Heads-Up Button Opening Strategy Heads up poker requires us to play many hands. We need to be stealing the blinds more often from our opponent than in any other form of poker, and this means raising often from the small blind (Which is also the button in Heads-Up play). Heads Up Poker Button Position, seven stars gambling, casino de tragamonedas de cleopatra 2 gratis, slot nigeria ltd ikeja. Button opening hands - beginner Heads up poker requires us to play many hands. We want to be stealing the blinds more often than in any other form of poker. Against an unknown opponent we should be opening 100% of the hands we have when in position (on the button). We can double the blinds to achieve this or 2.25x when opening. Below you can find basic poker table position names: Closest positions immediately to the left of the button are called early positions (abbreviated as EP). Closest positions immediately to the right of the button are called late positions (abbreviated as LP).
If you are a live player or new to poker, youmight not know about the popular variant of Holdem that poker players playonline. It is called heads up. One player against another one. Both are tryingto outplay each other and win money. If you are confused about who posts theblinds and who is the button, then this article will be perfect for you.
If you doubt if heads up poker is beatable, check this article I wrote and keep in mind that the graph in the YouTube video show profits in millions of dollars.
The blinds and button in heads up poker isplaced as follows; button will alwayspost the small blind, while the other player will post the big blind. Postflop, the big blind will act first, and the person who posted a small blind(button in our case) will remain in the position. Next hand positions of theblinds and the button will switch. And the player who was big blind before willbe small blind and button now.
In Heads Up poker, the button acts first preflop and last postflop. This is quite different from the 6max or full ring tables where small blind will always be first to act postflop, followed by the big blind.
In HU, the player on the button (BTN) will play more hands compared to the button on 6max and full ring games. If we are on the BTN on an HU game, we have already invested half of the blind and can raise to 3 big blinds (bb) total and have a chance to win the pot immediately. Let me remind you that the main goal in poker is to win the pot, and winning only the blinds with a random hand is a great result already. We risk 2.5bb – we already posted 0.5bb as small blind (SB) – to win 1.5bb.
Table of ContentsPreflop Heads Up Play
Playing the Button in Heads Up Poker
A button will be first to act and decidewhether he wants to raise, fold, or call. Usually, you would want to raise ifon the button. Sometimes you might limp a few hands, sometimes none. The veryworst hands, you would go ahead and fold.
Depending on the opponent, you might also develop a different strategy where you limp more or play tighter in general. Especially against maniacs that 3bet you almost every hand, you need to consider opening smaller. You can even consider limping, but generally should be avoided as by limping you cannot win preflop. But against an average player raising most hands should be your priority.
Like I mentioned, the standard raise on the BTN is to make it 3x total preflop. And you should be opening around 70% of hands. Stick to opening that much hands on the button: Later, you can adapt depending on the opponent’s play style.
Now it is on the big blind (BB) to decide if he wants to call or 3bet you preflop. In a game of poker, a position is crucial. If you put up two players with the same skill against each other, they will always win on BTN and loose on BB.
If you are deep, 200bb, and more, then the positional advantage is even more important. Deeper, you are the better it is for the guy that has the position. Now I would be opening almost all if not all hands. If I get 3bet, that’s fine, I can defend wide, as we are deep. Plyer out of position will have a much harder time playing in deep pots.
If you play with shallow stacks of around 50bb, then you should also be opening less. Big cards count even more. Don’t rely on hitting too many sneaky straights as there are not many implied odds to ht your draws. With implied odds, I mean how much we are to win when we hit the draw.
Playing the Big Blind in Heads Up Poker
It is very, very hard to win playing out ofposition in heads up. Primarily we need to consider that we lose 1bb by postingthe big blind.
On the BB, we will defend with much fewer hands than we will open on the BTN. The majority of mediocre hands are just folded. With semi playable hands, we can call. With the very best of our range, we will 3bet. In total, I play around 35%-45% of hands on the big blind. This includes my 3bet range. Our 3bet strategy depends a lot, depending on what the opponent calls us with. If we dominate a lot of hands that button defends with, then we can get away with 3betting more. I like to 3bet somewhere in the range of 15% hands.
If you want to know which hands are those, download Equilab from here and put in 15% range of hands. This tool is free. And you download it for free. Go to Poker Tools and scroll to the bottom. It is under free tools. It is an excellent free software to practice your preflop and postflop ranges.
