Among card games, poker is not usually played two-handed unless you contest a pot to the river

Deep in a pot with one other opponent, it’s time to get out the cunning card games!

Poker strategy is seldom more tricky than heads-up at the river. You have two main aims: 1) To decide if you are winning or not; and 2) To decide what to do about it. Let’s see how it can pan out.

1) Am I ahead or not?

Pretty much the most important consideration. There are two times that this requires no thought at all: when you have the nuts and when your hand busted out.

On every other occasion, it’s a judgement call. The better you know your opponent and the better you are at analysing a board, the more likely it is that you will correctly assess the situation.

I can’t teach these skills in the space of an article. They require experience and study of the many kind and nasty card games poker will throw at you. However, I can advise you what to do once you have reached the decision (correct or not!).

2) What do I do next?

Here’s where we bring the games into card games! Poker betting on the river, as in all other occasions, is influenced greatly by your position. First to speak, you are at a big disadvantage.

Why? Because your opponent can observe your action BEFORE he decides what to do himself. The flipside of this is obvious. If you are last to act, you don’t need to make up your mind right away. You can see what your enemy does before unleashing your own card games.

Poker is surprisingly complex for a game containing only four real moves: check, bet, fold or raise. Because of this, I’ll split this article into three parts. Part two will deal with what to do when you’re first to act; part three will handle those occasions when you’re last to speak.

Click the link below to go to Part Two of this mini-series.

Part Two of the card games poker series: first to act on the river...