Heads up article

I'm writin one for Nick, and actually am pretty much done - all that needs to be done is proofread it and edit it.
I was wondering if anyone wanted to proofread and tell me what they thought and what needs to be improved? or maybe should I just post it here to see what people thought?

meh; i'll post it.

I really tend to ramble when I write about something I'm into, so if there's anywhere in this article you felt I repeated stuff or rambled, then just let me know




The end isn't finished yet, and needs some kind of concluding paragraph...plus I feel like something else is missing...

anyways whatcha think?

Edit: thanks for the offer, Tim...I was in the middle of posting this when I got your PM though

Shouldn't it be "If I could sum up Heads-up strategy"?

Maybe you should also point out that the dealer in heads up is the small blind. A lot of people think it's the other way around.

Holdem Hi: 1712304 enumerated boards
cards win% lose% tie% EV
Qs Kh 39.39 60.12 0.49 0.396
Ac 2c 60.12 39.39 0.49 0.604

hmm maybe should have looked into that one a little more :/
Though you should still value KQ more than A2s because of it's connecting cards and the fact that you really wont feel that safe pairing either cards with A2...
either way I'll reword that. thanks for pointing that out twiz.

Blah, some important stuff, some nitty stuff. See if you likey.




Heads up Tournament Strategy

If I could sum Heads-up strategy in one word, it would be "aggression"; though there's more to it than that.

Let's take a step back and look at a full 10-handed table. The blinds hit you every 10 hands, and you have time to literally play top-10 hands only, and still make a profit. As we move to 6-handed, the blinds hit you more frequently - every 6 hands now - and you have to adjust your starting hand requirements to make up for it. Playing just the top-10 hands isn't enough anymore since you won't be getting those premium hands often enough to make sufficient profit from them in the long run to counter the increased frequency with which you have to pay the blinds. Not to mention if you're playing attentive players, they will soon pick up that you are only playing very strong hands, making it far less likely that you will get 'paid off' on your big hands. You have to incorprate many lesser hands into your play to make up for getting hit by the blinds so often. Now as we move to heads-up play with only two players at a table, you have to be playing most if not every hand dealt to you. You will be contributing at least a small blind's worth every hand, and to make up for that you have to play with loose starting hand requirements. On top of all this, most tournament situations that you will be in are probably going to be low-M situations, essentially meaning that you are playing with a small stack-size to blind ratio. Not only should you be limping a lot more, but by raising with most of your hands, you'll be increasing your chances of winning the much-needed blinds and antes, and putting extra pressure on your opponents. You should be raising any face card, and any pair, calling with everything else, and reraising with premium hands and medium pairs. Of course every hand is different, and the rules I'm laying out for you don't apply to every situation. If you're raised by an absolute rock of a player, then you might reconsider reraising with 77.

Since most of the time neither player will even pair the flop or even the board, post-flop aggression is also important. Middle and bottom pairs are often enough to win a hand, and top pair could be compared to trips at a full table (not sure I like the top pair/trips comparison, it's a little flimsy ~C). Any hand better than top pair should be treated like gold, and you should aim to get as much money in the middle with it as possible. Preflop, the value of certain hands also changes. Suited connectors and small suited cards, ideal for multiway, limped pots which give good drawing odds, have now lost a lot of their value. The value of the cards rather than the value of suited cards goes up. For example, KQ offsuit is more valuable than A2 suited (this sentence is untrue, surely? ~C).

A tight player might as well be defined as a weak player when heads-up. I can't stress this enough: aggression is key in heads-up play. Even a hand as weak as 32 offsuit should at least be limped in with from the small blind if your opponent is consistently not raising when you limp; if not for the sake of loose starting hand requirements, then for the sake of our next topic: pot odds.

Considering pot odds strictly, it is invariably incorrect to fold your small blind preflop if your limps are unlikely to be facing a raise (I know you mention this later but it's worth stressing from the get-go to avoid confusion ~C) - and I'll tell you why. As an example, let's consider a tournament situation:

With the blinds at $100/$200 and a $25 ante, the pot starts at $100 + $200 + $25 + $25 = $350.

