HEY JOE, heads-up buddy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/10/2010 (5505 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Since there is no place to play live in Winnipeg — at least nowhere with a game big enough to entice me — I have to focus most of my attention on online poker.

I began my poker career online, so I am very comfortable playing in front of my computer screen. From the moment I started playing, I chose to play 6 max tables and have logged millions of hands in short-handed games. Over the last few years, however, I have dedicated a good portion of time to playing heads-up.

Heads-up is really the purest form of poker in my opinion. It is you against your opponent. Whoever can better figure out the other usually ends up on top, and if you can figure out an opponent heads-up you are going to make a ton of money.

The past couple of weeks I have had a few interesting heads-up sessions, one of which went well, the other not so much.

I was playing against reigning world champion Joe Cada at 25-50 no-limit Hold-’em and I was raising almost every button and 3-betting a ton when in the big blind. The reason I play so aggressively heads-up is that everybody has a breaking point, and eventually will get frustrated and potentially make a big mistake. If a player doesn’t adjust, I’ll just keep running him or her over.

Well, after about only 35 hands Cada seemed to have had enough of my aggressive style. I raised the button with a hand of AQ spades. He 3-bet me to $400 and I didn’t hesitate, 4-betting him to $1,100. Well, he instantly 5-bet me all-in for his 5K stack. I made the call. His hand? Q9 off suit! Well, when he flopped a 9 and I wasn’t able to hit an ace on the turn or river, he took down a $10K pot.

I can’t say I was pleased with the outcome, but in the end our main goal is to get our money in with the best hand. If we do, we are going to win money.

The other session I had was with an unknown player. I hadn’t played with him so I wasn’t sure of his style, but after about 150 hands I was down $8K without losing any really big pots. He just seemed to win every hand.

We were both minimum-raising the button to $100 and I was 3-betting to $350. Well, he kept calling my 3 bets and I just couldn’t connect with a flop, while it seemed he was hitting every flop. I had to switch gears and change my approach and that’s just what I did.

Instead of min-raising the button, I began to raise three times the big blind to $150. He continued to min-raise but I began to 3-bet to $450. This worked like a charm, as he didn’t call nearly as often from the big blind and was folding almost every time I 3-bet him.

By switching my play I was able to take down many more pots pre-flop and when we saw a flop he wasn’t as eager to float me, as my flop bets were much larger now. After about 100 hands of this I was able to turn the tables and go from being stuck $8K to up $2K, and he finally quit.

Being able to adjust to a particular opponent is key to playing heads-up poker. If things aren’t going your way, try to switch things up. This will force your opponent to adjust to the new look you are giving him. It might just change your fortunes in the match.