Postflop Heads Up play
The big blind is first to act post-flop. It sucks to play out of position (OOP). We don’t want to build the pot if we missed the flop. If we have a draw, we have a hard decision again.
I could write a few articles just about out of position strategy when playing HU. In general, you want to stick to play straightforward. And avoid huge pots if you don’t have good hands.
If you are a button, then postflop is your bread and butter. You will play in position the rest of the hand. You can either decide to take the pot down by a continuation bet. You can check to keep the pot small and seeing a free turn card. You can make a delayed continuation bet on the turn after checking back the flop. You can mix up your strategy and keep opponents guessing every time how good hand you have.
If an opponent shows weakness, you can put a lot of pressure on him, if you have a read on him. Weak players will often play very straightforward OOP and will basically tell you when they have a good hand or if they missed the board. But remember it is worse if you choose the wrong hands to try and bluff with than play straightforward.
On low stakes, you can get away with playing straightforward OOP and still make money. Firstly focus instead on the preflop game and your button post play. Once you master those, then you start learning OOP strategies.
Adapting to the opponent in heads up games
One vital thing that many low stakes players disregard is adapting to our opponent. Readless, we will do fine by opening 70% of hands and raising to 3bb preflop. Consider making the following adjustments if your opponent doesn’t play as the majority does:
- If you see opponent folding a lot, then it is time to raise more than 70% of hands on the button
- If the opponent is passive and a calling machine, then value bet our stronger hands bigger. With weak hands. It doesn’t make much sense to bluff him, so check back with weak hands and take free turns and rivers.
- If the villain is 3betting a lot, then start opening less than 3bb preflop. It is a good idea also to fold more preflop. Someone who 3bets a lot is usually also aggressive postflop. Against such guys, you can slowplay your good hands and let them bluff.
- If the opponent plays very straightforward and shows weakness, then bluff more on flops turns and rivers.
Example 1
Let me demonstrate the following case. Weare up against a maniac, who 3bets almost every hand. With our QT offsuit weare in a range advantage against him preflop. I gave him a range of 75% of hishands. So our QTo is good enough to defend. My preflop adjustments against suchplayer would usually be:
- Tighten my preflop raising range so that I can protect more vs. his 3bets
- Make smaller preflop raises. 2x or 2.5x. This makes it cheaper for us to fold to a 3bet or keeping the pot smaller when we call the 3bet.
- Someone who is a maniac will bluff a lot postflop. Often we could slowplay our stronger hands. In our case, this wasn’t needed as the opponent made It obvious he wants to commit by betting large on the flop.
The action played as follows. He makes a continuation bet on the flop I make a small raise and opponent shoves. His hand? 79o. And we won a nice 202bb pot, and half of the blind went away because of the rake. If we are smart, then we get a big portion of the rake back. That is called Rakeback.
Example 2
Let’s have a look at one more example. Itis a shallow table with 50bb. Here we hold QQ preflop. And the read on ouropponent is that he is passive and a calling station (calls a lot, another termis call machine). We raise to 3x because we want to get value for our goodhand.
Flop is perfect for us. It has quite somedraws, and the opponent could have a draw or a pair here easily. We value betand get called. On the turn, the only draw that completes is 56, but there aremany more that missed. So our decision with pot-sized bet left is easy; weshove all in. Opponent calls and shows A9 of clubs. The river is a king ofdiamonds, and we win a nice pot.
Against calling stations, you should focuson getting value with your good hands. Do not bother bluffing as they don’tfold. If they are passive and they start betting, you can be sure they have hitsomething decent.
Winrate Playing Heads Up
In heads up poker, you can expect to make more money than in 6max or full-ring play. I am a no expert in playing HU, but I am a winner nonetheless. If you are an excellent HU player, then you can expect to make close to a double of my winrate on low stakes.
As you can see from the winnings by position, I am doing good on SB (button) and losing on BB. This is entirely normal and expected. In fact, I should be winning even more on the button. My winrate for the big blind is decent enough.
Just like I told you, I play around 70% of hands on the button. You should cbet a decent amount on flops. I think around 75% is fine if you are not getting check-raised often. My 3bet of 17% is also in the standard range.
How Long Does it Take to Learn Heads Up Poker?
Playing heads up is always beneficial as it helps you understand the game better. You will be a better hand reader if you decide to move to 6max or full ring after.
