Heads Up Poker Star Strategy
Whether you’re playing a heads up poker game or you’ve made the final two in a tournament on PokerStars.com you’ll need to know how to play heads up poker effectively. I’ve had many poker players ask me in the past for some simple heads up poker tips that they could implement into there poker game. I sent them over some tips that I used when playing heads up poker and now I want to share those tips with you in this article. Continue reading through this strategy guide for heads up poker and I guarantee when you’re done reading you’ll have some new tips to use when playing your next heads up match.
You need to become an aggressive PokerStar.net player when you’re playing heads up because if not your opponent will walk all over you. Heads up matches are usually fairly quick matches to play and you’re not always going to get a monster hand. You need to be willing to push your chips into the pot with marginal hands. Your opponent is going to bluff at pots and you just need to be able to tell when your opponent is bluffing and when they aren’t.
Acting last in a heads up match at FullTilt is a great advantage since you get to see what your opponent does before it’s your turn. If they act weak you can try making a stab at the pot, and if they come out betting you’ll need to determine whether they’re bluffing or have a real hand.
Don’t get out of control in a heads up match after losing a couple pots because you’ll only start losing more chips. You need to control every pot whether you win the pot or lose the pot you need to be in control. You want to make the pots big when you have a hand and when you don’t have a hand you want to keep pots minimal.
When you think you’re beat you need to just fold your cards and not payoff your opponent every time they make a bet. You also need to be careful how often you chase flushes and straights on carbon poker because after chasing a couple hands and not hitting your chip stack is going to be crippled.
If you can’t make a bluff on your opponent then don’t even bother playing heads up poker games because you won’t stand a chance. You need to be willing to bluff at some PokerStar pots, half the time you bluff you probably have the best hand anyways. In heads up poker it’s often for both players to get nothing and usually the first player to bet in those hands will win. You need to make sure you’re the one winning these pots.
The size of your poker bankroll is going to directly reflect how much you stake in each heads up poker match. Don’t play poker over your limits because you need to leave plenty of room for winning and losing matches. I usually recommend playing for about 5% of your bankroll which means if you have a bankroll of $200 you should play $5 matches until you make some money.