One Man
Across the Table

The seat flips

This is the thing that catches everyone, and it will quietly cost you the match if you never square it away. Heads-up, the small blind is the button.

So the small blind — the seat you have spent years learning to hate — is now the good one. You act first once, then you act last on the flop, the turn and the river. That is three streets of watching him before you have to decide anything.

Why folding loses

Nine-handed, you pay blinds two hands out of nine. Heads-up you pay them every hand. That single change is the whole game.

On the button: raise or fold

Do not limp. Limping hands him a free look at a flop with position on you, which is the one thing you never want to give away. Raise or fold — and mostly raise. Two and a bit big blinds is plenty; you are not trying to blow him off the hand, you are buying the button.

Raise about four hands in five. The fold list is short.

• Any pair. Every one of them, deuces included.
• Any two suited cards. All of them, no exceptions.
• Any offsuit hand with an ace, king, queen or jack — all the way down to J2o.
• Any offsuit hand whose lower card is a six or better — T6o, 98o, 87o.
• Any offsuit connector or one-gapper from seven up.

Everything else — offsuit rags with no picture and no connection, your 92o and 63o — goes in the muck. That is roughly one hand in five.

In the big blind: defend wide

When he raises to two and a bit, you are being asked to put in about one more blind to win a pot of four. You do not need a good hand to justify that. You need a hand that flops something often enough, and almost everything does.

• Re-raise your genuine hands — tens and up, ace-king, ace-queen. Heads-up these are monsters, not merely good.
• Call with everything playable: any pair, any suited hand, anything with a ten or better, anything connected.
• Fold only the true garbage — unsuited, uncoordinated, no card above a nine.

Folding your big blind is the single most expensive habit a good full-ring player brings to a heads-up match. You already have money in the pot. Make him earn it.

What your hands are worth

Hand values slide down a whole rung. With nine players, someone usually has something. With one opponent, usually nobody does.

The mistake to avoid: folding a decent pair on the river because it “can't be good.” Heads-up, it usually is.

How much to bet

Your home game guide says bet pot, and at that table it's right — four callers, several draws, and you need to charge all of them. Heads-up there is one man and one range, and that range is mostly nothing. Pot-sized bets stop making sense.

Before the flop

You are raising four hands in five, so the raise is not meant to blow him off the pot. It buys you the button cheaply. A big open just builds a pot out of position for the times he wakes up with something.

After the flop

Dry or wetDry means nothing much connects — K♠ 7♥ 2♣. Wet means straights and flushes are live — 9♥ 8♥ 7♠. On a dry board almost nothing called your raise, so a small bet does the job. On a wet board he has real draws, and a small bet just charges him a cheap price to draw out.

Bet the same size with everything

This is the one that matters most against a man who is paying attention, and you are playing one. If you bet a third with your bluffs and pot with your good hands, you have handed him the answer for free — he folds the small ones and pays only when he beats you.

The two mistakes that cost real money

• Betting pot heads-up. It folds out nothing a third wouldn't have, and it triples what you lose when he has it. Your home game instinct is actively wrong here.
• Making a fancy small raise when you are short. Under twelve big blinds a raise commits you anyway, so raising to “keep the pot small” is the worst of both — you get called by the hands that beat you and you have given up your fold equity.

The shove game

This is the section that wins the match. The blinds climb until the stacks are shallow, and at that point poker stops and arithmetic starts: all in, or fold. You will not be able to look this up at the table, so it has to become reflex.

Stacks in big blinds. Under twelve, a small raise commits you anyway — so move it in and take the fold equity instead.

And when he shoves on you:

Reading him in real time

You will not have a guide open at the table, so the read has to happen in your head while you play. The good news is that heads-up gives you data faster than any other format — you are in every single hand, watching one man.

Count three things

Not everything. Three. You can hold three running counts in your head without losing the thread of the game.

• Does he raise the button, or fold it? This is his appetite. A man folding buttons heads-up is beating himself and you should raise relentlessly.
• Does he bet the flop after he raises? Nearly always, or only sometimes? If nearly always, his flop bet carries no information and you can float him and take the turn.
• What happens when you play back at him? One check-raise early is worth its price purely for the answer. If he folds, you have a licence. If he comes over the top, file it away and stop.

How long before you trust it

Roughly ten hands before a pattern means anything, and even then only a loud one. Six hands of him raising every button looks identical to a maniac and to a man who was dealt six good hands.

What the numbers mean

Drill this. The Reading him quiz mode hands you a running count and asks you to name it — which is exactly the call you will be making in your head between hands.

Three playbooks

Everything above is true no matter who sits down. This is the part that changes. Read him first, then pick the book — and be willing to switch if he switches.

Against an aggressive player

The likeliest one, and the hardest. Assume it going in, but make him prove it.

• Stop bluffing him. Your bluffs are redundant against a man already betting. Get value instead and let his aggression pay off your real hands.
• Check-call more than feels right. Turn middling hands into bluff catchers. Checking to an aggressive man is not weakness — it is an invitation he will accept.
• Call down lighter than feels comfortable. If he is betting a lot of hands, second pair beats most of what he is betting. Your folding instinct was trained somewhere a bet meant something.
• Check-raise his flop bets about one time in six. If you never fight back, his automatic c-bet is free money forever. You do not need to win the pot — you need him to stop betting without thinking.
• Believe him when he slows down. A thinking aggressive player who takes a line he has not taken all night usually has it. Call light everywhere else and give him credit here.

Against a caller

The easiest match you will ever play, and the one most people misplay by getting bored.

• Never bluff. Not once. A man who does not fold cannot be bluffed, and every attempt is money set on fire.
• Value bet relentlessly and thinly. Top pair is three streets. Second pair is often two. He will call with worse all night.
• Size up, not down. He is not folding to a big bet any more than a small one, so charge him properly.
• Be patient with the boredom. The winning line against a station is repetitive on purpose.

Against a man who folds too much

• Raise every single button. All of them. He is handing you blinds.
• Bet every flop. Keep doing it until he fights back, then reassess — not before.
• Give up on the hands he actually plays. When a tight man finally puts in real money, he has it.

Your image is a chip you spend once

You play this man every week. He has watched you fold for months. That is not nothing — it is an asset with an expiry date.

• Early, open far wider than he would ever credit you with. He reads your raises through months of watching you wait for aces, so he gives you more respect than your cards deserve. Take the free pots.
• The first time you play back hard, he is likelier to fold than he should be. Save it for a pot that matters rather than spending it in the first ten minutes.
• It expires. Two or three showdowns where he sees you turn over something light and the credit is gone. Notice when it goes, and switch to straight value. The worst outcome is running the wide-open game an hour after he has figured you out.

Quick reference

Drill

Fresh hands every time. Mixed leans hard on the shove game, because that is what decides a match played to the bust and the one thing you cannot work out at the table. Keyboard: 1–4 answers, Enter deals the next hand.