Some hands are close; others aren’t. While Joe might be in the lead there are others calling in hopes of outdrawing him. Sometimes the lead changes on every betting round, but on other occasions one player is way ahead. And when he is, everyone else is far behind. You can’t have one without the other.

There’s a lot that comes into play here, particularly when you are heads-up. In fact, whenever you play shorthanded, many pots are contested heads-up.

Suppose you’re heads up but aren’t sure whether you’re very far ahead or very far behind. If you were sure, your decisions would be easy. You’d fold if you were far behind because the pot odds probably wouldn’t overcome the odds against hitting your hand. If you were way ahead, you’d try to extract the most money out of your opponent as you could.

If you are ahead, we’ll assume your opponent only has two or three outs. If you’re behind, you’re the one with only two or three cards left in the entire deck that can rescue you from the sword at your throat.

You can be in a way ahead-way behind situation with a hand like A-T or A-J. If the flop contains an ace but doesn’t support any logical draws, your opponent is likely to have an ace if he represents one. If he represents an ace but doesn’t have one, you’re really way ahead.

But if he has an ace with a better kicker than yours, you have only three outs. Let’s just forget about backdoor straight or backdoor flush draws for this example, as well as those odd combinations of cards that can cause a split pot. In this situation your hand is dominated, and you need to pair your kicker to win. In fact, pairing your kicker is your only out. Every card that does not directly help you helps your opponent. If he has A-K or A-Q, you are a big underdog. But if his side card is lower than your kicker, he’s the one who’s way behind and must get lucky enough to catch a three-outer to win.

Life is sweet and easy too whenever you know you’re either in the driver’s seat or the dog house, but sometimes you aren’t quite sure where you stand. Sometimes neither player knows how his hand stacks up against his opponent’s.

He might have raised your big blind with A-J and you called with A-T. Does he have an ace with a better kicker? He might, but then again he could have raised with A-9 or with any ace from late position with only the blinds active.

Even if your opponent aggressively represents a big hand, you can’t be certain enough to fold a pair of aces with a jack kicker in a heads-up situation.

Let’s look at a case in point. Suppose no one else voluntarily entered the pot and you raise from the button with Kh-Jh. You expect to take down the blinds right there, or get one call at most, but to your surprise, the small blind reraises. The big blind folds and the two of you are heads up. You don’t know where you stand at this juncture. The small blind might have reraised because he thought you’re trying to steal the pot. At this point, he could have anything from a pair of aces to a hand that’s a complete bluff.

If he’s a good player, and we’ll assume he is, he’ll realize that you didn’t necessarily need a premium hand to raise from the button. After all, you were the first one to voluntarily enter the pot and could easily have been practicing larceny. He might reraise with a wide spectrum of hands, much wider than any good player would reraise with if you had raised from early position, which is generally a sure signal of a strong hand. Your opponent might also have reraised with less than a powerhouse hand to knock out the big blind and confront you heads-up. But he’d also reraise with very strong hands too.

You can’t fold to his reraise; your hand is too good and you have position on him. Reraising makes no sense either, because you have no idea where you stand at this point in the hand. So you call.

You’re happy to see a flop that hits your hand. Let’s assume it’s Kd-7s-2c. That looks like a nice flop for you, top pair, decent kicker, and no flush draw or straight draw in sight. But your opponent acts first and comes out betting. Now how do you like it?

While you may be completely uncertain about how your hand rates against your opponent’s, you realize that you are either way ahead or way behind. If he’s got a big pocket pair like aces you have only five outs. If he has A-K or K-Q you have only three outs. And if he has a pocket pair of kings you have no outs at all.

But if he has pocket queens, jacks, or tens, he’s the guy who is way behind and must get lucky to win. If he has an ace in his hand, he has three outs. Without an ace he’s hoping for some unusual runner-runner combination and is drawing nearly dead.

But we’re digressing. Your opponent bet, so what should you do? Raise and he is likely to get the message and fold a lesser hand. But if he has a better hand than yours he’ll probably reraise. If he’s a very savvy player he might even reraise with a lesser hand to test the quality of your hand because he’ll realize that you’re just as capable of raising on a bluff as he is.

The trick to handling this situation lies in the realization that you are either winning or losing by such a wide margin that a draw-out is unlikely. If you are way ahead, you want to keep him in the pot and if you can have him do your betting for you, so much the better. He only has a few ways to win and the trade off of having him draw inexpensively to a three-outer versus the almost sure win you have is generally a positive move in the long run.

If you call, you’ll probably induce him to come out betting on the turn too. If an innocuous card comes on the turn, the kind that really can’t help either of you, what’s the best play?

You can bet and that will prevent giving him a free look at the river. But your skillful opponent knows that you have a good hand too. “If you didn’t catch part of the flop,” he’s saying to himself, “why would you have called?” After all, there was no draw present, so anyone calling had to have some part of that flop, and perhaps a lot of it.

If he is way ahead, he’ll probably try to checkraise. Since you’re not sure where you stand, checking is probably better than wagering your way right into his freshly baited trap.

If you’re ahead and he is way behind your bet probably wins the pot right there. While a check will really hurt you if a miracle card helps your opponent, the chances of that are probably far less than the chance that your opponent is not way behind you, but way in front instead—and if he is way ahead, you’d probably have to fold to his checkraise and remove any possibility of a miracle river card saving you in the nick of time.

Checking also gives your opponent some incentive to bet on the river, since he will probably believe that he is now in the lead. That allows you to snap off his bluff, gaining an extra bet in the process, or you can bet with the assurance that he’ll probably assume that it’s an attempt to steal the pot, and prompt him to call.

The smaller the pot, the less you should fear an opponent hitting a longshot draw to snatch the pot out from under your nose. The bigger the pot, the fewer chances you want to take. So when the pot is large it’s generally a better idea to put as much pressure as you can on your opponent if you think you have the best hand.

If you figure your opponent is way ahead, you’ll want to check. But when you’re in the lead, checking can be the best play too.

The river is easily played whenever you’re in a way ahead/way behind situation. Call if your opponent bets and bet if he checks.

Way ahead/way behind hands are easy to play when you can identify the situation correctly. Sometimes your opponent may be semi bluffing a straight draw or a flush draw and have eight or nine outs instead of five or fewer. When that’s the case, you have to bet much

In our example there were no straight or flush draws. If there were, the hand would have to be played differently because giving an opponent a free or inexpensive look at the pot when he has as many as eight or nine outs is a very different situation than letting him sniff at the pot with only a very few outs.

If you’re in a hand where you’re not sure whether you’re in a way ahead or way behind situation, or whether your opponent has an eight- or nine-out draw, assume the draw and play aggressively to preclude him from chasing you inexpensively.

Lou Krieger is the author of eleven poker books including Secrets the Pros Won't Tell You About Winning Hold'em Poker.