Poker Hand Odds Calculator Heads Up

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Heads up poker is the purest form of the game and is one of the most profitable game types for skilled players.

Texas Holdem Heads-Up Preflop Odds. This table was created by enumerating through every possible board and opponent hole card combination for each of the 169 texas holdem preflop starting hands. PokerListings.com’s Poker Odds Calculator is the fastest, most accurate and easy-to-use poker odds calculator online. It’s just like what you see when you watch poker on TV. Use it in real-time to know exactly what your chances of winning and losing are at any point in a poker hand – be it on online poker sites or playing live poker.

Heads up poker format means that you will have to play the blind every hand and hence will have to play LOTS of hands - in some cases 100% of the hands you are dealt.

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It's a high-pressure environment, that's for sure.

For a proficient player, this gives the opportunity to impost their skill set onto weaker opponents every single hand and can mean higher win-rates when compared to 6-max and full-ring games.

The key skill in heads up poker is the ability to adjust to your opponent and exploit them - that is what we will be covering in this article as we try to adjust to another professional player and target his leaks and weaknesses.

Adjusting Your Heads Up Strategy

A winning player's heads up poker strategy consists of a malleable game plan ready to go from the onset. Solid ranges they’ve developed that they look to adjust as new information is learned about their opponent.

Playing against a past challenger allows you pick-up where you left off in your previous encounter. Looking for ways to get an edge. Exactly what I was doing in a recent heads-up poker SNG tournament battle where I was pitted against a coach from Japanese poker site, www.pokertrainingjp.com.

I had won 2-1 in the previous bout of HU SNG’s, but Akinori issued a new challenge. He was keen for revenge since the games would be recorded for content on the Japanese poker training site.

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The key to defeating Akinori again was all in the adjustments. His style was ‘TAGish’ which leaves you particularly vulnerable in short-handed and heads-up games.

My plan was an aggressive blitz. Constant aggression allowing me to win the majority of the pots. Chipping away at him until eventually, I’d finish off his dwindling stack.

This is also a very common scenario when heads-up in an MTT.

MTT poker players often lack a heads up poker skill set and are easily exploited since they aren’t used to playing the wide ranges necessary to be competitive heads-up.

Check out the video of the match and then we will discuss the strategy involved:

Heads Up Poker Strategy: Preflop Starting Ranges


I planned to open around 5% wider than I would against a tough opponent. In hindsight, I think opening 100% of hands would have been a reasonable strategy. This would allow me to exploit his tendencies to over-fold preflop, and 3bet at a low frequency. A style which was confirmed in the replay as he made some questionable folds.

Conversely, against his open raises, I didn’t plan on folding much at all.

Versus his 2.5x open raise I was calling more than 5% wider than I would against a tougher player. The pot odds would be 2.3:1 to call. Around 30% ‘straight-up‘ equity required. When considering the all important equity realization, with some of the weakest calls in my range like 63o, I’d need to realize equity as follows;

Equity realization required = pot odds / equity = 0.3 / 0. 334 = 90%.

I was fairly confident I’d be in this vicinity given Akinori’s tendency to be a little passive post flop, especially on the later streets. This is common for a lot of ‘TAGish’ players when they get to heads-up.

They know a good strategy is to open a lot of hands preflop, but this translates to them being out of their comfort-zone on later streets when they’re frequently left with much more marginal holdings then they are used to. Typically resulting in a lot of turn and river checking.

This passivity on later streets would allow me to realize a reasonable share of my equity OOP. Again evident in the replay as some of my weaker out of position floats did get to the river where I was able to steal some nice pots (Q2, J9, etc).

Defending The Blinds Heads Up: 3betting

Part of the HU strategy to defend frequently from the big blind included 3 betting a lot.

A typical strategy might include a mix of:

  • weaker suited hands,
  • premium hands,
  • and a mix of suited connectors mostly for board coverage protection.
Poker hand odds calculator heads up heads

All at a frequency.

