If you have aspirations of winning a large poker tournament, a small poker tournament, a home game tournament or even a $1 Sit and go poker tournament then you will need to become adept at winning in a heads-up situation. The game of Texas Hold’em changes dramatically when you reach this important stage of a tournament and whilst you are guaranteed a good pay-out in comparison to your stake your biggest jump in terms of prize money faces you at this point. If you constantly get dominated in heads-up matches you will enjoy far less success than earning your fair share of first prize finishes.

1. Always Raise Pre-Flop in Position

This tip incorporates two major points to remember in heads-up poker. The first is position. When you hold the button you act first before the flop and last after the flop. Your basic strategy must be to cause your opponent to pay chips in order to catch their hand and then play the rest of the hand knowing they are out of position. Position in heads up play is very significant.

Raising is the second important point to remember. Limping in worrying about a possible re-raise is a bad strategy. You must be aggressive in heads-up play and force your opponent to make some tough decisions on the value of their hands.

2. Learn the Odds and Master the Math

Math is important in all forms of poker but maybe even more so heads-up. Every bet and check gives you information that you can feed into your knowledge of poker math to help you decide how to proceed. You need to remember things like outs to a flush, outs to your overcards and so on.

Shove or Fold if you are getting Outplayed

Hand values on a large range of hands improves against one opponent heads-up because of the likelihood your hand is best. Use Pokerstove and other tools to learn about the strength of any two cards against any other two cards. Using this information you can show a profit over time simply shoving the positive expected value (+EV) hands when you get them. If it appears every time you bluff you are raised and your chip stack is dwindling, put your opponent to a tough decision by shoving your chips and forcing coin-flips. You can often slow down a very aggressive opponent heads up if you show a willingness to fight back against their tough play.

React to your Opponents Style

Heads-up poker is an intimate form of poker where your focus is entirely on one player. As the match progresses you are constantly given new information on how hands are played. Make notes on what a check means, what a bet means and what raising means from your opponent. You can then adapt to their style. For example, if they are too tight you should bet out more and if they check when they have no hand bet and take the pot from them.

I recommend that you practise heads-up play by registering for the many heads-up Online Sit and go poker tournaments available at major online poker rooms like bwin.com. Although the stacks are level at the beginning of play the same principles apply and you will experience within these matches situations where you are the large chip leader and the short stacked player. It is time well-spent as a huge amount of money could depend on your proficiency in this type of poker format if you have a good run in a large poker tournament.

By Malcolm Clarke

I don’t know about you but I was not a natural cash game winner at No Limit Texas Hold’em. For every chip that I have earned playing poker online I have had to work for it. We will not get into my jealousy on naturally talented players or we will be here all day! Suffice to say I have worked hard getting where I am today which I believe is above average in terms of knowledge to the average poker player. One of my most profitable lessons in learning winning poker was how to play on the flop.

Winning pots on the flop is one of the best times to take the pot. This is a point of the hand before any player has shown a keen interest in the pot and establishing a strong case to win the pot with a good bet is a good strategy. Although poker players should not consider what chips they have already invested into the pot at later stages into the hand for some players defending their investment is a factor along with what they stand to win by forcing a fold. Once players are betting into a hand the likelihood of them continuing to bet and call increases as the hand plays out. Therefore the flop is a good time to take the pot and increase your stack with the blinds and the chips acquired through your opponent calling the pre-flop raise you should have made.

Standard poker strategy that is easily accessible through poker books and online poker articles recommends for players to play a wide range of hands particularly through middle and late position. This gives you a good chance to take down many pots uncontested as after the flop many players simply fold if they miss the flop.

Continuation bets are the bets made immediately after the flop. You should make these bets both with hands and as bluffs because of the message they send to your opponent. When you make a continuation bet you are sending a clear signal to your opponents that you are going to be betting throughout the hand. The incremental increases in the bets your opponents are likely to face causes them to commit to the hand straight away or fold. This makes the flop a key moment in any poker hand and this is why playing this street correctly is essential to your ability to play effective cash game poker.

