Heads Up – Know Your Opponent

As you know, the key to winning Heads Up poker is by adjusting your play depending on your opponent. At low-stake games this can be very simple due to the games being heavily populated with players who act solely on their own cards. These players will continue if they hit their hand and fold otherwise, completely ignoring the amount of strength that their opponent represents.

Players like these are extremely easy to identify and even easier to exploit by simply playing their hands instead of your own. As soon as you see signs of strength.. fold, unless of course you believe you have a stronger hand. When you see signs of weakness.. bet. Slow-playing and bluffing this type of player will not work due to their thinking being limited to their own cards. These players are known as first-level thinkers.

Take Notes!

As you move up into the higher stakes you will encounter less and less first-level thinkers. Instead you will be playing against players similar to yourself, who will try and work out what cards you’ve got before acting. These players are known as second-level thinkers. When playing against second-level thinkers you will need to disguise your own hand while trying to work out what hand your opponent has. The main way to do this is by observing what hands they play and how they play them. And most importantly take notes. Below are a few examples of what you should be noting down to get a better read on your opponent.

• Hands your opponent raises with pre flop.
• Hands your opponent limps / calls with preflop.
• Hands your opponent bets with on the flop / turn / river.
• How frequently your opponent cbets.
• How often does your opponent slow-play with a big hand.

Playing With The Sharks

This is where it gets complicated. Every now and then you will play against, what we call, third-level thinkers. These are extremely rare in low stakes, but you will encounter them every now and then in the higher stakes. These are players who take into consideration who try to work out what you think that they have or sometimes even what you think that they think that you have.

Get it?

Probably not. But these are the players who put a lot more thinking into every decision that they make and are the players that you really want to watch out for. If you have any weaknesses, they will exploit it.

“I had raised pre-flop with A-K and he called from the button. The flop came all small cards. I checked and he fired a pot-sized bet. I looked at him and said, ‘You must have a good hand.’ His reply caught me off guard; ‘It doesn’t matter what cards I have if I know what cards you have.’  - Paul Wolfe.

Above is a quote from Paul Wolfe explaining a hand at his first World Series of Poker tournament in 2002 showing how even the top pros will have tells. Your main task always has to be to identify these as quickly as possible and exploit them as much as possible while disguising your own style of play and keeping your tells to a minimum.

Best Poker Sites for Heads-Up Games

• If your new to Heads-Up games we recommend that you start by playing low stakes HU SnGs. Ultimate Bet is an ideal site for this with their HU SnGs starting from around $1.10 making them perfect for Heads Up newbies.

• If your looking for a large amount of Heads-Up games ranging from mid-stakes to high-stakes then we recommend Poker Stars.

See you at the tables!

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