preflop hand than your opponent.
This is especially true if you are playing a passive opponent, because they’ll throw a lot of hands away preflop and you’ll pick up their blinds.
When you’re in the big blind, it’s a different situation.
If your opponent just limps in, I recommend raising with strong hands, and checking with everything else.
Since you’re out of position I would only be raising with mid-high pocket pairs, and big suited cards.
If you’re in the big blind and your opponent is raising a lot from the small blind, you should be calling with anything reasonable because its clear that they’re raising a lot of mediocre hands, so it doesn’t make sense for you to fold your mediocre hands.
On the flop I like to lead out with a bet if I was the preflop aggressor, or check if I made a call preflop.
If you actually have a piece of the flop, you can either slow play the hand or play it straightforward.
I like to mix these two options up, as it keeps your opponent off guard.
For example, one time when you hit top pair make a continuation bet, but the next time you hit top pair check-call him until the river.
If your heads up poker opponent is a very aggressive player, you’re going to have to stand up to him/her to make sure you aren’t getting bullied.
If they’re betting every flop, make sure to at least call if not raise a lot of the time just to keep them honest and to take down the pot when they have nothing.
If you continually allow your opponent to take down pots on the flop when you miss, you’ll find yourself out of chips very quickly.
Of all online poker games, heads up is the most intense kind of poker.
