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Good Hands Played Bad in Heads-Up Poker

Heads-up poker winnings can allow us very profitable poker plays. It can be exploited if we know how to play the game to the full. We only need to know how to trap an opponent and make the same pot-committed with the player's betting strategy.

Heads-up poker is an aggressive way of playing the game to pin the opponent to a specific course of action---usually, to be busily coping with our wager strategies. We give no chance to the opponent to position for a better strategy than to merely react to our bets.

Then, we set a trap by deliberately giving the opponent wrong information about our hand. One way of trapping the opponent in heads-up poker is to play a strong hand in a bad way. So first, we try to develop a strong hand. If we do come up with a strong hand---even a monster hand---in poker we must play it precisely in the way people know how bad hands are played.

Actually, this is one of the secrets of pros in a heads-up poker---pretend to be playing a bad hand, or play "dead," when in reality we hold a premium hand. The common bluff we know is pretending we're playing a good hand. This is already too banal. In setting up a real trap for the big kill, we pretend to be playing a bad hand when actually we're holding a strong hand.

So, once we chance upon a very strong hand in heads-up poker, we wager small, opt to merely check the flop, look uneasy, hesitate, look tired and helpless, and other such moves and acts that will encourage the opponent to steal the pot. When the opponent does, we trap and overtake the opponent. The game can end even faster because in heads-up poker, a raise is often an all-in bet.

Often, the opponent will go all-in to scare us away and win the pot by bluffing. Well, at times the opponent may have something substantial to back the all-in bet with. Either way, we play our strong hand in a bad way to take the opponent's focus off our true intention. The opponent is bound to get so thrilled with how the heads-up poker seems to turn in the opponent's favor.

When the opponent goes all-in that's when we win the nice pot the opponent has built for us. This reverse bluff is a very effective heads-up poker strategy pros use to win more at poker tournaments.