Flop play can be made more difficult by your pre-flop decisions. Hands like KQ, QJ, KT or KJ are difficult to play because of the drawing hands you often flop. When an opponent is betting into you it is easy to convince yourself of the implied earnings you may obtain if you hit the hand, but remember if your opponent is playing a hand that contains an Ace they could have you soundly beaten even if you improve. Similarly, low flushes are also vulnerable.

It is important you study flop textures and be willing to fold if a bad flop texture and your opponents bets signal to you that you’re otherwise reasonable hand has been counterfeited on this occasion. If you have a tendency to overplay some hands then start being more cautious and you will limit your losses. Ideally you want to decrease the amount of marginal decisions you make.

You should vary your bets and checks in order to maintain variety and therefore deception. The flop is a very important point in the hand because each player can see 60% of the community cards and make a decision on their intentions for this hand. Avoid giving opponent’s information that if you check a bet will win the hand and if you bet you have a hand. This is a weak cash game strategy. You can do better with more deceptive plays!

By Malcolm Clarke

Poker players usually sit down for a session with a long term view in mind. Many of these players play poker online extensively often logging over one million hands over the course of a year so the swings of a daily session are of no real importance for them. In fact they do everything they can to ignore a big loss or big profit providing they are playing their best poker. Others do not take this approach and after winning a large pot they leave the table and either play elsewhere or stop playing having, in their mind at least, won the session and move on to something else.

This type of approach to poker is disliked by the many grinders and poker professionals out there. Players are tagged with a reputation as a “hit and run” merchant and sometimes even berated in the online poker chat for their willingness to leave a session early. Let’s take a look at both sides of the argument.

Why Hitting and Running Infuriates the Pros

In any form of combat, either physical or mental, there comes with it a sense of honour. In a Boxing match hitting and running would be akin to an opponent giving you one punch then calling for the bell and claiming victory because he landed a punch and you didn’t. In the spirit of the contest you expect the match to be completed and may the best man win, win or lose. In Poker it is difficult to reach a conclusion because there is no time limit on a cash game. There will be cash game tables on the biggest poker sites that have ran, albeit with many thousands of different players coming and going, for years without breaking. When is the right time to leave a session? We could write books on the subject.

Pros do not like losing and they always believe that in the next hand they will win back what they have just lost. They expect that players respect that poker is a skill game laced with luck and engage over many hands to find out who really is the best player. If you hit and run and deny a player the chance to win back what they have lost so getting a negative reaction from them is to be expected.

Hitting and running does not necessarily guarantee that you will win. In order to find your true win rate you will need to play many hands and winning one hand and leaving the table will just mean that hands that do not work out will happen later on. Variance hurts everyone no matter what poker strategies you use.

The Case for the Defence

If you know a player is better than you and you win a pot from them, why wait for the inevitable recourse which might cost you what you have just won and more? There is no rule that says you must stay and have a long battle against your opponents, quite the opposite is true. Part of the allure of cash games is that you can step into a game and leave whenever you want. Leaving early after either a win or a loss in a hand is your decision as it is your own and your money. If it infuriates your opponents, who cares?

Hitting and running is used by many players as part of a short stack strategy. Whilst other players are looking to get into deep stack situations, which are complex, the hit and run player is looking to get their money in as favourite then leave with their win. Again, it is their decision how they play their hands, even if grinding pros do not like it.

It is up to you how you play Poker. I prefer longer sessions but I encounter many players who want to earn their chips quickly and then leave. It is a bit frustrating to me, but that’s Poker!

By Malcolm Clarke

In every game of Poker you play either online or live your opponents are doing exactly what you are doing. They are trying to classify your style to help them make profitable decisions in hands against you in the future. Players try many things to combat this information gathering and one of these techniques is to check, bet, or go all-in before the next card is dealt. This is known as acting “in the dark” or “betting blind”.

It is perfectly within the rules to do this and although it is not necessarily a good poker strategy it can have some positive effects on the hand. Obviously acting in the dark is not something you can do when you play poker online but in live poker it is possible. You should not overuse betting in the dark as it is border-line in terms of etiquette and every card drawn or flop dealt has an effect on your own hand strength so it makes sense to see the cards before acting, most of the time.

