My favorite heads-up opponents

For me, there is nothing juicer than an opponent who is going to call me before the flop with things like Q-J or K-10 or A-3, and if they dont hit a flop they will fold. When I am playing a heads up match, I believe it or not i come across people like this all of the time.

It a HU match, its basically a game of how much they are going to be able to trap me for, how cheap I can get away from bluffs, and if I can catch a hand over hand situation.

It usually takes a stroke of luck for someone like this to beat me. This might come in the form of cards. IT might come in the form of me making a bad play i should have known better. Luck is really what you make it, but I can promise you that if you are gonna play weak in a HU match, you are gonna need lots of it.

I love these players too. As odd as this sounds I've found almost mimicking their style to do the trick. I don't want to bet 100% the time till the point they start playing back at me and chance gears. My goal is to keep them playing exactly like they are playing, and make the game enjoyable, less stressful for them. What I'll do is bet pots I missed about 35% of the time and check down with them on others playing the same weak passive style they are. This gives them the sense I'm playing the same as them and they get comfortable in that style. This is only for players who fit this mold exactly to a t, however there are quite a few of these guys online and I too love playing against them.

Originally Posted by Jim

As odd as this sounds I've found almost mimicking their style to do the trick.

True. I try to play nice-guy sometimes because it makes it easier to bluff and more believable. Heads up actually can be tougher if your opponent is steaming in my opinion. I try to decide early on which kind of angle I am going to take. If I am going to really start pushing someone's buttons then it's just sort of a fine line Im walking. I'll need a real hand to win, but the quality of what I need goes down because my opponent will usually loosen up.

I just wanted to add in here again that I think heads up poker is sort of the like poker in its purest form. At one point in my life I sat down almost everyday for about 5 months to play heads up for 4-5 hours against the same kid. We played everyday and we wound up getting pretty good at heads-up poker.

Although I was really only learning about 1 player, I learned a lot about how to anticipate my opponents line throughout the hand.

By the time the flop is down, I usually have about 30 different possible paths through the hand in my head already and I can quickly figure out which ones are applicable. Now I have it down to about 5 possible paths through the hand made of checks, bets and raises according to certain cards that might come (scare cards, blank cards, additional draw strengtheners etc),and I basically know how the hand is going to wind up depending upon what comes.