Equating to around a 15-20% sort of range spread. I planned on pushing this a bit further to 20%+ by including a mix of high-low holdings (as we saw with Q2s, J4o), and some weaker combinations at a low frequency. Aiming to profit from my opponent's over folding ways.

Key Strategies To Beating Heads Up Poker

Overall the adjustments pointed out are not huge. However, they help set the tone of the match, as well as lay the foundation for post-flop play. Increased opens, more defending from the big blind including a lot of 3 betting.

This style makes it really tough for a 'TAGish' type of opponent to get into a rhythm as it keeps them constantly under pressure. Their likely response is to attempt to steal less, which has the profitable result of allowing for more walks from the big blind.

Poker Hand Odds Calculator Heads Up Odds

Odds

This tough preflop play is then backed up postflop with frequent cbets and barrels, as well as a good mix of raises and floats. Which will be the topic of next article as we continue this heads-up series!

What About VS Loose Heads Up Opponents?

Each type of opponent presents different challenges to overcome. Loose opponents allow you to me more patient with your offense. Reducing your bluffs whilst increasing your value bets - Since your opponent will be doing more calling.

You can 3 bet wider for value if they aren't folding to reraises preflop. Proceed post-flop by cbetting less, but look for 'thinner' value. Especially on the later streets when you have more accurately identified your opponents range.

Floating out of position which works well against tighter opponents, should be used carefully. When calling a flop cbet with a marginal hand, along with some hope of improving to the best hand, the chance to steal the pot on a later street often makes this play profitable. However loose opponents often call the river with a wide range. So bluffing in a lot of spots can be a futile play. Stick to solid holdings and contest the pot more aggressively in position.

Positional advantage offers you the opportunity to take more free cards, value bet confidently, and fire small ball bluffs. Remembers a loose opponents range will often be wide, so timely bluffs should be an important part of your strategy. Attack when their range consists of numerous weak holdings, and the board heavily favors your range. Don't push the aggression but rather look for boards that develop favorably when firing multiple bullet bluffs. Moves like this can be quite risky against a loose opponent!

Summary: Strategical adjustments made this match

Having played against my opponent previously, I'd gained a good feel for the way Akinori was playing. Overall a little too tight, in, and out of position. This provided me with an opportunity to make some adjustments to gain an edge in the match.

Starting with preflop. Raising more on the button and defending more aggressively from the big blind. Setting the tempo of the match, I kept my opponent under pressure and was clearly winning the majority of the pots. By adjusting and gaining an edge in the game, I was again able to claim a 2-1 victory in this heads up poker match.

Make sure you check out the video below for some more heads up poker strategies:

Get Access to Lesson 5.8 From the Road to Success Course which is a 45 minute video covering important heads up strategies.

Want more videos like the ones in this blog post? Check out the PokerNerve Road to Success Course where we have almost 100 videos like this to help take your game to the next level.

Poker Odds Chart

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Since heads up poker is truly one of the most difficult forms of poker to play, you'll want to take advantage of all the different tools that will help improve your game. Whether it's while you play or while you're studying your game away from the tables, there are plenty of tools out there. Some tools are even free.

So, that's what the focus of this article will be. I will discuss the tools I suggest that you use in order to maximize your time as well as maximize your earnings.

Tools to Improve Your Heads Up Game: Away From the Tables

Here are all the tools I'd suggest using away from the tables to improve your play. You might be surprised to find that many of these tools are excellent for any form or variation of poker that you may choose to play, not just heads up.

Universal Replayer:

The universal replayer, also known as the 'popopop' replayer, is without a doubt one of the best tools to pick up if you're looking to improve your heads up game (or any variation of poker for that matter). It allows you to import hand histories so you can review. It supports cash, MTT and SNG hand histories as well as Texas Hold'em and Omaha. A few of the neat features I like include the pot odds display and the color coding for whether you won or lost a hand at the bottom. If it's red, you lost and green you won. This enables you to review your hand histories faster.