This answer depends much on your current understanding of the poker game. If you already play professionally, then a month should be enough to beat the games. If you are starting and want to learn heads up, then it takes longer. I would say anywhere from few months up to a year to be able to play professionally. And around 2 to 6 months to be a winning player at lower stakes.
Your time will be reduced dramatically if you find yourself a proven winning heads up poker coach. Instead of losing money at the tables when starting, it makes a lot of sense to join a poker coaching website, like this one. It is not too expensive, and it includes in-depth strategy videos from the guy that has won millions playing heads up poker against the best players.
Now you have everything, from basicstrategy to links to resources where you can learn this beautiful game indepth. With enough willingness to learn, you can become a great HU player.
Can you Count Cards in Poker?
Itis impossible to count cards in poker in a similar way that it is in blackjack.In poker, a deck is shuffled after every hand. It doesn’t matter which handsyou got dealt in the previous hand. In the new hand, you will receivecompletely random hands.You can, however, count your outs to win the hand.
This means that you roughly know how many percentages you have to win the hand. Let’s say you hold a nut flush draw with no pair on the flop. Your outs are all cards that complete the flush and maybe all of the aces if the opponent has only a pair. So that is 9 outs for the flush and 3 outs for the Ace. This gets you very close to a coin flip. It still depends if the opponent blocks any of your outs. Maybe your opponent has only a 2nd nut flush draw with no pair on the flop. Now you are a big favorite to win the hand.
Those outs might not be always live outs. Let me explain. Let’s say you are holding an open-ended straight draw on the flop (87 on 562 flop). You think you have 8 outs to hit your straight. So about 32% on the flop. If your opponent holds blockers to your hand (pair of nines), then you might have only 6 outs, so you are down to around 24%.
Bryan Pellegrino has spent years building up an image as one of the most feared high-stakes heads-up sit-n-go players online.
Playing under the handle “PrimordialAA,” Pellegrino has won several hundreds of thousands of dollars beating heads-up sit-n-gos. The Lock Poker Pro has been an instructor with both PokerStrategy and CardRunners where he produced heads-up sit-n-go videos. This year, Pellegrino has decided that he is going to make a run at achieving Supernova Elite status on Pokerstars by playing heads-up hyper turbo sit-n-gos from the $200 buy-in level all the way up to the $1,000 hyper turbos.
Pellegrino isn’t just strictly an online specialist though. In 2009, at his very first World Series of Poker, he came in eighth in the $10,000 heads-up championship event. He followed this up with a deep run in the main event in 2010 and had a second-place finish in the $1,500 pot-limit hold’em event in 2012.
Card Player caught up with Pellegrino to talk about heads-up sit-n-go strategy.
Steve Schult: Let’s say somebody is transitioning to heads-up sit-n-gos from six-max or full ring sit-n-gos. What would be the biggest adjustment that player is going to have to make?
Bryan Pellegrino: Playing a lot more hands. Obviously in those other games you will be playing far fewer hands than in heads-up. In heads-up, you will be playing 70 to 100 percent of hands in position and around 60 to 80 percent of hands out of position. That means you will be put in spots with a lot of weaker hand strengths on average and also where your opponents hand strength is weaker.
It makes hand reading and adjusting a bit trickier when people have ranges that are much wider so most six-max and full-ring players have a hard time with that.
SS: So would it be easier for someone to transition to these games from heads-up cash? What are the differences in skill set between the two?
BP: Obviously, it will be much easier for a heads-up cash player. Though it depends on if they are going to move to hypers, turbos, or regular speed games before you can talk about the skill sets. Hypers require a much different skill set than the other two because you need to know how to play a much shallower stack size very well. Most cash players are really poor at that since they rarely play less than 50 big blinds deep and are usually deeper than 100 big blinds.
Heads Up Poker Online
Turbos and regular speeds are a bit easier for them since your starting stack is 75 big blinds deep and frequency wise it plays pretty similar to 100 big blind stacks, so they are more comfortable. But everybody moving over has to adjust to playing shallow.
Less than 10 big blinds, 11-to-15, 16-to-25, 26-to-35, and 36-to-50 big blind stack sizes each have lots of different nuances. Anybody coming over will have trouble if they haven’t played those stacks frequently and will need to work on their game in those spots a lot.
