1 on 1

I just had a quik question, When playing 1 on 1 i have tried a few different stratagies but they do not seem to work. I play a lot of tournaments and cant do better than 2nd. Any help on this would be awsome. Thanks

Forner

lower your hand standards..when its down to 2 guys then your chances of winning iwth a high pair are so much higher

When you are heads-up you MUST play the person, not the cards. Ace high wins many pots, but the key to shorthanded play is you have to trust your reads.

Yes, you must go with your reads at that point. If you do not have a read you will have to pay for some information which I find that a lot of people do not do. I played on Saturday night against a few people who only played the cards and you could tell so I bluffed them out of so many pots. Remember cards mean NOTHING when you are heads up. You are gonna have to play an 8 5 offsuit like you would play AK.

A thing I do a lot and works most of the time is I wait for a strong pocket hand then raise it quite high, not to high that he folds unless he raises then ill reraise him and then if I win hes down a lot and im in a stronger pos to win the rest.

Kudos...so true and on the other token slow playing monster hands and then hitting up slight raises is also a key...all in situations should only be presented by the other player unless they are playing very aggressive and u think u can get a call. But most players will call a small raise thinking ur "stealing" the pot they may even raise you.

When playing HU you need to mixup play and yes definitely stick to your instinct. Keep in mind that the other playing could have anything. Take special note of how your opponent is playing certain hands such as draws, top pair, mid, and bottom pair on the flop turn and river. So many factors can attribute to any decision in poker and this is especially important in HU play. Playing online is a little more difficult to get a read on a player, but noting your opponents style of play is important. Every time you get to see a hand of your opponent, that is valuable information that can be used in later hands. The more you play HU or one on one the better feel you will get. If you play on pokerstars I suggest playing some $5 HU matches on pokerstars or other sites if they offer them. The more hands you play heads up the better you will be come, and HU play will increase ability to read opponents as it is essential to winning in any HU match.

what i try to do is if i got my self a good hand like a 10 ... or and 2 over cards in rasie the blind about 2 or 3 tiems what its worth.... and if i got my slef a pocket pair just check of pay the small blind so that if u hit the set that poor fella at the other end of the table just walked in to a bomb.... and if the blinds r quite high...i'll just check and soft paly it hoping i ceath him trying to buy the pot on the river and rasie him