Heads Up Hold'em trainer
Dealer needs a pair to open the Ante
Paytables
Odds you win with
A smaller win pushes the Odds bet.
Bad Beat you lose with
Losing with a straight or better still pays the Odds bet.
Trips Plus your seven cards
Progressive $1, this round's pays
Pocket Bonus your two cards
Independently calculated odds. Side bets and the flop and river coach are exact. The preflop chart and the main game's house edge are estimates from thousands of exactly solved flops per hand. Rules and payouts follow the Massachusetts Gaming Commission's Heads Up Hold'em rules; your casino's may differ. How our odds are calculated
Raise once, at the right time
Heads Up Hold'em is Texas hold'em against the dealer. You get one raise per hand: up to 3x before the flop, 2x on the flop, or 1x on the river. The Odds bet pays on big hands, even when the dealer beats you.
When to raise
Our own strategy. The preflop chart comes from solving thousands of flops exactly for every starting hand; the flop and river rules are shortcuts for a real table, checked against the exact answer: they make the right call on 95% of flops and 97% of rivers, and the misses cost almost nothing. On this site the coach grades the flop and river by the exact count.
Before the flop
On the flop
On the river
Preflop chart
Gold hands raise 3x before the flop; the rest check. Suited hands are above the diagonal, offsuit below. Faded squares are close calls, where checking and raising are worth almost the same.
424 of the 1,326 starting hands raise 3x before the flop, about one in three. Seven hands are close calls, where raising and checking were within our margin of error: 33, Q8s, Q9o and JTs (raise), J9s, K4s and K6o (check). Played this way, with the best flop and river decisions, the house edge is about 2.65% per Ante (an estimate).
How a hand plays
- Bet the Ante and the OddsBoth are required and always equal. Trips Plus and Pocket Bonus are optional.
- Two cards eachFive community cards are dealt face down.
- Before the flopRaise 1x, 2x or 3x the Ante, or check.
- The flopIf you haven't raised: raise 1x or 2x, or check.
- The turn and riverIf you still haven't raised: raise 1x, or fold the Ante and the Odds.
- ShowdownBest five cards from your two and the board. Win and the Raise pays 1 to 1; the Ante pays only if the dealer has a pair or better (otherwise it pushes). The Odds pays its table on a straight or better and pushes on a smaller win. Lose with a straight or better and the Odds pays the Bad Beat table.
Trips Plus and Pocket Bonus
Both side bets are paid on your cards alone. Trips Plus is one of the cheapest side bets in the casino on Table A.
| Bet | Wins when | House edge |
|---|---|---|
| Trips Plus, Table A | Your best hand from seven cards is three of a kind or better | 0.74% |
| Trips Plus, Tables B, C, D | Same, lower pays | 1.74%, 3.34%, 4.34% |
| Pocket Bonus, Table A | A pair, or an ace with a king, queen or jack | 4.52% |
| Pocket Bonus, Tables B, C | Same, lower pays | 6.79%, 9.95% |
Exact. Trips Plus is counted from all 133,784,560 seven-card hands, the Pocket Bonus from all 1,326 two-card starts. The Pocket Bonus still pays if you fold.
The $1 progressive
Many Heads Up Hold'em tables offer a $1 progressive. It looks at your best five cards from your two and the board, and it pays whether you win, lose or fold. Pays are "for 1": the $1 is not returned. These are the rules and paytable D01 filed with Nevada's Gaming Control Board in 2025.
| Your best five | Pays on $1 | Boosted pays | About 1 in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal flush using your cards | 100% of the meter | none | 32,487 |
| Royal flush on the board alone | $200 | $300 to $2,000 | 649,740 |
| Straight flush | $80 | $120 to $800 | 3,591 |
| Four of a kind | $40 | $60 to $400 | 595 |
| Full house | $4 | $6 to $40 | 39 |
| Anything less | lose $1 |
Dynamic pays. Before each round, the table picks one, two or three of the four fixed-pay hands at random and boosts each to one of ten higher pays. The trainer shows this round's boosts on the felt, under the meter. On average each fixed hand is boosted half the time.
When it's worth it. Counted exactly from all 133,784,560 seven-card hands: without the jackpot, the fixed pays return 19.4 cents per dollar at their normal amounts and 63.4 cents on average with the boosts. Each $1 of meter adds 1/32,487 of a dollar. So the bet breaks even when the meter reaches about $11,900 (counting the average boosts), or $26,200 if no hand is boosted. At $5,000 it returns about 79 cents per dollar; at $10,000, about 94 cents.
The meter here is play money. The filed rules leave the seed and how much of each bet feeds the meter to the casino. This trainer starts its meter at a random amount between $5,000 and $20,000, adds 20 cents per bet, and resets to $5,000 after a royal. The panel above shows what the bet is worth at the current meter with this round's pays.
At the table
- Two bets to startThe Ante and the Odds go out together, so a $10 Ante puts $20 on the felt.
- One raise per handOnce you raise, the rest of the board comes out with no more decisions.
- The Ante needs a dealer pairIf the dealer has no pair, your Ante pushes even when you win.
- The Odds bet is your big-hand betIt pushes on small wins and pays 500 to 1 on a royal flush.
- Check the table versionPayouts and rules vary; the felt and the rules card are what count.