Question about folding in the blinds

A lot of the time i find that I'm in the BB with a craptacular hand (K3, J5, 38 etc) and the SB will try to steal with a minimum raise. I rarely like to put in a bad chip into the pot (unless im the agressor) so I constantly fold, and will re-raise if i pick up a decent hand, and call his raise if i pick up a hand that has potential. Is this what I should be doing?

What about heads up? Today I had to use the strategy above because he had a 3:1 chip advantage. I finallly picked up 99 and re-raised and he pushed me all in. I called and he flipped over AA. Probably just a cooler, but at least did i play the hand correctly?

There are really two topics here.

Don't expect that I'm a pro, but here has been my experience...

In the main tourney (non-HU) I tend to fold to aggression if I don't have decent cards. The general rule ChrisBCritter has been trying to get into my head is raise or fold... if it isn't worth raising, fold it. The question really boils down to, if you have that craptacular hand and call, then the flop misses you, what are you going to do? If your answer is fold to any bet, you are leaking chips.

In HU... well, that is a topic unto itself. If I have anything decnet HU I raise back. UNTIL... the other person realizes they have to start raising only premium hands and starts raising back at me...

HU is a weird thing, plays completely different than the regular tournaments... sometimes you have to go 'off the reservation' to throw your opponent off and win.

Again though, I'm only at 2% ROI over 450 games...

A lot of this depends on whether you're playing cash games or tournaments.

Originally Posted by AFchung

A lot of the time i find that I'm in the BB with a craptacular hand (K3, J5, 38 etc) and the SB will try to steal with a minimum raise. I rarely like to put in a bad chip into the pot (unless im the agressor) so I constantly fold, and will re-raise if i pick up a decent hand, and call his raise if i pick up a hand that has potential. Is this what I should be doing?

Nothing wrong with this at all. If stacks are very deep (say 50x BB or deeper), you can flat call with high potential hands such as pocket pairs and suited connectors to play for something nice on the flop, but with real trash folding is definitely the default option for me.

Originally Posted by AFchung

What about heads up? Today I had to use the strategy above because he had a 3:1 chip advantage. I finallly picked up 99 and re-raised and he pushed me all in. I called and he flipped over AA. Probably just a cooler, but at least did i play the hand correctly?

This is just a cooler. Again, it depends on how deep stacks are, but in a typical SNG tournament where stacks are no deeper than 30x BB, it'd be a cold day in hell when I'd fold 99 in the spot you describe.

Originally Posted by AFchung

A lot of the time i find that I'm in the BB with a craptacular hand (K3, J5, 38 etc) and the SB will try to steal with a minimum raise. I rarely like to put in a bad chip into the pot (unless im the agressor) so I constantly fold, and will re-raise if i pick up a decent hand, and call his raise if i pick up a hand that has potential. Is this what I should be doing?

What about heads up? Today I had to use the strategy above because he had a 3:1 chip advantage. I finallly picked up 99 and re-raised and he pushed me all in. I called and he flipped over AA. Probably just a cooler, but at least did i play the hand correctly?

Again, this depends on stakes and cash vs. tourneys, FR vs. 6max, etc. At 10 and 25nl, I'm willing to play almost any two in a blind vs. blind battle in a 6max game. Here's my experience.

1. Hero is SB, all fold, Hero raises 3xBB. BB folds 60% of the time, or more. BB rr's less than 10%. When BB calls, an auto-cbet folds him out 80% of the time, or more.

2. Hero is BB, all fold, SB completes, Hero raises 3xBB. SB folds 80% of the time, rr's like 5%, and calls rest. Have position, tiny pot - it's all good.

Because of the way I play examples 1 & 2, I know that blind vs. blind is likely to have SB raising with total crap. So you asked about...

3. Hero is BB, all fold, SB raises 3xBB, Hero??

My answer is of course read-dependent and includes a glance at stack sizes, etc. But generally speaking, I rr at least half the time with an auto-cbet ready to go at least two-thirds of the time I rr. When I'm shooting for a Top 50% hand, I generally play any Face Card and any two suited, though I'm not that keen on hands like 83s. LoL - you can run PokerStove to see what kinds of hands should be in there.

Also, in any blind vs. blind, I'm firing a PSB on the flop any time I catch any piece of the flop. Typically in these situations, no one has much, and bottom pair is likely to be ahead.

on cash games, do not let SB take ur blind w a minraise
you are getting 3-1 to play a small pot in position
play connectors, scs, 1/2/3gappers
to a minraise call w almost anything and 3-bet with anything remotely good