It’s not uncommon to gracefully maneuver through a poker tournament field only to get crushed in heads-up play. After all, the majority of poker strategy is dedicated to teaching players how to do well in full table and short-handed situations. And when it comes to heads-up play…..it’s like this part of the game doesn’t even exist! Obviously you don’t want to spend your entire poker career trying to luck through heads-up play so here are some tips that will help you handle these situations better.

Chances are that one of the first poker tips you learned was to play fewer hands. At this point, you probably also came across a set of starting hand requirements that advised you what hands to play in certain situations. Unfortunately, starting hand requirements in three-handed games or larger are pretty worthless in heads-up play. In fact, if you try to stick with these starting hand requirements, you’ll get destroyed by your heads-up opponent. So be willing to play more hands when you are in heads-up situations to avoid being blinded out.

Sticking with the theme of playing more hands, you should play any pocket pair to the fullest. This means making a large pre-flop raise along with forcing your opponent to bet chips throughout the hand. And for those who don’t agree that any pocket pair is extremely valuable during heads-up play, consider this fact: you only have a 1 in 16 chance of being dealt a pocket pair. So if you have a pocket pair, there’s about a 94% chance that you’re already ahead of your opponent at this point.

While a pocket pair’s value rises considerably in heads-up play, the value of suited connectors falls quite a bit. Suited connectors are meant to be speculative hands where you’re willing to risk money on the chance that you’ll get a large payoff. Since you only have a little over a 2% chance of hitting either a straight or flush on the flop with suited connectors, this is a horrible hand to play heads-up because there aren’t enough players to pay you off in the end. The only time you should place high value on suited connectors is when one of the cards is a jack or higher.

Since high pair wins most of the time in heads-up situations, any ace, king, or queen in your hand is a blessing. And you should turn these blessings into large raises where your opponent is forced to make a tough decision on whether or not they’re willing to stay in the hand. Even if you don’t force an opponent to fold with Ax, Kx, or Qx, you still have a good shot to win the hand if you pair these cards up. Of course, your reading skills will come into play here too since you don’t want to go all-in if your opponent is betting like they have a made hand.

When you feel like you’ve got the lead on an opponent, the worst thing you can do is let them see more cards that could improve their hand. Even still, plenty of players make the mistake of letting their opponent see more cards for the sake of slow-playing. But unless you have the absolute nuts, you need to make your opponents pay to see additional cards. If they fold, then so be it; if they call, you’ve added more money to a hand where you’re in the lead. As long as you always make opponents pay to see cards, you will profit in the long run.

Some players believe the optimal heads-up strategy is to raise with anything to steal blinds and small pots. Of course, this only works against tight players who are poor in heads-up situations. Any skilled heads-up player is going to trap these overly-aggressive opponents and take most of their chips. The best way to deal with an overly-aggressive player is to play like a calling station with a pocket pair, then raise big on a later street.

One of the most overlooked aspects of playing heads-up is stack size – both yours and your opponent’s. And stack size is absolutely critical to your success when matched one-on-one with another player. In regards to an opponent’s stack size, keep in mind that they’re going to make desperate calls when their stack size is low; this gives you an excellent opportunity to take their stack when they make a bad call. When an opponent’s stack is big, your reading skills will come into play because some big stacks like to be conservative while others try to push their advantage and steal pots as often as possible. When looking at your own stack, think about what your perceived image is to an opponent based on your stack size. For example, with a small stack players think that you are going to make the aforementioned desperate calls, which gives you an opportunity to trap them.

If you use the tips in this article, your heads-up play will improve dramatically. You might even find yourself winning some big tournaments in the future.