Texas Hold'em Heads-Up Poker Strategy

You'll find a plethora of online poker strategies pertaining to Texas Hold'em, but if you're going heads-up against a single opponent, the typical poker strategy must be adjusted. In Heads-Up poker games, players must divert from a numerical strategy to an aggressive mind-attack.

Targeting your opponents emotional stability can be the most effective way to steal their chips, whether it be one folded blind at a time, or a significant stack.

The key element behind this kind of mental attack on your opponent is to be aggressive. Not tight/aggressive, as are most strategic players, but outlandishly aggressive to the point you can dominate the table. This can be achieved in only a few hands. In the meantime, you are also given the opportunity to feel out your competitor's style of play.

If your opponent is trying to be aggressive back at you, become more aggressive and keep trying - soon after, they should relent. Once your opponent becomes passive, you have them right where you want them. They will begin to think, "okay, as soon as I get a monster hand, I'm taking this guy down!" Use this to your advantage, stealing blinds, one after another. It may not seem like much, but every chip they lose give you a two-chip lead over him.

Now that your opponent is just waiting for a big hand to call you, you will know exactly when they have it. Fold out to him. This will really get him upset - again, right where you want him. As your stack becomes significantly larger than his, you can now give him a morsel to chew on. Call his raises, using what was his own stack to give him that hint of confidence back.

By this time, your opponent believes you are so aggressive that you'll call just about anything. This is where you swoop down for the kill. When you know your opponent has something decent, worth betting on in his opinion, but the Flop has hit your hand dead on, you can force him to push all-in. He will be so sure you have nothing that he will be willing to put everything on the line to prove it. Thus is the power of emotional mind control in a heads-up poker strategy!