It will often happen to you, we hope, to play a final table and finish head to head, what is commonly called among non GamStop poker players “the Head’s up”.
You can train by playing in some poker rooms that offer heads up on dedicated tables or simply Sit N go.
It’s an option like the rush mode for example. You will find a lot of adversity, so be very careful. The beginner will tell himself that it is easier to beat one player than several opponents. It makes mathematical sense.
Yet poker and especially Texas Hold’em is a “sport” of statistics, but really, head’s up can be extremely difficult to grasp when you are not used to playing it. However the destiny of all non GamStop players who want to win and become at least a competitive poker player. You have to know how to play head’ up. We are therefore going to give you some basic advice to understand this phase of the game.
This first part on the head’s up is rather intended for beginners and average non GamStop players who want to revise or apprehend the head to head. We can consider the head’s up as a variant in its own right whether you are in Texas Hold’em mode or any other variant of online poker.
I keep telling you poker is exciting and it’s not about money, luxury hotels and paradises where green fairies live, that’s good for making teenagers dream, poker is a game incredibly rich. The heads up further enriches your game by asking you to challenge everything you have learned to finally make it to the final of the final table. We can say, with a little exaggeration, that the head’s up is the cogito of the poker player.
What Is Heads-up Poker?
Heads-up poker is one of those poker games that is played between two players only. By definition, all live poker games offered in non GamStop casinos are Heads-up poker. Furthermore, Heads-up poker could be a stage in a poker tournament or well-known sit-and-go tournament where the only remaining winner at a time has to face only one opponent!
When can you find yourself in heads up?
- Cash-game: tables reserved for head’s up exist in all non GamStop casinos.
- The sit and go in head’s up mode. Very trendy, it’s a good school, but be careful, you can lose big very quickly.
- All online and live poker tournaments end up head to head.
You can see that it’s not necessarily reserved for elite non GamStop poker players and you can just join a table. There too you find important differences between a head’s up with an unknown player and with an opponent in the tournament with whom you have already crossed the cards.
What’s Changing in Heads up at Non GamStop Casinos?
Lots of things. First of all, you are always told about position as a determining factor in your strategy. On a head to head poker table, there are only two positions: the blind and the bing blind. It’s logical, but the game in position and out of position is to be forgotten.
If the blinds are high and change over time, they become an issue in their own right. The expression “stealing the blinds” takes on its full meaning. In heads up, the position is the small blind and big blind and it is therefore so small bling that it is absolutely necessary to play with a wider range of hands.
The head’s up calls into question everything you have learned in poker. For example, it is necessary to evoke the strength of the hands. Your head-to-head hand range is much larger. Some hands that you would have thrown on a full table become good heads up hands. You have to understand that your pre-flop hand is less decisive head to head than on a full poker table. The statistical aspect also becomes minor or else you have to play the statistics specific to a head-to-head poker table.
So, it’s no longer poker and all our strategies no longer hold? Head’s up is a discipline in its own right and what you know of poker will be useful to you is simply that you have to rebalance the cursor on the player in front of you while adapting the aggressiveness you are going to put on.
In front of you, a player will try to read you and also hide his game. You have to push him to make a mistake. The head’s up should teach you how to better manage your calls and raises so that they are effective, but unreadable for the other player. In short, it will bluff. And by reading the differences between head to head and a table, you understand why head’s up in sit n go is difficult because changing opponents, without having time to read it, is extremely difficult.
The two major factors for the head’s up at Non GamStop Casinos
Against a single opponent, your hands take on a much greater value and you can have the strongest hand with a game that would normally be considered too weak. It should be understood that you have the same number of cards as on a normal table except that they are distributed only to two non GamStop players. A jack becomes a good card, a pair, even a weak one, is a small bomb… If you play too tight in heads’ up you go straight into the wall. It’s quite difficult at first to grasp, but with practice you will be able to change the way you play poker with great ease.
