subject: Heads up Strategy for beginners [print this page] The most important aspect of heads up play in texas holdem is position, you can either choose to try and steal your opponents blind with a weak hand, fold your small blind with a garbage hand, or limp with a decent hand to entice your opponent to attempt to steal. Position alone often times determines many of your actions when playing heads up holdem, this is most evident when you raise in the small blind with a weak hand, which you will be doing often if you are playing winning heads up poker. The size of the blinds relative to your stack of chips is also of utmost importance since this will be the deciding factor on whether you need to employ the "all-in or fold" style of play. This style in itself is a very basic way to play heads up poker, assuming you are playing no limit of course.
Raising the action very liberally should be a rule to live by in heads up play, this allows you to pick up your opponents blind un-contested on many occasions. This strategy also applies constant and unrelenting pressure to your opponent and his/her chip stack, forcing them to make rather large decisions nearly every hand. Playing heads up poker in this manor forces many errors on your opponents part which you can begin to exploit greatly by steadily increasing your chip stack to the point where your opponent has very few choices of things to do against you. This is often referred to in poker as "leaning on them until they fall"
Playing texas holdem poker heads up can be a very rich and rewarding experience if done correctly and a strict set of rules is implemented. Follow some of my simple techniques and you , and your bankroll, will benefit greatly from them with every hand you play. These basic tips and strategies are by no means all inclusive and as you gain experience you will begin to notice many of the nuances of heads up play, and you will become very aware that this technique becomes less affective when down to heads up play in a MTT (multi-table tournament) but no need to worry I will go into detail on that aspect of the heads up game in another article. Stay tuned for more great strategy articles and good luck at the tables!
