News / John Tabatabai / 11 June 2009 / 1

One of the most fundamental mistakes players make in heads up games is making their bets either too big or too small.

This has profound consequences on the likelihood of them winning over the long run, as betting too much or too little fundamentally creates an imbalance in their game, and a skilled player can easily take advantage of this key mistake over time.

Online in particular, you will see a whole category of players who simply bet pot at any flop they feel like. This is no doubt due to the prevalence of bet pot buttons in poker clients, and people's inherent laziness just leads them to fire these big bets out.

The problem with betting pot when playing heads up is that it is nearly always too much to bet. As when you are playing heads up you need to be firing at lots of flops with lots of marginal hands, it is important not to bet so much that it is easy for your opponent to re-steal big pots off you constantly.

By lowering your raise sizes to between half and three quarters of the pot, you give yourself ample opportunity to build big pots over three streets, but also give yourself much more room to maneuver when played back at.

The other main class of heads up players making key mistakes with their betting is the min bettors. These players seem to have heard about small ball poker, the advantages of betting small amounts regularly, but do not actually understand the mechanics of playing such a style properly. They will fire out tiny bets into the pot, and do themselves a massive disservice on two fronts.

Firstly, when they do have big hands, they do not end up building big pots. This is bad for obvious reasons, as it means that they do not exert any real pressure over the opponent with either their big hands or their bluffs - clearly a recipe for disaster over the long run.

Secondly, they allow players to draw to basically any hand because their bets are so small. As a result, even when they have a big hand, they will often let the other player see cheap cards to hit whatever draw their opponent is on, with the result that their opponent can happily put all of their money in with something close to the nuts later on. With these players you simply sit back, call their small bets with any type of hand, and put in large raises whenever you have something big.

Always try and analyse both your opponents bet sizing as well as your own. It is one of the most obvious weaknesses in an opponent when playing heads up, and one of the easiest to take advantage of. Heads up poker is primarily a game of balancing your actions well, and an imbalance in your opponent's bet sizing will very quickly add up to lots of profit if attacked correctly.

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1. hstat | 02 July 2009

   John, I remember playing you for a bit at low stakes when you were on your cash games challenge. I noticed that as well as being very aggressive you tended to donk-bet HU a lot more frequently than anyone I've encountered, sometimes making them half-pot vs me. Could you explain your reasoning behind this at that time?
   Thanks

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