The best part about the Universal Replayer is that it was just recently updated (it hasn't been updated in at least a year). It's also free. Be sure to pick this up and review your heads up hand histories.

Poker Stove:

Poker Stove is another must have tool. It's an equity calculator that will tell you how often a hand is good verses another one at any stage. For example, you can take AA vs KK and run the calculator preflop to find that AA vs KK is roughly 80% to win. This is important to know because when combined with your pot odds, you can determine whether you're getting a good price to call a bet or shove. Using AA vs KK as an example again, if you know for a fact that your opponent has AA and you have KK, you can call profitably getting 4.1 to 1 odds, but you'll lose if you're getting 3.9 to 1 odds (breaking even at 4 to 1).

Poker Stove is a good tool to help with your post flop play as well which is huge in heads up play. You can input your hole cards, the flop and your opponents range based on the preflop action to determine how much equity you have in the hand. You'll use this information to determine your play - either you'll check or check/call for pot control or you'll lead, raise or check/raise to build the pot. Poker Stove is also a free tool.

Poker Training Sites:

Poker training sites are excellent for improving your heads up play. Many training sites like DeucesCracked.com actually dedicated series' of videos to heads up play. They'll cover heads up topics such as hand selection, position and post flop play. I've only watched the videos at DC (which are very good), but you can sign up to any training site and find a video that is useful for heads up play.

Watching a 6-max video would be helpful because you'll learn a lot about position, aggression, and post flop hand reading. You might find a SNG video helpful because you learn about pot control (since SNGS generally start with shorter stacks with increasing blinds). The point is that you don't just have to watch a heads up video to learn something that will improve your heads up game and make you a better heads up player.

Most training sites are extremely affordable in relation to the information you receive. Subscriptions are in the neighborhood of $20 to $35 a month. Keep in mind that some sites will require a sign-up fee of $75 to $125.

Tools to Improve Your Heads Up Game: At the Tables

Calculator: I keep a calculator to run pot odds if I think a spot is close. You just take the total amount that you need to call and divide that by the total in the pot (the amount you need to call + what's in the pot). You'll get a percentage. You take this percentage and compare it to your odds of winning the hand (you can use Poker Stove or the 2/4 rule) and as long as your pot odds are smaller than your odds to win, it's a profitable call. How profitable depends on your margin.

Heads Up Display (HUD): A heads up display won't be as useful when you first start playing heads up in my opinion because you'll likely only be one or two tabling. You should be able to have an idea of how loose/tight your opponent is playing, how often they're 3-betting, etc without having to have a HUD up. However, once you start to play more tables than that, I would definitely recommend using a HUD to keep track of all of that for you. The stats I would suggest using would be VPIP, PFR, 3-bet, Fold to 3-bet and donk bet flop. That's only my opinion though. There really isn't a right or wrong answer as to what stats you should use.

Poker Hand Odds Chart

Shark Scope:

If you play HU SNGs, you'll want to have Shark Scope ready so you can see how profitable a player may or may not be. Often times the decisions you make will change based on how good you perceive a player to be. Subscriptions for Shark Scope are anywhere from $24 to $30 a month. You can buy 200 searches (non-subscription) for approximately $10.

Poker Table Ratings:

Poker Hand Odds Calculator Heads Update

This is the same as Shark Scope, but for cash games. Much of what you choose to do will be based on how good you think a player is. You may even choose to table select around someone if they're really good. PTR has a free option, or you can choose from one of three paid options ranging from $10 (one time fee) to $13 or $33 per month.

Summary of Tools to Improve Your Heads Up Play

This isn't a complete list of tools to help improve your heads up play by far. However, these are the tools I use on a regular basis that I guarantee will help improve your game to some extent, whether by helping you to make more informed decisions at the table or just improve certain skill sets within your game. You'll find that the cost for most of these programs is cheap, if not free, and that they'll quickly pay for themselves over and over again.