With you in the SB and first to act, it's $100 to call into a $350 pot, giving you 3.5:1 pot odds. Those odds are good enough to call with any hand, even with a lowly 32 as I mentioned. Even in a tournament with no antes, you'd still be getting 3:1 which is plenty good enough to call; so based on the pot odds alone, it is never correct to fold preflop. But poker is never that simple; if you've noticed that your opponent likes to steal, and you have seen him or her raise several times from the big-blind after you've limped from the small-blind, then you have to adjust your play. You can no longer limp with any two cards, and should dump the lesser hands. You'll have to use your judgement as to the range of hands you can limp with based on how aggressive your opponent is being.

Getting a read on your opponent is much more valuable heads-up since you'll be playing every hand with him. Getting solid notes such as "overbet pot with weak hands", "folds to 4+ BB raise" and "bet pot when checked to multiple times" will give you a huge edge in a game, assuming your opponent is not giving your play the same degree of scrutiny. Pay close attention, and adjust your game accordingly. Try also to switch your game up and to use your past play to your advantage. For example, say you've been raising constantly from the small-blind, and you can tell you put your opponent on tilt. He's all but ready to shove what's remaining of his chips in the middle. You're on the small-blind again, and look down to find AA staring right back at you. Here would be a perfect situation to raise it up just like you've done the last while, and hope he has a smaller pair or something like KJ and feels like taking a stand with it.

Position should also be a huge factor in your decisions. With position on a player, you have the advantage of seeing his move before you have to make yours, and thus you will be making your decisions on every street with more information available to you than your opponent has available to him. In heads-up play, the BB will be out of position for the whole hand, save preflop. This gives the small-blind a huge advantage. If the pot odds for limping from the small-blind were insufficient to call, it would probably still be theoretically correct to limp because you would have position for the remainder of the hand, making up for any disadvantage that poor preflop pot-odds would give you.

This positional advantage for the small-blind, and the positional disadvantage the big-blind has to deal with also affects how much you should be betting preflop. At a full table, the normal raise is 3-5 big-blinds. There is usually dead money in the pot from blinds, antes and possible limpers, and so your raise has to be big enough not to give favourable odds to a potential caller. Coupled with the number of players, and therefore number of possible hands that could beat you should you let them see a cheap flop, a bigger raise to isolate or win the pot immediately is the best option. Heads up, there is very little dead money in the pot, and only 2 players. This changes the size that the ideal bet range should be. It's been mentioned in more advanced strategy books that the ideal raise from the small-blind is to 2-3 big-blinds, but with the changes (and loose play) that online poker has brought, I suggest raising it to 2.5-4 big-blinds. That size of raise will be giving your opponent at best 2.33:1 odds. You don't exactly want a call while holding J9 in the small-blind, and a minraise (2 big-blinds) is going to be irresistible for your average online player. With that said, your raise from the big-blind should be much different. As I mentioned, you'll be at the disadvantage of being out of position the rest of the hand, and you'll need to raise much more preflop to make sure that doesn't happen. You want to either end the hand preflop, or end it with a solid continuation-bet on the flop should your opponent call your preflop bet. I'd suggest a range of 3-5 big-blinds on top of your already-posted blind. A raise of that size gives your opponent at best 1.67:1 odds; poor enough to make up for your positional disadvantage, and it will hopefully push out the weaker hands. Of course again, this is just strategy, and the situation you find yourself in could be one where your opponent is willing to cold-call 10 big-blinds, so you'd have to adjust your strategy accordingly. Every situation is unique. (I'm too lazy to check the maths here, but I assume it's good ~C)

You'll find yourself in heads-up situations either at the end of a multitable tournament, battling it out for big money, or maybe in a Sit n Go tournament, fighting for the only spot that pays. In an MTT, you can take a few gambles since there will still be a prize for second, though don't go too overboard considering that first place prize money is usually considerably more than second. This is especially true though if you find yourself against a particularly tough opponent, and can't seem to figure him out. Conversely, if you find yourself in a tough spot where you're given the option to gamble in a SnG, I'd suggest playing it safe, especially if your opponent is weak and you're able to outmanoeuvre him post-flop. (I don't really like this paragraph at all. The MTT bit is pretty obvious and the SNG bit isn't necessarily correct, as if the blinds are large enough when HU - which they often are - it becomes practically essential to start taking risks)

see red

thanks for the input folks; i'll post draft #2 soon.

