Benefits of Playing Aggressive in Heads Up Poker

Aggression is a positive trait in all forms of poker play. Heads-up this characteristic carries even more benefits. However, simple ‘blind aggression’ is a sure way to lose money very quickly. Aggressive heads-up poker play involves adapting the tendencies of your opponent, your position and the cards that you hold in a number of ways. This article looks at how smart use of aggression in heads-up poker can benefit your game today.
We will start by looking at how whether you are in position affects the benefits of aggression in heads-up poker play. Next the tendencies of your opponent, and your opponents ‘image’ of you at the table is covered. Finally we look at how the actual cards that you hold affect using aggression at the tables.

Position in heads up poker is more important than in a full ring game. This is fixed for the duration of the hand (there is no ‘relative position’ consideration) and enables you to win many pots when neither you, nor your opponent, make a strong hand. It thus follows that the best place to use aggressive play is from the small blind / dealer button position. Since your opponent will need to act before having information on your intentions after the flop this will enable you to represent a stronger hand – and thus take down any pots where your opponent does not flop any hand strong enough to play in a raised pot.

Conversely, being out of position is a major disadvantage heads-up. For this reason you should be more aggressive early in the hand (unless you hold a real monster). Your bet sizes from the big blind position should be calculated to end the hand as quickly as possible – thus negating the disadvantage of bad position. By raising instead of calling when you do have a strong hand you will sometimes cause a (correctly) aggressive opponent in the small blind to lay down some hands after they have raised.
Specific opponents play aggressive poker in different ways. An opponent who raises too many hands out of position is potentially setting themselves up to be trapped into a big pot. Players who raise too little may inadvertently price an opponent into continuing with a draw that they might have folded to a reasonable bet.

They key to playing aggressively against specific opponents is to ask yourself how they see your bets. If an opponent sees you betting every single time the opportunity arises then this will not be seen as a show of strength after a while. This can have benefits as well as drawbacks – since a player may choose to come over the top with a huge raise the time you do have a strong holding. Aggression need not always entail being the first person to bet, well timed check-raises are aggressive moves that will keep your opponent guessing whether subsequent checks are strong or weak.
Finally we get to the cards that you hold. There are two points here. Firstly the chance of neither player flopping a big enough hand or draw to continue is high in heads-up poker. This means that the most aggressive player will often take the pot uncontested. Secondly, the hands with which you can be confident playing aggressively are much weaker than those at a full ring table. For example second pair is a legitimate hand in heads-up games and should be played positively and aggressively – your assumption that this is the best hand is usually correct.

To summarize, aggression is a positive trait in poker and playing aggressively when heads-up has several benefits when executed correctly. The best place to be aggressive from is the button position – as this has the additional benefit of acting last. The tendencies of your opponent, their view of your tendencies and the cards you hold should also be taken into account.