To many, heads up is the purest form of poker. Playing heads up forces players to utilize many different skills in order to be successful. Some of the many skills include the ability to read hands, bluff (in correct situations), adjust constantly to your opponents playing styles, and value bet thin.
Poker Hand Rankings - Texas Holdem Starting Hands Chart. Expected value is the average number of big blinds this hand will make or lose. For example: AA from the Small Blind in a $3/$6 game will make, on average, 2.71 times the big blind, or $16.20 per hand (2.71. $6). On the other hand, 22 from the Button (D or Dealer position), will make -$0.12 EV, or -$0.72 in a $3/$6 game (6.$0.12). Aspire Global International LTD (or 'The Company') is a company registered in Malta for the purposes of operating online games and mobile average hand heads up poker application games with registration number C42296 and registered office at 135 High Street Sliema Malta.
Another important skill that heads up players must develop is hand selection. When first starting out, some players will play nearly every hand (even out of position). They seem to think that they need to over compensate for heads up play. Other players will not play nearly enough hands causing them to lose money due to the blinds and/or their opponent's steals.
But just like anything else in poker (some will say life too), balance is important. In regards to heads up poker hand selection, you must find a middle ground between playing too many hands and not playing enough. And to help with that, I have created a basic starting hand guide below.
HU Poker Starting Hands - On the Button (In Position)
The button in heads up poker is no different then the button in a 6-max or full ring game - you will have position throughout the entire hand.
Because of the positional advantage, the button is where you should have the widest hand range. Many players will start by opening 100% of their hands and slowly shave their range back to adjust to how often they're being played back at by their opponent.
At the bare minimum, I will open up every suited connector, 1 and 2-gapper, broadways and pairs. I will also open any ace, king and most of my queen and jack hands with a kicker of 5 and above (all queens and jacks if suited). Any suited ten-x hand is good enough for me to open as well. If you were to look at all of these hands in Poker Stove, my range would be in the neighborhood of 70% at minimum.
Keep in mind that your range should fluctuate somewhat depending mostly on your opponent, game flow and at times even your image. If your opponent is 3-betting you relentlessly, you should open less, folding out hands you can't defend to 3-bets with. A majority of the hands you open you should be able to defend or 4-bet. On the other hand, if your opponent folds a lot pre or plays fit or fold on the flop, you can widen your hand range, sometimes playing as much as 100% of hands dealt.
When facing a 3-bet, I will have a slightly smaller range. I will generally defend versus 3-bets with any pair, any broadway, any suited ace and about half of my suited kings and queens (like K9/Q8 suited and above). I also defend with some suited connectors and one gappers like J8s or T9s. It's really villain dependent, but this should give you an idea of where I start at least.
HU Poker Starting Hands - In the Big Blind (Out of Position)
When playing heads up poker, the player in the big blind will be the player who is out of position for the entire hand. This is a huge disadvantage and because of this, you should tighten up the range of hands that you defend with.
As a rule of thumb, I will defend any pair, any suited ace, A9 off-suit and up, almost all of my broadways and suited connectors/1-gappers like J8s and maybe T9s. Looking at Poker Stove, my hand range will be close to 35% or 40% out of position. About 10% of these hands (suited connectors, suited kings, some suited queens) I will 3-bet with preflop.
Again, it's important to realize that this is more or less a default hand range. You should be adjusting the hands you're defending with according to how tight/loose your opponent is. The tighter your opponent, the tighter the hand range you should be defending with. The looser your opponent, the wider you can defend.
HU Poker Starting Hands - Summary
Average Hand Heads Up Poker Table
It should be painfully obvious that your opening hand range in a heads up game is much wider than what it would be in a 6-max or full ring game. If your preflop hand range isn't this wide (or close), you're too tight and you should widen up as it is likely costing you money.
At the same time, I hope that you noticed that none of my preflop ranges outlined above are set in stone. Starting hand ranges in any poker game shouldn't be. You should be basing your preflop hand ranges based on your opponents, game flow and image. Your exact hand range will always be fluctuating.
So while a guide like the one I posted above will definitely help you in becoming a better heads up player, knowing how to adjust for the different in-game variables will help you in becoming not only a profitable heads up player, but a profitable poker player overall.
Erik Seidel 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Champion
Heads up poker is a form of poker that is played between only two players. It might be played during a larger cash game session, where the game is breaking up and only two players remain on the table, or where two players are trying to start a game and playing heads-up while waiting for other opponents. It is also a necessary phase in most sit-and-go (SNG) poker tournaments; the single remaining tournament winner will at some point have to face only a single opponent. Alternatively, heads up poker may be played on purpose, either in a cash game format, or as a SNG, where two players play a winner-take-all tournament for a fixed, previously agreed upon amount of money. On larger online poker rooms and during certain tournament series, one may stumble upon larger heads up tournaments, usually in the shoot-out format. Usually, in order to ensure the fairness of the game, all players finishing at the same level of the tournament bracket will be paid out the same amount of money, no matter what their finishing place is.
Strategy[edit]
The rules of heads up poker are the same as in a game with three or more players, except in community card poker, the blinds are usually reversed in order to decrease the positional advantage in matches between two players of similar skill. Nevertheless, the strategy employed tends to be vastly different from a multi-handed poker game. Since only two players take part in the hand, the chance of having the best hand is much higher than in a multi-handed game, which causes the game to become more aggressive than normal. Bluffs for example become easier to pull off in a heads up game since it is only necessary to bluff a single opponent in order to win the pot, whereas in a multi-handed game there is a greater risk of someone having a big hand that cannot be bluffed.
In spite of the diversity of strategies one can design, it is important to remark that the heads-up limit Texas hold'em variation has been claimed to be 'essentially weakly solved' in January 2015 by the Cepheus poker-playing bot. Theoretically a slightly better strategy exists but would not be able to win more than one big blind per thousand games on average. A person using that strategy would not be able to prove with statistical significance that it was better than Cepheus even with a lifetime of playing against it.[1][2]
The bot can be played online at poker.srv.ualberta.ca, and users can even query strategies from the software.
Tournaments[edit]
In poker tournaments heads up poker is played as individual events and there are also heads up championships. Heads up poker tournaments are typically played as knock-out tournaments. An example of a heads up tournament is the National Heads-Up Poker Championship.
References[edit]
- ^Bowling, Michael; Burch, Neil; Johanson, Michael; Tammelin, Oskari (Jan 2015). 'Heads-up limit hold'em poker is solved'. Science. 347 (6218): 145–9. doi:10.1126/science.1259433. PMID25574016.
- ^Emily Conover (8 January 2015). 'Texas Hold 'em poker solved by computer'. Retrieved 15 January 2015.
Heads Up Poker
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