When you are to act first you can say “I check” when the dealer is dealing the flop but before the cards are drawn. You see this done in cash games sometimes. This redresses the balance as your opponent must consider why you did this rather than their normal action on that street. Checking in the dark usually means some sort of strength or a plan to make a bluff at the pot at a later street. Betting directly into the player is a real statement of intent because you still have position in the hand.

What should you do if an opponent starts betting blindly like this? In most occasions simply playing ABC poker and deciding the value of your own hand and proceeding accordingly is the right path to take. Your opponent is making a very creative play and there could be a number of reasons they could be doing this. Depending on the blind levels, getting involved in a dangerous game of re-bluffing at this point with nothing could be dangerous. Having an opponent bet blind into you is rare and therefore the current hand may not be the time to get involved.

Holding a strong hand you should think carefully about why your opponent is making this unusual move. Are they simply bored and changing things up to keep themselves interested or could they have the nuts? Perhaps they hold a strong hand, but then so do you so that is no reason to panic. They are sacrificing looking at the flop or next card before acting so you may get a free card for a drawing hand. Either way betting blind is not really a good long term move so if you are careful to not get drawn into a situation you would rather avoid you will be fine.

Betting strongly into the blind bettor with a strong hand may scare away your customer so I prefer to give them some rope to allow them to make the aggressive bet later in the hand which basically says, “I bet blind indicating strength no matter what cards were coming and by continuing to bet I obviously have a great hand, you must fold”. Good post flop skills are essential to dealing with this type of play. I have found the check in the dark is usually a drawing type of hand where they would slow play if they hit and check if they missed so they are simply making the play they would make anyway, but it looks far more confusing.

Speaking with various players about betting blind they recommend thinking of your own hand strength and do not get involved in testosterone fuelled battles of ego. Treat the hand like any other and do not play into your opponents hands by considering for too long the reasons behind their unusual action. Certainly never change your play because of it because this is the exact intention of the early action, to alter your game and give them the advantage.

By Malcolm Clarke

Texas Hold’em poker players were shocked last week when one of the main poker rooms launched a new fast version of poker, Rush Poker. Many articles and commentators have lauded the launch of the rush game as a turning point in the history of online poker, but I feel that a defence of the standard cash game must be offered. There are disadvantages to the rush game, some of which are listed below.

No Tracking Software

Many of these facets of cash games can be viewed as both a positive and a negative thing. Tracking software is powerful for the regular cash game grinder with a ton of hands on their database that helps them make decisions on opponents in tricky spots. Rush poker takes this out of the equation. Without tracking software you cannot know when to fold your bottom set against a tight player, because you may not know the player is tight! If you like to use tracking software then rush poker is not for you.

Game Selection

You cannot game select on Rush poker so there may be long periods where you are seated with excellent players and you may not realise it. You may sit with players that you would never choose to sit with in normal ring games. Game selection is a big advantage because you can sit with people you know you hold an advantage over and you can only game select in standard cash game tables. In fast poker where you change your seat after every hand if you find a fish you only have one hand to take advantage of that.

Big Swings

Most players not used to the speed of rush pokers tables and game play will struggle to adapt to it in the short term. Players quickly realised that you can hold out for premium hands because you see so many hands per hour so when you have a playable hand most of the money is going to get in. There will be big swings if you find numerous playable hands per hour which could result in a big win or big loss if you get unlucky. If you are not used to swings like this you may be prone to tilting.

ABC Poker Rules

If you suffer from “fancy play syndrome” then learning the ABC style of poker that works on the rush tables will help your normal ring game play. When you transfer the skills learned to succeed at the rush tables at the slightly slower pace your advantage over your opposition can grow. Your new solid game is assisted by tracking information. I thought I played ABC poker until I went onto the fast tables. My cash game play on standard tables is now much better having made some adjustments.

It is premature to say that everyone who plays online poker will move to this new type of game and neglect standard cash game tables. Do not forget that you hold numerous advantages when you are observant and sit with the same opponents. Playing fast tables are designed for certain types of online players but as sensible considered poker sharks you can still win by playing on cash game tables where observation, patience and fundamental skills are rewarded.

Rush poker is a great innovation and for many players the answer to their online poker prayers. We will continue to offer you many good pieces of advice for standard cash games as they remain the purest form of poker online and the type of game where you can sit for many hours and show a lot of profit.

