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Cottlad Cash Strategy Article (2/9) - Playing From The Blinds
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Playing Poker From The Blinds
Blind Luck
Playing from the blinds puts you at a huge disadvantage, but Shaun Dean says there are some effective ways to minimise their impact
Most players expect to lose money from the blinds – that’s a fact of life. We must involuntarily put money into the pot with all our hands whether it’s 7-2 or Aces. Even when you do find a playable hand in a cash game you’re going to be out of position post-flop, thereby adding to your headache. You should be looking for ways to minimise your losses from the blinds rather than looking for big profits.
One of the biggest mistakes people make when playing from the blinds is calling with hands that are likely to be dominated. It’s important to consider not just your pot odds to see a flop but your implied odds. Even more important, and this is where many players leak cash, is understanding the concept of reverse implied odds. This is used to describe situations where your holding is easily dominated and you are likely to lose a big pot when you hit the second-best hand.
Say you call a raise in the big blind with A-6. You are getting around 2/1 to call. The flop comes down A-J-7 and your check is met with a three-quarter-pot-sized bet from the original raiser. Can you really be confident with your A-6? How likely are you to win a decent pot with top pair, no kicker? Before you know it you have called a river bet and lost half a buy-in with an extremely marginal hand. The most common scenario with a rag Ace is that you will lose whatever you’ve put into the pot pre-flop when you miss the flop and your opponent continuation-bets.
Blind Play Guidelines
Most of what we decide to do from the blinds is based on what action there has been before us. We can split this action into three categories and discuss some of the thought processes and hand selection we should use.
1 Strong action: >75% on our danger scale
This includes raises from tight-aggressive players in early position, three-bets from any player in any position and raises from very tight players in any position.
In this scenario we need a good reason to continue from either of the blinds. Certainly weak A-x and K-x hands should be folded. We can call raises with low/mid pocket pairs as long as there hasn’t been a three-bet but this can be dependent on stack sizes and who was the pre-flop raiser. For instance, I’m very happy to call with pocket fives from the blinds against a very tight player with a full stack who raised from under the gun because he will often have a premium hand and we can extract a lot of value should we flop a set.
Playing suited connectors out of position isn’t ideal but if more than one player is involved we can see a flop at a reduced rate and hope to hit it hard. We really want to be playing premium hands as well as hands with good potential that aren’t likely to be dominated, and ones we can get away from easily and cheaply should we not connect hard with the flop.
2 Medium action: 20-75% on our danger scale
This includes raises from loose-aggressive players and includes calls from loose and weak players and raises from tighter players from the cut-off and button.
We should again be folding our danger hands as a rule, although three-betting them in some circumstances is fine too. Many aggressive players will be open-raising from late position with over 30% of starting hands which leaves us various ways to exploit them depending on each opponent’s tendencies. Three-betting from the blinds can be very profitable, especially against weaker players, and can be executed with a wide variety of hands. By three-betting we can take down the pot there and then, win the pot with a continuation bet or even flop the nuts and find a way to stack our opponent.
We shouldn’t really be targeting stubborn players with our light three-bets or we can find ourselves inflating pots with bad hands against people who are unwilling to fold middle pair. Our ideal target would be someone who raises regularly from late position but who often folds to three-bets, or calls three-bets with a wide range but often folds to continuation bets. By representing a big hand pre-flop we can expect this type of player to fold to a small continuation bet of around half the pot depending on the flop texture.
The trouble with calling after medium action is that we don’t have much information about our opponent’s holdings. We will often be in a situation where we miss the flop and have to check-fold to a continuation bet. We do still have the option of check-raise bluffing a missed flop in certain situations. This is best used against weak opponents who continuation-bet on flops that hit our perceived range and often miss their range.
3 Weak or no action: <20% on our danger scale
This includes loose players limping from any position and hands where we are in the small blind and it’s folded to us.
Here we can open up our range and punish limpers. Limping, unless we have specific notes, usually signifies weakness and a raise from the blinds will often see us take down the pot there and then. We can sometimes achieve this with any two cards against loose weak players. If it’s folded to us in the small blind, we have to decide whether to try to steal or allow a walk. Many good aggressive players will defend their big blind lightly and three-bet often. When we also consider that we will be playing out of position post-flop we should raise infrequently and try to stick to solid hands.
Against weaker or tighter opponents we should be raising from the small blind quite regularly with a wide range. Open-limping from the small blind can be fine against weak opponents as we are getting 3/1 on our money, but should be generally avoided. Many good opponents will see limping as weak and use a limp from the small blind as a cue to make a large raise from the big blind into a pot where they have position post-flop.
Extracting Value
Playing big pairs can be tricky from the blinds as we are out of position post-flop. Fast-play is usually the best way, at least pre-flop, you should be three-betting or squeezing. We want our opponents to have a well-defined range wherever possible. We must be wary if we meet resistance post-flop with an overpair, especially on a coordinated board.
Check-calling post-flop can also be a great tactic. If we connect well with a board and our opponent is the pre-flop aggressor, we can often let him do our work for us post-flop in spots where a bet by us would usually cause our opponent to fold. This works well against opponents who continuation-bet most hands and who have the ability to run bluffs over multiple streets. Check-calling also helps control pot sizes in polarised situations where our opponent clearly has the nuts or a complete airball. Leading in these situations can lead to big raises and will often result in us folding the best hand.
Comments
also in sit n go's i read an article the other day and it seems ok to limp if not good in stt whats your thoughts on this please? i have tried it of late and prefer the raise or fold line
SNG's are a whole different ballgame and i can certainly see more occassions where limping is fine. Especially when the blinds are higher. Limping or completing SB could be seen as weak and induce spew from BB and sometimes, just completing sb then min betting flop with any 2 is enough to take the pot down. Am sure there are some SNG guys who could comment further on that though.
Any more installments coming??