Anybody who is an aficionado of Ron Jeremy's work knows that how you play with a group is a whole lot different than how you deal with somebody one on one. This is also true in the game of poker. While most of us are used to playing against 6-10 opponents, your approach to the game must change when you are playing heads up against a single opponent. Our focus today will be on the strength of the hole cards and what to do before the flop. To be blunt, you can lower the bar for what is an acceptable pair of hole cards to play. The chart below shows you what the odds are of getting any of the premium starting hands:
- A-A (220/1 or 0.45%)
- A-K (81.9/1 or 1.1%)
- A-A, K-K, Q-Q or 10-10 (54.3/1 or 1.8%)
- Any Pocket Pair (16:1 or 6.25%)
- Any 2 Cards Jack or Higher (10.1/1 or 9.05%)
This means that in most cases a heads up game is a battle of drawing hands. If you are lucky enough to get a strong pair of hole cards, the chart below shows you what your chances of victory are:
- A-A, chances of victory 84.93%
- K-K, chances of victory 82.12%
- Q-Q, chances of victory 79.63%
- J-J, chances of victory, 77.15%
- A-K (suited), chances of victory 64.47%
- K-Q (not suited), chances of victory 60.43%
- J-10 (suited) chances of victory 56.15%
Most of your hands are going to look more like a K-4 or an unsuited 10-6. In most cases the victory will not be decided before the flop, so feel comfortable seeing the flop with lower quality cards than you are used to.
