Heads Up Play

The heads up stage of a multi table tournament can often be trouble for a lot of players, because they don’t have much experience of it or wrongly adjust to it. Before we go any further, it’s advisable to say that you should probably play a good few heads up and single table tournaments to give you an idea of the game dynamic changes when it becomes mano vs mano.

The first noticeable thing to say about the heads up stage of a tournament is that there are no more pay jumps. Players who have been conservative trying to ladder usually will loosen up and players who have been putting those people to the test will no longer have the dominant edge they enjoyed. From this point on both players can only play for the win and have nothing to lose at all.

You will already be aware at how hand values go up when the field gets smaller, but heads up this becomes especially true. King high and ace high hands become exceptionally strong and pocket pairs are now virtually unfoldable. As a rule, you need an incredibly good reason to fold top pair and for that matter, middle pair is often worth playing strong.

There is a hell of a lot of luck in the heads up stage, especially when the blinds are high, even the best player in the world isn’t a massive favourite, so the only thing you can do is put the odds in your favour by playing solidly and aggressively. Also be aware that your opponent will play a much wider range of hands, so you cannot dismiss certain hands from their range as easily as you would have at a full table.

Position becomes even more important now and the button now goes to the small blind, which makes it the first time that spot is advantageous position wise. Play much looser and faster when you have position heads up because it’s very unlikely your opponent has been dealt much of a hand most of the time, so he who bets often wins.

Finally and just to repeat what we have already said, players do not find themselves in this position much at all so if you can practice by playing in single table and heads up tournaments, you will have a much bigger edge when you find yourself here at the end of a multi table tournament.

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