By Malcolm Clarke

Texas Hold ‘em poker online or live is a skill game, trust me on that. I have been trying to learn how to play No Limit Texas Hold ‘em poker for some years now and my recent attempts has been in the heads up sit and go games. Unfortunately for me I have realised one thing that many poker players play for years and never realise, I am not very good at them. Not liking to be bad at any part of poker I am looking at ways to improve this part of my Texas Hold ‘em poker game.

We all watch the high stakes poker players battle each other heads up. For some time Durrrr was the primary exponent of the multi-table heads up games sometimes playing heads up Texas Hold ‘em and heads up Pot Limit Omaha over four tables at once online. Isildur1 came into the fray and the action went crazy with pots over $1 million contested more than once. Now other players are learning the multi-table heads up games with regulars including Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius. Luke “Fullflush” Schwartz built his entire bankroll playing heads up and it seemed a good game to learn as it favours a skilled poker player.

Part of me wants to go back to grinding low limit cash games but I want to plug this leak in my game. So where do I go to learn? The poker training websites offer plenty of advice but they come at a subscription cost. The articles you read online can be useful but you should always read the date at which they were printed. I have come across many articles saying that you can “easily win money from online poker” which was true at the time of the articles publication in 2006 but a little more difficult to do at the back end of 2009.

A professional poker player I know told me to take the skill edge out of the heads up poker game if I feel I am playing someone who is too good for me. Many poker tournaments end this way. The players simply go all-in with a good card and put their opponent to a tough decision on whether or not to call. Perhaps it is fatigue the reason they do not engage or wanting to get their money in good and hope for the best. I have started to do this more often when playing online poker because opponents are less likely to hold a good starting hand. If they call then you are hoping to be a slightly favourite going to the showdown.

To learn from the professionals I also rail some of the high stakes online poker action between players like Tom “Durrrr” Dwan and Patrik Antonius. You must, however, choose who you watch in the high stakes world with a little bit of care. Just because a player is highly bankrolled does not mean that they are automatically playing a good standard of Texas Hold ‘em. Watch the professional players that have made their large amounts of money from poker and are known for their grasp of poker strategy. Players like Brian Townsend, Phil Ivey, Cole South, Tom Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Illari Sahamies and Aaron Jones are the sorts of players you would do well to watch closely.

My intention is to play more online poker in 2010 and build my knowledge of cash games and hopefully play in more live poker tournaments. With James Akenhead winning the Poker Million tournament British poker will undoubtedly get a lift from his success with players seeking to emulate his amazing success on the felt in 2009. My battle to learn heads up poker skills are to ensure that if I ever sit in the final two of a big tournament I can close out the win rather than find my skills wanting when the prize money leap is the biggest. Every player would do well to learn better heads up skills; hopefully we will get to battle it out for big money in the future!

By Malcolm Clarke

Heads up Poker is something you need to learn. If you want to win any tournament then you will have to beat someone heads up. That goes for any Multi Table Tournament or Sit and Go; unfortunately heads up poker is something we cannot opt out of. It is certainly difficult to master, but there are strategies available that can give you a real edge on the competition. One of the most frustrating types of heads up player is the overly aggressive opponent who just raises and creates big pots in every hand. You will encounter this regularly during your online poker hands, so you need a strategy to counter this aggressive play.

Aggressive heads up players will almost always raise pre flop and make a continuation bet. This strategy works because if you fold to either of these raises your stack will diminish. You need to be aware that your opponent cannot possibly be hitting every hand as this is mathematically impossible in heads up play. You need to be able to call these preflop raises and then decide what you want to do when faced with the continuation bets. If you notice that mirroring his strategy finds you are constantly called on the continuation bet, then you should deduce that they have a wide range and playing hands like second pair with reasonable kicker down to the river is correct. By playing aggressively they are strengthening weak hands showdown values.

It can be frustrating facing an aggressive heads up opponent because you may want to play a more cautious game and see flops to hit hands etc, but your opponent does not allow you this luxury. The strategy you must use is not like at a full table where you play tighter when the table is loose and play more loosely when the table tightens up, you must mirror your opponent as you are playing every hand in the blinds.