SS: So what are some examples of the things you are able to do shallow stacked as opposed to a deep-stack cash game structure? How do hand values change with regards to stack depth?
BP: There are a couple different things. At around 16-to-25 big blinds a lot of people stop having a non all-in three-bet range, so they will just three-bet jam if they three-bet or they will flat otherwise. This takes away the initial raiser’s ability to flat hands to a three-bet and the more frequently the opponent does it, the more it will change the raiser’s opening range.
For instance, once you get shallower than say nine or 10 big blinds, the big blind pretty much never flat calls a min raise anymore. So now the options they have are either three-bet shove or fold their big blind. That means in our mind, hands you can’t raise/call with, like J-3 suited or 7-2 offsuit, have the same value. There are tons of interesting calculations about how you should structure ranges here against different frequencies once they have a shove or fold reaction, but the fact of the matter is that lots of people don’t take it into account, especially when they are moving over from other games.
SS: Can you talk about the importance of the button? Everybody knows position is of the utmost importance in all forms of poker, but is it more or less important in a heads-up match?
BP: In my opinion it’s much more important in heads-up sit-n-gos. With hand ranges being so wide and less polarized (meaning they either have the top of their range or a complete bluff) in a lot of spots, thin value betting becomes very important. Having the button means you have the most information and that helps a ton in being able to value bet thinly.
SS: Let’s talk about your opening range on the button. How wide are you going to be raising from the button? Does your range change if you are playing a good player or a bad player?
BP: I open wide. Very wide. I open around 85 to 95 percent from the button. It doesn’t change too much against a good player or a bad player, but people’s three-bet and flatting frequencies will make me change my own a bit. Not how many hands I play necessarily, but which hands I min-raise and which hands I limp. So I don’t really start to play fewer hands, I just change how I structure each min-raise and limp range against different players.
SS: What about playing out of position from the big blind? You have stressed the importance of the button, but how wide are you defending your big blind?
BP: It depends on how wide they are opening. Good players tend to open lots of hands. Bad players don’t open that many. I am defending pretty wide though. Somewhere between 65 to 80 percent usually and it’s obviously mixed between calling, non all-in three-betting, and three-bet shoving.
SS: How do you decide whether to flat call, three-bet, or three-bet shove?
BP: Based on a couple of things. The wider guys are opening, the wider I’ll be three-betting. Then it kind of depends on if they call a lot, four-bet jam, or fold.
For instance, someone who never calls a three-bet and only four-bet jams or folds, I would make all of my three-bets non all-in.
However, most people do a mixture of both, so naturally you’re always jamming hands that you definitely don’t want flatted, like pocket deuces through fives and A-2 through A-6. Then you need to balance the rest between value and bluffs in both your three-bet shove and non all-in three-bet. You should have some of both in both ranges for sure.
You pretty much flat everything else that’s left and adjust based on how they play.
SS: Moving to some postflop strategy, how about your continuation betting frequencies? Since most of the time, neither player makes a hand, how often are you continuation betting flops and what types of boards are you going to bet or check back?
Heads Up Poker Strategy
BP: Again, it obviously depends greatly on who you’re playing. A lot of people are the brainless kind who just like to check-raise every good hand or strong draw they have.
So for instance, on a board like 10 8 7, there are just infinite board runouts where you can just bet flop, bet turn, and jam river where they can’t call any of their range, but more balanced players are going to make it tougher to do that. They will also have a leading range so the action doesn’t just default back to you on the flop. Against those players it’s important to balance your continuation bet and check-back range and be thoughtful of how likely they are to hit the flop, check-raise, lead turns when you check back, and other factors like that.
SS: Lastly, I wanted to ask about return on investment (ROI)? What kind of ROI can you achieve in different structured games?
BP: It’s an interesting subject. In turbos, you can probably hold 5 to 7 percent at reasonable stakes, where as in hypers it’s more like 2 to 3 percent. The fact of the matter is though that the hypers have about 50 times the action that the turbos have. So when it comes down to hourly rate, most of the hyper players are killing similar stakes turbo players. That’s also why the Sharkscope leaderboard is filled with hyper turbo players.
So while you can maintain a much higher ROI at turbos and regular speed games, the hourly is almost way too low to justify it. A lot of good players play both though.
How To Play Heads Up Poker
SS: Thanks for your time Bryan. Good luck chasing Supernova Elite this year.