Strategies For Heads-Up The Most Exciting Form of Poker
The only way to play heads-up poker to win....
POKER HEADS UP! New players are often asking me what’s the most exciting form of poker? I always say “heads up” and the next question is, what strategies do you suggest? This is the easiest question in poker to answer in my view because I don’t see a logical choice. You HAVE to play “heads up” aggressively. Here’s why. In any one-on-one game if both players play in a conservative manner and only bet on premium hands the “luck factor” will even out over time and both of you will wonder why you bothered playing. There are only two ways to win at poker after all. You have the better cards or you cause your opponent to fold to you. The only strategy that forces an opponent into the likely frame of mind to fold is aggression and lots of it. You have to bet, raise and re-raise. Logically this is most likely to give you your fifty per cent of wins from good hands and a nice profitable extra percentage of victories every time you scare your opponent into mucking his or her cards.
LEGENDS OF POKER You’ll often hear poker players in their sixties reminiscing about poker heroes from the long ago. A particular favourite is the character famously known as “Little Man”. Julius Oral Popwell was just five and a half feet tall and weighed in at well over twenty stone, hence the irony of his nickname which was actually bestowed on him by billiard players twice his age. As a young teenager Julius was a genius with the cue and would frequently hustle adults in their thirties and forties and whip them mercilessly on the green beize. For that reason the “Little Man” monica was bestowed on him long before his eventual obesity made it a cruel label. Popwell was a master of five card stud and toured the States looking for cash games in the true “Rounders” tradition of Johnny Moss and other poker Godfathers. One of his favourite compatriots at the poker table was the equally notorious Henry Green who Popwell rated as one of the finest stud players of his generation. Julius often ran card schools from the basement of his house in Birmingham, Alabama and was frequently hounded by the police who eventually arrested and jailed him for one year on charges of tax evasion. Julius died in his early fifties of cancer but will always been known as the “Little Man” with the big heart. On one notable occasion he allowed the owner of a toy business to settle his debt to him with toys which Popwell promptly gave away to a nearby home for orphans. He had a reputation for honouring all his bets and behaving like a perfect gentleman and was inducted into Binion’s legendary poker Hall of Fame in Las Vegas following his death in 1966.