You should play your stronger hands harder. Rather than limping in you need to raise and plant the seed in your opponents head that you cannot be ran over and that you are ready to gamble with marginal hands, just like he is. This will create some big pots, but do not worry as these types of aggressive confrontation matches usually do not last too long. You are looking to catch a great hand and get your chips in. Anything above top pair is worth the call, even a re-raise in the right spots.

Personally I struggled in heads up because I naturally wanted to play cautiously. I kept getting dominated in heads up matches until I had lost a third of my stack and then I usually went all-in only to be outdrawn. I fared much better when I layed the law down to my opponent early in the contest and made them think that betting will not necessarily mean I will fold. Heads up sit and gos are a good way of getting some practise in to the concepts you need to learn. You will encounter crazy aggression regularly, but you will be more comfortable with it as time passes. It is something I am constantly adjusting to.

Aggressive heads up players are looking to gamble and reduce the skill edge in the game. They are looking to coin flip and unfortunately you must play along, but only when you have a hand you are willing to gamble with. The irritating time playing an aggressive opponent is when you are card dead and are forced to repeatedly fold. Do not panic, just wait until you hit something and go all-in. I have found that once you take a big pot that does not end the match most players tend to slow down a little and wait for reasonable hands before committing. Now you can turn the tables and give them a taste of their own medicine. It is very satisfying!

By Malcolm Clarke

There is a tendency for players to want to check monster hands in the hope that their opponents will bet. This addiction with being deceptive is one that is widespread amongst many poker players. However it is based on misconceptions brought about by seeing other forms of poker and through not understanding the differences.

For example, let us look at a limit Texas Hold’em poker game where one player raises from a steal position and the big blind called with A-J. The flop came A-7-4 and the big blind decided to check and then call to disguise the strength of his hand. In this instance a check could induce his opponent to keep on firing on the betting rounds where the limits double.

So in this instance the slowplay is viable. Or how about taking a situation from tournament poker! A player with 18 big blinds open raises and the big blind calls. The big blind has a stack that is not much bigger than the pot size and when they check, our hero who has flopped top two pair and in this instance decides to check it back.

Texas Hold’em Cash Games

Here the payoff or potential payoff is your opponent’s entire stack as they may decide to launch a bluff attempt based on your apparent weakness on the flop when you checked. Look at the differences here with no-limit cash games, one instance was a limit game where the reward for not betting on the cheap better round on the flop could have been extracting bigger bets on the turn and river and the other was in a tournament where the blinds had risen so sharply that the average stack size was small compared to the size of the blinds.

Now compare these examples to a deep stacked no-limit Texas hold’em online poker game where both players had 100 big blinds before the hand started. Our hero raises before the flop to 3.5 big blinds and it gets called by the big blind. The pot has now around 7 big blinds in the middle if you factor in the small blinds money and the rake. Our hero has Q-J and the flop comes A-K-10 to give him the nut straight.

Simply Make The Bet

The big blind checks and I see many people check behind in this situation. But what this has effectively done is to reduce the hand from four betting rounds to three. What this means is that stacking your opponent will now be that much more difficult simply because the pot will not escalate enough with one less betting round.

If our hero checks this hand and another straight card comes like a jack then not only may his opponent hold a queen for a split pot but if they don’t hold a queen then the board looks so scary that all future action will dry up anyway.

If you bet the flop and your opponent folds then the chances are that there was nothing to win anyway. But if our hero had bet say 5 big blinds on the flop and that bet was called, this would have then placed 17 big blinds in the pot for the turn round. Another pot sized bet and call on the turn would have put around fifty big blinds in the pot by the river which is now close to being an all-in situation.

This article was produced by Carl “The Dean” Sampson

Bluffing is an integral part of online poker and especially in high-stakes poker games. The levels of aggression in these games means that bluffing and being bluffed are common themes! Short handed and heads up play demand aggression but then again, you must do your fair share of bluffing in full ring games as well and even in situations where you feel bluffing should be at a premium.

Limit hold’em has a very big presence in online poker and there are many people who think that full-ring limit play is devoid of bluffing opportunities. There are ample bluffing chances that crop up in limit play and you must be alert to them otherwise you will be in serious danger of missing out on vital profit opportunities that will form the bread and butter of your earn rate.

