A Quick HU Guide: Some general HU thoughts

A lot of HU play is about image and momentum and less about the cards that each player holds.


For example if you have just won two decent pots in the last 6 hands while showing down a good hand each time then it is time to put the pressure on your opponent because

1. they will be more inclined to give you credit for a hand so they wont play back with air
2. they will have less confidence in their own hands so you can make them fold e.g. middle pair with a 2 barrel which wouldn't have worked before
3. they will often have less confidence in general so they rarely try to make moves ie they wont give you credit for a hand but still try to push you off it.

All these factors point to being more aggressive in the near future to exploit this; for instance opening more hands on the button, reraising more in the BB, double barrelling more etc. Your opponent will either tighten up immensely and allow you to run them over until they find the nuts to make a stand (the more likely scenario) or he/she will start to give you no credit and play back at you - in which case we can adapt by tightening up in the big pots (ie no 3 barrelling or messing around with middle pair) but still being aggressive in the small ones to maintain that crazy image to ensure you get paid off when you hit a hand.

Alternatively it may be the case that your opponent is being looser and more aggressive than you are. In this case you are more able to represent big hands and bluff him due to your relatively tight image, if you are oop then throw in the occasional big hand line bluff like c/c flop then c/r turn, this will mean that your aggressive opponent will have to fold a lot of his hands and you win a nice pot - clearly you shouldn't over do this move and once you have done it twice in a match you should generally have a big hand the third time since your opponent may start to get suspicious.

You can also lure your aggressive opponent into trying to push you off hands which you aren't going to fold. For example if you call oop with KdTc and the flop comes Ks7s4h then here is a great spot to slow play and just check call for two streets then decide whether to check call the river or bet for value. In this situation your aggressive opponent will often think you have a draw or a weak pair and will try to 2 barrel you reguarly and even 3 barrel sometimes because they just cant believe that you wouldnt try to raise at some stage in the hand with a K or better.

More to follow...

PS: I'm sorry that these random thoughts are poorly organised but hopefully you guys can get something from them.