Optimize Your Playing Skill in a Head’s up Game

Head’s up playing is a delicate art you perfect mostly through experience.  Although the essential approach is comparable to playing short-handed games (meaning you play a lot more hands and bet more aggressively when you do make a hand), there will be no real advantage by getting short-handed experience before you test the game. Head’s up is unlike other game forms that it fully qualifies as its own animal.

Observing head’s up in action
You do reap marvelous benefits, however, from investing some time observing the game before you join in. Get a good feel for the playing style. Be ready for winning streaks. Take notice, as best as you can, of the hands that the other players play from the start of the game and how they bet those cards (you won’t see very many of the other player’s cards because nearly all hands end prior to the showdown).  Because only a couple of people are in competition for every pot, you frequently see strings of four wins or more.
You shouldn’t pay too much attention on idiosyncrasies in each players; what you should pay attention to is the overall pace and form of the match. Watch the action of the game. Observe how the betting works, particularly check-raising and re-raising if players have decent hands. After you allocate several minutes looking at a table, find another. Head’s-up playing style varies from person to person, so watching a few different games before you plunge in gives you an estimation of the unique playing styles people have and the way they squeeze money out of various kinds of players. And although skills may vary, give attention to the fundamentals: how many more hands people play and how bold the betting becomes.

Plunging into head’s up games
After your research, you should be ready to join. Don’t wig out, since you can always leave the game when it feels like too much.
You can or can not pick the person you play against; either you play with an opponent sitting alone at a game or you wait at an empty table for a player to join you. Actually, it doesn’t matter what path you choose.
As you start playing the game, see how fast you understand how other players play. You may find that your favored style works great against certain types of players and not too effective versus other players. Because you get control over whom you want to play (the ring-game rule), stay with players who give you an edge and ditch players your style does not fit with. How easily you can get a better feel for other players varies (generally in 5 to 15 minutes), but it has to be an impression that you know well in your gut. If you are confident and comfortable against an opponent, stick with him. If you feel overpowered, consider moving to another table.  Most players lose direction in head’s-up game by zeroing-in on a player who wins the most money versus who wins the most hands. As you play, particularly if sessions drag on, always watch for your chip count. If, after an extended period of time, you lose more chips, you cannot blame it on the bad-luck streak; perhaps, you are facing a stronger player. If so, don’t hesitate to leave the game and minimize your losses. Take it easy. Cool down a moment. You can always return against somebody else.
There will be no mental breaks in head’s-up games. Every few seconds, you must make a decision, it can be both tiring and stimulating.
If you feel that you are incapable to give a head’s-up session your full attention, it is better that you end your session or find a game with more members where you are not involved in each single hand.

For some reason (perhaps because only one other player sits at your table and there is nothing else to focus on), you will see much more player chatter throughout head’s-up play.
By simply gauging the conversations, you may expect to find the most pleasant and a few of the most ill-mannered people in the whole online poker world. If a player gives you a hard time, switch off the chat feature for your site or move to another table, and report abusive people to the site’s administrator.