Let us look at an example to show exactly what I mean. The game is $10-$20 full-ring limit hold’em and you are playing online poker. Here you have the Jc-5c in the big blind and three players limp in so you see a free flop. The flop comes 10h-6c-3c and you decide to bet into three opponents with your flush draw and overcard.

Your bet gets called by one of the limpers but raised by the button, both you and the limper call. The turn card is the 7s giving you an inside straight draw to go with your other outs as well. You check and to your surprise so do both of your opponents. The river card pairs the seven and now the betting is on you.

Here, many players would neglect to bet here in the big blinds situation. They would fear having two opponents with no hand and a player who raised on the flop. These are all valid arguments but your bet represented something on the flop and that was top pair. Your opponents checking this back on the turn indicates players who may be drawing.

The limper who called your flop bet and then called the turn raise could have merely been getting pot odds. Online poker is jam packed with situations like these and you need to be aware. The play of the flop raiser smacks of someone who was raising to get a free card and when they checked the turn then this seemed to be indicative of that.

You cannot win by checking as a jack high will not take this pot but you are getting very good pot odds to launch a bluff. Many novice players forget about the pot odds when looking to launch bluffs in limit play. They also neglect to take into account the play of the hand up until that stage as well.

Here it was a combination of the pot odds and the situation that indicated that a bet was in order and is all part of online poker strategy. If the flop raiser had followed through and bet the turn then you would have been forced to call and your initiative would have been lost in the hand. You couldn’t really then bet the river into this player and would have been merely making a pot odds call on the turn.

Online poker in all of its various forms is rich with variety and bluffing is what makes the game as exciting as what it is. But try to bluff intelligently and not blindly.

This article was written by Carl “The Dean” Sampson

These days there are vast numbers of articles all over the internet that talk about how to play poker before the flop, on the flop and on the later betting streets as well. The problem here is that there are so many different views and opinions coming from so many different sources that it isn’t any wonder that many players become confused.

You will hear novices ask about “perfect pre-flop play” and what it is. Many believe that perfect play is something that can be learnt from hand charts and other such mechanical devices. This is basically illusory in nature as true “perfect” pre-flop play is something that can never ever be attained.

THE HOLY GRAIL OF POKER

This is for the simple reason that poker is a game of incomplete information so you can never know what your opponents are going to do and what their hands are. But we can take the hand charts and card dependent strategies onto a whole new playing field by having no strategy that is set in stone.

This is probably the Holy Grail as far as pre-flop play is concerned. If you can properly tap into the game conditions and dovetail your play around that then perfect pre-flop play suddenly gets a whole lot nearer to being reality. Back in the days when I used to play just one table, I could feel the game out quite well.

CHANGING POKER DYNAMICS

I knew just who was raising and how often and what types of hands they were raising with. This was years before I started using Poker Office (www.pokeroffice.com) and yet I could still dovetail my pre-flop strategy very well. It takes experience to be able to feel games out like this but you can do it if your concentration levels are high enough and you are only playing two tables at the most.

I could tell who the solid players were and whose blinds I could attack and who was likely to come back over the top of me with a re-raise. I also don’t feel that tracking software does this more accurately than a highly developed feel. Where these items really come into their own are when you are multi-tabling as you cannot feel numerous tables at the same time anyway!

In many ways, deviating your pre-flop play depending on game and player dynamics is the ultimate level that you can achieve in poker. Multiple level thinking really starts to take this on to a whole new level but you can sometimes literally own certain players when you know what they are going to do before they even do it.

Also, optimal pre-flop play is dependent on what the prevailing game dynamics are in all forms of poker and not just texas hold’em. If you are playing Pot Limit Omaha or Limit Hold’em then what you do pre-flop is still based on what your opponents are likely to do.

OLD POKER ADVICE IS STILL SOUND

The old advice in poker that you should be striving to do just the opposite of what everyone else is doing is perfectly sound. If your opponents are tight then playing tightly may not win you much money at all but opening up and playing aggressively just might.

Think of all those stolen blinds and forced laydowns that more aggressive players would have played back at. Opening up and attacking is the optimal way to play when your opponents are tight and defensive.

This article was written by Carl “The Dean” Sampson