Tips for HU

[Wes]

Obviously I'll be talking about HU NLHE cash games.

1. Noticing betting tendencies. After you have played with someone for a while, you should notice some things that this player likes to do. Does he bet bigger when he has something and smaller when he doesn't have anything, or vice versa? Also, does he like to slowplay, or does he fastplay everything? Does he bluff a lot or does he only bet when he has something? People aren't very bright (at least the ones you should be playing, table selection people) and usually just go through the same pattern.

2. Polarizing ranges. Maybe you don't know what I mean by polarizing ranges, so I'll try to explain what I mean here. Polarizing ranges just means that they make it in such a way that they will always show up with a monster if they do something, or they will show up with something weaker if they do something different. Here are a couple examples:

There are some loose/passives that will always limp/reraise with their big hands (tt+). So, if you notice this, they are polarizing their ranges in such a case that you can punish them when they do open raise preflop by either 3betting a lot more, or check/raising a bunch.


3. Timing tells. When playing HU, actions are usually done quite quickly. So, you can infer after a while what exactly a person is doing when he calls quickly or when he thinks about then acts. Don't always infer that a quick action means he has a lesser hand (which is usually the case) as there are some people that will act the opposite of what the norm as (aka calls quickly = big hand, think and call = shit).

4. Varying preflop play. There are some people I'll play 80/70 against and some people I'll play 30/20 against. If a person is weak/tight pre or the even better loose/passive pre and tight post (who will call with any two pre and then fold post if they don't hit anything and hardly ever bluff), play like that maniac you've always wanted to. Take the free money. It'll be boring, but it's easy money.

But, if a guy is 3betting you every hand or just will not fold preflop, don't open 95% of your hands on the button. Tighten up. Also, if the guy is really loose/passive pre and post, I would advise raising more preflop. Instead of raising 3x pre, make it 5x. Your range is better than his, punish him for it.

Also, there are a bunch of people HU that refuse to play a hand in the BB unless they 3bet. So, just min raise their button so your positional advantage is greater because stacks will be deeper (allowing you to play more postflop) and it has to work so little preflop for it to be profitable against these guys. Most of them play pretty damn tight preflop in the BB, so they'll fold more than they should to your min raises.

5. Table selection. It cannot be said enough. If you don't think you have an advantage or even a big advantage, leave. Who cares if you are down 2 buyins to this person? You can go find another table enough random idiots that will buy in for their entire bankroll that are just horrible at poker that there is no need to play someone who is thinking above level 1.