Deception in Heads-Up Battles

Poker Helper, Sep 2007

Perhaps a cash game is down to you and one other player. He played poorly when action was fullhanded, and you’d like to keep the game going so that you can either bust him heads-up (or get enough people to sit to return to a highly profitable fullhanded situation in the event that this poor fullhanded player is a heads-up wizard).

Perhaps you’ve battled for hours in a huge multi-table tournament. After lots of great play and good fortune, you’re battling heads-up for first place in a situation where the difference between first and second is huge…substantially larger than any amount you’ve battled for before at a poker table.

Or perhaps you see heads-up play as a potentially lucrative form of poker you’d like to exploit either by playing in heads-up tournaments or heads-up cash game tables. The bottom line is that heads-up play can be a great source of profits if you’re good at it.

Poker is always a battle that involves inducing your opponents into making mistakes, but nowhere is this maneuvering more pronounced than in heads-up play. If you’re lucky, you’ll be facing a stubbornly thickheaded player whom you can beat without employing much trickery. But generally, forcing your opponent into making big mistakes will involve using a wide range of tactics, many of which involve manipulating established betting patterns. In the end, winning heads-up play typically involves lots of deception: not deception for deception’s sake, but deception for tact’s sake...

Read the rest online at Poker Helper.