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Playing Heads Up Poker

Playing Heads Up Poker successfully is a useful weapon to have in your poker armory. Here is a guide in how to play and more importantly win, one poker player against another, otherwise known as Heads Up.

How To Hammer Your Heads-Up Opponents

Heads-up Texas Hold’em is poker in its purest form. When you’re in a head-to-head battle for chips and glory, you don’t have the luxury of waiting around for premium hands and it takes a real poker player to take K5 off-suit into battle. Here are some tips to help you destroy your opponent when you end up in a poker duel.

Be Aggressive

Limping is for wieners. When you’re heads-up, you have to put pressure on your opponent with every move you make. That’s not going to happen if all they have to do is check and see a free flop (see cheap flops). If your hand is too weak to raise from the small blind, fold.

Exploit Position

Your opponent (and you) will miss the flop the vast majority of the time. Exploit good table position by raising from the small blind pre flop and continuing your aggression on the flop. It will be difficult for your opponent to continue playing without a real hand when you’ve shown so much strength.

Adjust To Your Opponent

You’ll learn more about your opponent’s playing style in 5 minutes of heads-up than in 5 hours of full ring play. Use that information against them. If they’re too passive, raise more often. If they’re too aggressive, trap with your monsters.

Change It Up

Take a weak line with your big hands. Take a strong line with your weak hands. Then once your opponent thinks that they have your style pegged, you can switch and start playing strong hands strong and weak hands weak. Then switch back. Keep your opponent off balance.

Heads-up poker is an important skill to master. It will improve your return-on-investment for both Sit-N-Goes and Multi-Table Tournaments, but more importantly it will improve your reading skills and help your overall game improve. There are an abundance of excellent poker rooms to play Heads Up.

Play Heads Up all the Way to the WSOP Main Event

Ever thought that you could play heads up battles all the way to the main event of the WSOP? Well that's exactly what is on offer. In fact, pay just $5.50 and win 11 heads up matches in a row and you will play heads up (game worth $6,500 buy in) for a seat at the main event 2009. On Bet365Poker, simply register and go to the Specials tab - look for the Last Man Standing WSOP tournaments.

To get involved, visit Bet365Poker.