Hey Chuck it looks great so far!

Remind me once you've emailed me the final version to remove this thread, so that the search engines don't see a duplicate article posted here

Keep up the good work!

Edit: Oh, a suggestion - something I always suggest with articles is to use sub titles whereever possible as it makes it easier on the eye for someone to read.

ty for input

I'll try to incorporate that in

I think it's just about done unless someone sees something else that needs to be improved.

What do you think about the recap? scrap it?

Draft numero deux:

Looking great sir! Mainly some nits here...


Heads-up No-Limit Hold'em Tournament Strategy

Heads-up no-limit hold'em is played with two players, the small-blind assigned to one player, and the big-blind to the other. The button is assigned to the small-blind, and is rotated between the players along with the blinds, just like at a full table. The button acts first preflop, and last on each street post-flop. Conversely, the big-blind acts last preflop, and first on each street post-flop. Heads-up play requires serious adjustments to several different aspects of your game.

Aggression and Preflop Hand Selection

If I had to choose one word to describe heads-up strategy, it would be "aggression"; but there's more to it than that.

Let's take a step back and look at a full 10-handed table. The blinds hit you every 10 hands, and you have time to literally play top-10 hands only, and still make a profit (I didn't mention this first time around, but I think it needs some kind of explanation that you're assuming a weak-average table, as at a strong full table it isn't true that you can sit on top 10 hands, simply because people will pick up that that's exactly what you're doing ~C). As we move to 6-handed, the blinds hit you more frequently - every 6 hands now - and you have to adjust your starting hand requirements to make up for it. Playing just the top-10 hands isn't enough anymore since you won't be getting those premium hands often enough or getting paid off enough with them to counter the blinds hitting you at an increased rate. On top of that, if you're playing attentive players, they should soon catch on to the fact that you're playing premium hands-only, and you'll have a harder time getting paid off. You have to widen your preflop hand selection to include lesser hands to make up for getting hit by the blinds so often. Now as we move to heads-up play with only two players at a table, we have to be playing most if not every hand dealt to you. You will be contributing at least a small blind's worth every hand, and to make up for that you have to play with loose starting hand requirements. On top of all this, most tournament situations that you will be in are probably going to be low-M situations, essentially meaning you'll be playing with a small stack-size to blind ratio. Not only should you be limping a lot ("alot" is grammatically incorrect ~C) more, but by raising with most of your hands, you'll be putting extra pressure on your opponent, thus increasing the chances that you will win the blinds and antes. You should be raising any face card, and any pair, calling with everything else, and reraising with premium hands and medium pairs. Of course every hand is different, and the rules I'm laying out for you don't apply to every situation (Perhaps a mention of why changing up your play can be important here? ~C). If you're raised by an absolute rock of a player, then you might reconsider reraising with 77, for example. The guidelines I give serve the purpose of giving you a good idea of how to play versus your average online player. Unless you're facing a naturally hyper-aggressive player (which isn't uncommon), your opponent will probably be playing a little too tight, and you have to take advantage of that.

Since most of the time neither player will even pair the flop or even the board, post-flop aggression is also important. Middle and bottom pairs are often enough to win a hand, and top pair is often enough to stack off with. Any hand better than top pair should be treated like gold, and you should get as much money in the middle with it as possible. Preflop, the value of certain hands also changes. Suited connectors and small suited cards, ideal for multiway, limped pots which give good drawing odds, have now lost a lot of their value. The actual card values should have more of an impact on your decision rather than the fact that the cards are suited or not. The value of pairs also increases.

A tight player might aswell be defined as a weak player when heads-up. I can't stress this enough: aggression is key in heads-up play. Even a hand as weak as 32 offsuit should be limped in with if your opponent is consistently not raising when you do; if not for the sake of looser starting hand requirements, then for the sake of our next topic: pot odds.

Pot Odds

Considering pot odds strictly, it is incorrect to fold your small blind preflop. Of course, poker isn't played strictly through pot odds, and this example holds true only if your opponent has not been consitantly raising you when you limp from the small-blind. As an example, let's consider a tournament situation:

With the blinds at $100/$200 and a $25 ante, the pot starts at $100 + $200 + $25 + $25 = $350.

