The Fun of One-on-One

I don't know of any brick-and-mortar (B&M) cardrooms that will spread a one-on-one game for low or medium stakes. After all, they're not going to go to the expense of providing a table and a dealer for just two players, unless they're playing for high stakes. So, online poker may be your only opportunity to see what playing one-on-one is like. Let me offer several reasons why you should give it a try:

1. Everyone should have some one-on-one experience.

Even if you usually play only at a full table, playing a little one-on-one will give you a whole new perspective on the game. It will cause you to focus solely on one opponent, concentrating completely on his playing style and betting patterns. On the other side of the coin, you must realize that he is focusing solely on your play, and you have to exercise extra effort in attempting to deceive him and make him misread your cards and intentions. Essentially, one-on-one play is a microcosm of poker as a whole. As the song goes, "If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere." If you can succeed in heads-up play, full games should become much easier for you to beat.

2. Do you play any tournaments?

More specifically, have you ever made it to a final table? Or, how about one-table satellites, where you are essentially starting out at the final table? As play progresses from 10 players downward, you'll go from a full table to a shorthanded table to a one-on-one matchup for the whole enchilada. Then, you will wish you had put in more time practicing your one-on-one game. I know what you may be thinking: If you make it that far, you can probably make a deal. How horribly uninspiring! If you know me at all, you know that I can't stand making deals at the end of tournaments. Furthermore, if your opponent does have one-on-one playing experience, he'll probably tell you, "Thanks, but no thanks" to any deal you might propose. The bottom line is that if you play tournaments at all, you have to be prepared to play one-on-one at the end. Online tables give you the perfect opportunity to practice for that eventuality.

3. More is better.

You would rather play more hands in less time, right? Then you're probably already an online aficionado, since every online game produces more hands than its B&M counterpart. But, the fewer players you have, the more the disparity increases. When 10-handed you might see 50 percent more hands online. A sixhanded online game produces about twice as many hands as its B&M equivalent. By the time you get to a one-on-one matchup, you might find that an online table produces four times more hands than a B&M table, and maybe even more!

Why is this difference so extreme? It's simply a question of what percentage of the time is spent in a B&M game gathering the cards, shuffling, cutting, and dealing. When you have a full table, there is a lot more time spent playing the actual hand. You will see a flop the vast majority of the time. There is almost always some decision-making for one or more of the people involved in the hand. Heck, even if you never see a flop, it takes some time for 10 players to act on their hands, and for the winner to take his pot.

However, you don't see nearly as many flops in heads-up poker. So, after the 30 seconds or so that it takes to get the cards shuffled and dealt, the hand is often over in five seconds flat. Thus, the dealing process is taking up the majority of your time, and since you're a poker player, you'd surely rather be spending more time playing. Plus, let's assume that no casino is spreading the one-on-one game for you. That means you're playing at home and dealing to yourselves, and that brings up the fourth good reason to play heads up online:

4. Who wants to spend all that time dealing?

Nobody (at least nobody I know) likes to deal the cards in a home game. In fact, many of the people I used to play with would pay just to avoid dealing on a given night! Sure, I took advantage of their laziness and made a little money on the side by dealing, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed it. Especially when we were playing shorthanded, it got to be pretty annoying to have to shuffle and deal so often. And while everyone was fond of challenging one another to heads-up matches, they rarely materialized, just because having to shuffle so often was a hassle. We even had a couple of matches in which we played down the deck blackjack style. We'd play a hand, then push those cards to the side and deal the next cards off the top of the deck, meanwhile keeping track of the cards that were out so that we'd know what cards were not available.

Yes, we were lazy. But online poker certainly caters to our laziness. Nowadays, if someone wants to play me one-on-one, I tell him to meet me online. We'll pick a time, a site, a table, and an amount for the buy-in. Then, we usually play freezeout style, whereby we continue until one of us has all the chips. Ever do that? It's a lot of fun. If you have someone willing to play with you, I recommend giving it a try.

And even if you don't have someone, I guarantee there are players online just waiting to play one-on-one. Would I necessarily jump headfirst into a real-money game with one of them? Probably not. Lots of them are heads-up specialists, and they are just waiting for someone to sit down with them. But there are plenty of play-money tables where you can practice your one-on-one game for free, and you'll get to play a tremendous number of hands in a reasonable amount of time. I estimate that the average online one-on-one table deals more than 200 hands per hour. That should be enough action to satisfy most players.

Hey, if you really crave action, you can always play two tables at the same time (another one of the beautiful perks of online play). That would give you more than 400 hands an hour! If that's not enough action for you, there's not much I can say. You'd probably be better off playing craps.