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Cash game strategy micro and small stakes heads up strategy

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Friday December, 4th 2009 by fullhouse

One of the most popular games today in online poker is heads up cash. It used to be that only the highest stakes would attract heads up players, but today there is an overwhelming amount of micro and small stakes players flooding the heads up tables. This increase in popularity has brought along with it quite a few weak players that are easy money. Not only will you find easy opponents who just aren’t too good available, but you will also have the opportunity to tangle with huge fish and players who are tilted. Some heads up poker players will only play against opponents who would be classified as fish, these players are called “bum hunters.” Bum hunter, as you might have guessed, is a derogatory term used to describe players who will only actually play against players who are easy money. Some players feel as though this is nothing more than a strategically way to maximize earnings, but it in fact hurts the heads up cash games quite a bit. If you go into the lobbies of almost any poker site you are likely to notice that there will be quite a few heads up tables occupied by just one player, and maybe a few with a heads up match running. The reason for this is that all of the bum hunters are sitting at multiple tables just waiting for weak players to sit down. This, in effect, makes it hard for any random player to get a heads up match going unless they are a really weak player.

Exploit your opponent, even if he is a solid player

We all know that poker is a very mental game, and there is no more mental format of poker than a heads up battle. It is you vs. one other guy and it is a pure battle of the minds. You are wondering what he thinks of you, he is wondering what you think of him, and you are both wondering what each other’s tendencies are. There is no solid way to get a feel for how someone plays other than to sit down and play. A good way to confuse your opponent into thinking you are a fish is to make some plays that would generally be considered weak. For example, you could open limp on the button. Most solid heads up players will either raise or fold on the button, so the other player is likely to assume that you don’t know what you are doing. Maybe you can make a bad call when playing a small pot in a further attempt to exemplify your incompetence. This is of course all for show and you will need to cut it out after a short while in order to turn a profit. Beyond these basic tactics to bait your opponent into thinking you are a much poorer player than you are, you will simply have to play your best and try to find where you have an edge. If your opponent folds to a lot of continuation bets you would be crazy to abandon the c-bet. If the other player never seems to fold you can value bet them but stay away from constant bluff attempts. Heads up poker is an intricate game, but nothing will beat first hand experience.