Widen Your Starting Hand Range

Playing heads up poker may require you to open up a bit and widen your horizon on your starting hand. With only two players on the board, the cards that will join the flop may be worse than when you have a full packed table. Don’t wait for premium hands since you will be playing the blinds with every hand. On the button, King Deuce suited might be a raising hand!

Know Your Position

You need to play your position in heads up poker. It is either you are on the best position or on the worst end. When playing as the dealer, play every hand and be aggressive on the preflop. You can also raise the stakes if you have pairs, suited connector, big cards and the works. As the big blind, try to be conservative and be watchful of the dealer’s raises.

Semi Bluffs vs Spot Bluffs

If you want to cash in some chips, you can play small bets to unraised pots when you got a piece of chance on hand. On the other hand, if you are facing aggressive players, you need to block his semi-bluffs and re-raise to see how he reacts

Finishing Off

In a heads up game, you need to know how to finish a game. You need to be consistent and not give your opponent a chance to crawl back into the game. Do not call off big bets or call pre-flops with a poor pair of card at hand. Just play the game and the chips will come your way.

Another important thing to remember is to know your limits and stick to your bankroll. Practice is the key to being good in the game. If you’re not confident playing in a casino, you can start by playing in online gaming sites. There are a number of sites like Pokerstars or Full Tilt Poker that offer different games including heads up poker.

Anyway – my winning strategy starts with basic knowledge on the players you’re playing with. Seeing as homegames usually have the same suspects, it’s pretty easy to find out who likes to go for draws, who bluffs a lot and who only plays the real hands. Make sure you know these things. Make sure they know your style too – and make sure they feel you are a loose cannon.

Accomplish that by bluffing. A lot. A whole hell of a lot. Take the first half our to lose 25% of your stack in bluffs. Plan on losing because of your recklessness. Plan on playing way too loose. Home cashgames always start off slower (pots will be way bigger at the end of the night!) – so early times are perfect for risky play. Show your bluffs.

Once you feel people are calling with inferioir hands pre-flop – you got ‘m where you want ‘m. Do NOT TIGHTEN DOWN YOUR PRE-FLOP GAME. Keep taking charge of a lot of pots pre-flop – you’ll get more callers – and you’ll get payed off when you finally hit a real hand against a mediocre one…

It works – good luck!