With you in the SB and first to act, it's $100 to call into a $350 pot, giving you 3.5:1 pot odds. Those odds are good enough to call with any hand, even with a lowly 32 as I mentioned. Even in a tournament with no antes, you'd still be getting 3:1 which is plenty good enough to call; so based on the pot odds alone, it is never correct to fold preflop. But poker is never that simple; if you've noticed that your opponent likes to steal, and you have seen him or her raise several times from the big-blind after you've limped from the small-blind, then you have to adjust your play. You can no longer limp with any two cards, and should dump the lesser hands. You'll have to use your judgement as to the range of hands you can limp with based on how aggressive your opponent is being.

Reads

Getting a read on your opponent is much more valuable heads-up since you'll be playing every hand with him. Getting solid notes such as "overbet pot with weak hand", "folds to 4+ BB raise" or "bet pot when checked to multiple times" will give you a huge edge in a game, assuming your opponent isn't observant to the same degree as you. Pay close attention, and adjust your game accordingly. Try also to switch your game up and to use your past play to your advantage, and also to eliminate recognizable patterns in your game. For example, say you've been raising constantly from the small-blind, and you can tell you put your opponent on tilt. He's all but ready to shove what's remaining of his chips in the middle. You're on the small-blind again, and look down to find AA staring right back at you. Here would be a perfect situation to raise it up just like you've done the last while, and hope he has a smaller pair or something like KJ and feels like taking a stand with it.

Position

Position should also be a huge factor in your decisions. With position on a player, you have the advantage of seeing his move before you have to make yours, and thus you will be making your decisions on every street with more information available to you than your opponent has available to him. In heads-up play, the BB will be out of position for the whole hand, save preflop. This gives the small-blind a huge advantage. If the pot odds for limping from the small-blind were insufficient to call, it would probably still be theoretically correct to limp because you would have position for the remainder of the hand, making up for any disadvantage that poor preflop pot-odds would give you.

This positional advantage for the small-blind, and the positional disadvantage the big-blind has to deal with also affects how much you should be betting preflop. At a full table, the normal raise is 3-5 big-blinds. There is usually dead money in the pot from blinds, antes and possible limpers, and so your raise has to be big enough not to give favourable odds to a potential caller. Coupled with the number of players, and therefore number of possible hands that could beat you should you let them see a cheap flop, a bigger raise to isolate or win the pot immediately is the best option. Heads up, there is very little dead money in the pot, and only 2 players. This changes the size that the ideal bet range should be. It's been mentioned in more advanced strategy books that the ideal raise from the small-blind is to 2-3 big-blinds, but with the changes (and loose play) that online poker has brought, I suggest raising it to 2.5-4 big-blinds. That size of raise will be giving your opponent at best 2.33:1 odds. You don't exactly want a call while holding J9 in the small-blind, and a minraise (2 big-blinds total) is going to be irresistible for your average online player. With that said, your raise from the big-blind should be much different. As I mentioned, you'll be at the disadvantage of being out of position the rest of the hand, and you'll need to raise much more preflop to counter that by making sure you won't have to make difficult decisions on later streets. You want to either end the hand preflop, or end it with a solid continuation-bet on the flop should your opponent call your preflop bet. I'd suggest a range of 3-5 big-blinds on top of your already-posted blind. A raise of that size gives your opponent at best 1.67:1 odds; poor enough to make up for your positional disadvantage, and it will hopefully push out the weaker hands. Of course again, this is just strategy, and the situation you find yourself in could be one where your opponent is willing to cold-call 10 big-blinds, so you'd have to adjust your strategy accordingly. Every situation is unique.

Recap

-Aggression is key
-Looser hand selection is a must
-It's rarely correct to fold preflop (not sure I like this here without the clarification that it isn't always true ~C)
-Remember your position postflop when making decisions preflop


Great poker players excel in marginal situations, and heads-up play is rich with them. There are plenty of people out there who play heads-up without adjusting their game whatsoever, and because of this, there is a ton of potential profit with this quick, volatile form of poker. To make a decent profit, you'll need an ITM% (in the money) of somewhere over %50, depending how much the rake at your site is, though it's easily achievable if you play your cards right.

Good luck!

lol....well that's the below-%50 average I got in HS english coming out :P

good shtuff...thanks again for the input