Rules of Texas Hold em
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Texas Holdem Heads Up
Texas holdem heads up odds How to beat a heads up maniac Best place to play heads upTexas Holdem heads up strategy is completely different to 9 or 6 player tournament strategy. For this reason, quite often a great tournament player will play heads up holdem very badly.
Why?
Most commonly players get into a holdem heads up situation when they get down to the final two players in a tournament. Bad heads up play can occur because they fail to adapt their holdem tournament strategy to a holdem heads up strategy. Chances are you've reached the final two by playing in a tight aggressive manner, but if you continue to play tight in a heads up situation you'll lose.
I don't expect you ever thought you'd read a texas holdem strategy advocating loose play! Make no mistake though for heads up holdem games, this is exactly what we're suggesting!
The best texas holdem heads up players play hard and loose. Heads up is more a game of bluff and nerve than any other holdem game. You can easily put your opponent in a downward spiral by continually being first to bet and making them make hard decisions
about
what kind of hand they think you have.
Once
you've got them on the run, you'll have them
folding even when they know
you don't
have a hand. Why should you play 'loose' in heads up texas holdem?
Unlike six or nine player holdem, its quite common for neither player to make a hand with any of the board cards. In this situation the high card wins so you can quite often find yourself winning hands you would never have considered playing in regular holdem.
If you play a bit looser and bet aggressively , you can easily put another player off his game, especially when you are playing online and there is a greater pressure to act quickly. If he sees bet after bet after bet come his way, he'll fold waiting for the great hand to come along. By playing loose aggressive heads up hold em, you are continually trying to steal your opponents blinds. It doesn't take long to rob the tight player of the tournament. Good bets pre flop will force the tight player to fold, you'll steal his blind and he'll never see the flop that could have made his hand.
Never play small suited connectors in heads up holdem
When playing texas holdem tournaments, you may consider entering a cheap pot with small suited connectors, in the hope that you'll get lucky with a monster draw no one will suspect.
When playing texas holdem heads up, you should never do this for the following reasons:
- Your opponent, if he is any good, will not let you enter a cheap pot, therefore the risk to reward ratio doesn't make it worthwhile.
- If you do get lucky and make that monster hand, chances are your opponent will back off. They would do this especially if you have been playing tight and suddenly play aggressively. It couldn't be more obvious that you have a great hand.
Draws and pot odds in heads up hold em.
When you are playing texas hold em heads up, forget what you know about pot odds. You've put in 50% of the pot, and haven't had lots of players contributing to the pot to help pay off your draw. If you are looking at calling a bet waiting for a draw, forget it, you'll make your draw less than 50% of the time so don't bother! However you can bet against your draw if you are first to bet, in the hope that your opponent will fold.
The
attitude you need for heads up holdem 
So
the good news is you don't need to worry about calculating pot odds,
but what does
that leave you with? Aggression! The
more
aggressive you play, the better you'll do at heads up. You
need
to act like you have the best hand each and every time. If you believe
and can portray this attitude to your opponent then they'll believe it.
If you bet pre flop, make a continuation bet after the flop
even
if it's done you no good at all. Chances are it didn't do your opponent
any favours either. So you can be aggressive, but not super
aggressive. If your bets are raised, or your opponent makes
an
aggressive bet, then fold. Texas Holdem Heads up odds
Have a look at the table below. It shows the odds of winning with each of the starting hands in heads up hold em. If you're dealt any hand in green you're favourite, any hand in blue and you have to assume your opponent is favourite to win. You'll notive that all paired hands have a pretty good win percentage with the exception of 22, because if your opponent makes a pair with the board it will be higher than this.| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | J | Q | K | A | |
| A | 55 | 56 | 56 | 58 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 63 | 64 | 64 | 65 | 85 |
| K | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 58 | 60 | 61 | 61 | 82 | |
| Q | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 60 | 80 | ||
| J | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 50 | 52 | 53 | 55 | 78 | |||
| 10 | 42 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 46 | 48 | 50 | 52 | 75 | ||||
| 9 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 43 | 45 | 47 | 48 | 72 | |||||
| 8 | 37 | 40 | 40 | 42 | 44 | 46 | 69 | ||||||
| 7 | 35 | 37 | 38 | 41 | 43 | 66 | |||||||
| 6 | 34 | 36 | 38 | 40 | 63 | ||||||||
| 5 | 34 | 36 | 38 | 60 | |||||||||
| 4 | 33 | 34 | 57 | ||||||||||
| 3 | 31 | 54 | |||||||||||
| 2 | 50 |
What to do against someone who is playing like a maniac in heads up.
Occasionally you'll come across a player (especially online) who goes all in all the time when playing hold em heads up games. This strategy will work against tight players who quickly lose their blinds waiting for a hand that's worth going all in with. When the tight player does go all in and wins, they still haven't got enough chips to be a serious threat to this guy. If you come across someone who's only strategy is to go all in, then it's basically a coin toss, as you can't let them whittle away at your chips. If you get a fairly good ace high starting hand, then match the blinds, wait for them to bet and call their all in. Note: There are only 15 other hands out of 91 'ranked' better than A 5.
More hold em heads up strategy
Ok so now you know to play looser than in a regular holdem game, to bluff and be aggressive, when faced with a tighter player and to back off until you get an ace high or paired hand when faced with a heads up maniac. What do you do though when faced with someone who is onto your game? Remember we said heads up holdem was a gamae of bluff and nerve? Well this is where the nerve part comes in! This is where continuation bets or bluffs will win you the pot but can be dangerous if you miss call your opponent.If you lose a good portion of your chips to a better player or sheer bad luck, and find yourself short stacked, then go all in as soon as you get ace high or another similarly good hand. Or if you can't wait for that, then go all in on a bluff. You can't afford to make smaller bets that your opponent can easily call. Don't limp in, in the hope that the flop will be kind to you. What if its not? It may not have helped your opponent either but if he makes a small bet you'll probably fold and you'll be further behind than before. If you go all in, he can fold, call and lose or call and win. In two of these scenarios you are the winner.
If you are holding the majority of the pot, then you've got a bit more breathing space. If your opponent is using the all in strategy to get out of a tight space, then keep folding until you have a really good hand. Don't call his all in's with a middling cards.
How much of a lead you have will determing how long you can wait for the great hand. Use your common sense. When you are the first to bet, you can raise with good cards and force him to relinquish his small blind. If he limps in with small blind, make a small raise. He can either fold or call and signal that he is slow playing a good hand. Don't pursue the hand if the flop is no help to you.
I hope these hold em heads up tips have given you a bit of insight into the heads up game. If you would like to try your hand at heads up poker online, then I would recommend playing at Full tilt as they have a great variety of heads up matches and even heads up freeroll tournaments.
