Right, so what do you want me to say and tell you here? Poker goes way beyond giving people a few hand examples. You could put five hundred hand examples in a book, in fact make it a thousand and it will still not prepare you for actual play. Do not be disappointed with what I am telling you because I am telling you how it is. I am attempting to get across how I think about poker and Texas Hold’em ,how I play poker and how I have got to be a winner and stay a winner.

If you want me to write about how to play a flush draw or bottom pair when heads up or from late position then drop me a line on this site and if I get time then I will write a book all about it for novices. But I will tell you right here and now, that would not be a book that I would enjoy writing because I wouldn’t be telling it as I believe it to be. I would in essence be producing material that I did not totally believe in.

I think that one of the best preparations and pieces of advice that I can give anyone who plays limit hold’em at the middle limits and upwards or who desires to do so would be to study and get experience of playing heads up. I am once again going to upset a lot of people by what I am about to say and many people will not agree with me but I have absolutely no problem with that. This is that heads up play and learning heads up play is perhaps the biggest and most important step that a player can make in my opinion. I have heard countless times about how players should get full ring games cracked first and foremost and then slowly but surely progress to short handed and then heads up if they feel comfortable.

Well there is a lot of truth to this as any novice really does not want to be facing a vastly superior opponent heads up because they will be locking horns with a superior opponent who is making better decisions than them on every single hand. But the fact remains that there are too many players out there who cannot play heads up and shy away from it. If you do that in today’s modern and more aggressive online poker environment then your chances of success are slim.

As the games are getting tighter and your opponents are getting tougher then you are going to be faced with more and more heads up situations in full ring games and semi-short handed games whether you like it or not. If you are playing nine handed and it is folded around to the small blind who raises and you are in the big blind then this is a heads up situation. Obviously your need to become involved in this situation is less because of the vastly reduced blind pressure but it is still a heads up situation all the same.

This article does not concentrate on heads up play but if you don’t take any other advice out of this series other than this then at least you will be starting to make some progress in your poker career. I am not advocating that you jump right into a heads up game online right here and now or tomorrow or next week or even next month. But what I am saying is that if you really want to advance your poker education as a whole not just in cash games but also in a poker tournament then you are going to have to improve your short handed and heads up play. Look out for part two coming soon.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Winning Cash Game Poker”

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