Whether you like it or not, you will at some stage be forced into playing heads up poker. This even applies if you are sitting in a full-ring game with nine or even ten players: imagine you are in the hijack seat in a nine handed cash game and action has been folded around to you; you open raise with Qs-10s and action is then folded around to the big blind, who calls. In spite of being in a nine handed table, you are effectively in a heads up situation.
Of course there is a massive difference between a heads up situation in a ring game and a heads up match. In both instances it is merely one hand against another, but the technical differences – not to mention the psychological ones – make the situations quite different.
For instance, if you raise from the hijack (or even from later position) the big blind is less likely to take your raise personally like they can do in a heads up match. In that environment you are raising that player directly and no one else. Also your raise is coming from a much larger field of players, so your opponent must factor this in when deciding whether or not to get involved with you.
But despite these differences, heads up play in ring game situations still has strong similarities to actual heads up play, and you must strive to factor that into your strategy. There are strong psychological elements to heads up pots, which can lead to aggressive bluffing and bluff raising.
THE PENDULUM EFFECT
Many years ago I wrote an article about what I described as the “pendulum effect” in poker. This basically explained how strategies and tactics could come into fashion and be extremely profitable for a while, but sooner or later this could well end up being reversed. Poker is a continually moving environment where people are constantly gathering new data from different sources and then incorporating this into their games.
I have long argued that the “continuation bet” is no longer the automatic play that it was a few years ago in heads up situations. Continuation bet is when you open raise pre-flop and then you then bet the flop when checked to, irrespective of whether or not you have connected with the flop.
The number of players who are now aware of this simple but effective strategy renders it paradoxically less effective in a number of situations; and you are left to decide which these situations are. You can use basic premises (like flop texture) to help you in this process, but the fact of the matter is that on a large number of semi-dangerous flops, such a high percentage of your opponents’ range will not have connected with that flop that a continuation bet could be correct here also.
I was playing in a $25-$50 NLHE six-max game last week where I open-raised from the cut-off seat with 7d-6d and everyone folded around to the big blind, who called. This player was quite loose aggressive after the flop, and the mere fact that he didn’t three-bet me pre-flop set alarm bells ringing in my head that he could have a possible strong hand and decided to slow-play it (calling raises wasn’t his usual line of play).
The flop came Kd-9s-2c, missing me completely and my opponent checked to me. Now, although the backdoor chances are slim, if he has paired with a hand like A-K then I can backdoor a flush, straight or two pair. I decided not to make the conventional play of continuation betting (the first time that I had made such a play in this session) and proceeded to enter into psychological warfare by checking it back.
The turn card was the 10d giving me a flush draw and inside-straight draw. My opponent bet out about two thirds of the pot and now in my mind was a chance to semi-bluff him from the hand. Despite the fact that he was loose-aggressive, he wasn’t making rash plays post-flop – in my mind he was basically being as aggressive as he could as often as he could until someone played back at him.
So I raised just less than the size of the pot and watched him almost time out before folding and flashing me the Ac-Kh for top pair top kicker. He obviously didn’t want to escalate the pot with a marginal hand as we both had 100BB stacks before the hand started.
But this was a pot that I felt I earned just by me not routinely making a continuation bet. My check threw my opponent a curve ball, as I had done the opposite of what he had been expecting me to do. If I had made the continuation bet then one of two things would have happened: I could have been check-raised (which would have ended the pot there and then) or I could have been check-called and put into the tricky spot of trying to ascertain the value of firing a second barrel on the turn.
So instead of blindly making a continuation bet, try to ascertain if checking may be the superior play. Remember that it is hardly good poker to always do what your opponent expects you to do. Quite often, a simple continuation bet in heads up situations will take down the pot against weak players, but balance is the key in poker; it does no harm to your game to make your opponent think that you are trying to entice them into betting when you are sitting there holding nothing but junk.
Carl “The Dean” Sampson is sponsored by Cake Poker and can be seen at www.cakepoker.com/thedean and at www.pokersharkpool.com
