Dal Austin


In 6-10 handed poker, there are many things you have to consider in order to be successful. You can pretty much ignore any hand in which you've "missed" the flop. Top pair, open-ended straight draw, flush draws or better is generally what you are looking for to continue in the hand. This often leads your play to be self-explanitory after you've developed your play style. Heads-up poker is an entirely different ball-game.

Heads up, I believe, creates the most skill intensive poker environment there is. It's an all-out war. Put a strong player against a weak one, and the cards rarely matter. The following is some basic strategy I use when I'm playing a heads-up no-limit texas hold'em tournament. I'll use Pokerstar's format of 1500 starting chips, 5-10 starting blinds, and timed increase of blinds every 10 minutes.

To begin, I raise the minimum for the first five hands on my action. For any of your who read my previous article, "Single Table No-Limit Hold'em", you'll realize this is a drastically different approach. The thing is that this approach is NOT about the money. I do not raise the minimum in order to put more chips in the pot. I raise the minimum in order to figure out how my opponent is going to play. You'd be surprised to know that there is a large number of people who regard hand strength in heads up play, similar to a full table. This means that they will fold a weak hand to a MINIMUM raise. That's right. As soon as your opponent folds to a minimum raise preflop, he/she has little to no shot at winning. More chips are won stealing the blinds on a regular basis than trying to wait and wait and wait until you both get strong hands and put all of the money in. This strategy will allow you to gain a small, but ever-important chip lead. Remember, in heads-up play, if you have the chip lead, you cannot lose the tournament. Obviously there are things to take in consideration when applying this early strategy, such as when he/she re-raises. If early in the game (first 2-3 hands) your opponent shows no sign of weakness by folding to the minimum bets, and a few times raises significant amounts at you, abandon the raising the minimum IMMEDIATELY! You've found out what you needed to know, time to start playing poker. However, if your opponent does show weakness, and folds a lot to very insignificant bets, then continue the strategy in a scarce mode. This means that you shouldn't do it every hand, but do so on any semi-decent hand, and stab on any flop he checks to you. Change it up in order to let him be content with his weak play. Make sure to pick a hand in which you've missed a flop, and check it the whole way. Soon as he bets, even if it is the minimum, simply fold. This will reinforce his plays of folding weak hands to your minimum raise. Keep him playing badly. Eventually as the blinds increase, your stack should become bigger and bigger, and you can eventually start going all in, or calling his all in without risking a large percentage of your own chips. When you have 5 chances to beat somebody all in, your gonna win one of them, and that's all it takes when you have the chip lead.

(Side Note: Every once in a while, you'll get a player who will call the minimum raise preflop, but never anything more. If your opponent often calls the minimum raise, re-apply the strategy with tripling the blind, and see if he bends to the pressure)

Now, if and when your opponent shows strength in his play, and possiby even aggressiveness back torwards you, it's time to play power poker. Now you are looking for an opportunity to check your opponent out of all of his chips. More often than not, an aggressive player will bet any board that's been checked twice to. Sometimes they bet too much. This is where you catch him when you've made a hand. This doesn't mean that you should become over conservative in your play, but it does mean that you aren't stabbing at pots which you've missed as often. Don't be mistaken, if you never stab at a pot on a missed flop, you'll never gather enough chips to keep up with blinds or take the lead. Two random cards do NOT pair up with 3 cards the majority of the time, so you can't sit there and wait to make a hand in order to put money in. When I say that you are looking to check your opponent out of all of his chips, this requires finding the perfect hand to do it on. Top pair is not the optimum hand to slow play. I'm more talking about top-two, split-set or better. You have to change up your play, there is no one style to play heads up all of the time (unless they show extreme weakness as I described in the paragraph above). One thing you need to understand about poker, is that EVERY rule has it's exceptions. There are always scenarios that warrant different plays than standard rules. After I've determined how my opponent is in general going to play against me, (calling most preflop raises, folding a lot, raise too much, etc...) I simply adjust to fit their style of play. Now, what I'm going to say now some people will refuse to beleive, but it is 100% true. You CAN read people online. It's simply a different type of read. Online, when you bet and your opponent calls immediately, this means that he most likely had the "check/call" button clicked. Looking at the board, this more often than not points to an open-ended straight draw, or a flush draw: the prominent hands that players don't bet, but call most anything with. Similar reads can be made when your opponent takes a long time to think. In general, if I flop the nuts, and get bet into and decide to just call, I will pause for 2-3 seconds. Calling immediately is a warning sign to players that says your hand required little to no thinking about what to do. Ideally, you should develop a habit of acting at the same speed every action, but who does that? Simply put, taking a long time to call tells your opponent you have a hand that requires time to think, and eliminates a lot of possibilities of hands your opponent might think you have. You can use this to your advantage. Slow-playing the nuts is an art form.

Taking these things to heart, and using what you already know about poker, heads-up matches can be a very profitable way to build your bankroll. Just remember, when your opponent shoves all in preflop, you can always fold and steal his blind next hand... back to where you started :)

Till next time, may your dueces set, and your kings hold!

W Dal Austin
daustin on Pokerstars