Defending Blinds

[Imthenewfish]

I feel that one of the biggest leaks in my game is how i play the big blind facing a raise. Usually i play pretty tight knowing I'll be OOP on the flop. When I do find a decent hand to defend with (K9+ when the flop will be HU?) I feel like I'm forced to play pretty passive post flop and do a lot of guessing. I know that I should play tighter against early position raisers than later position raisers, and I know that I should change my range depending on who is raising, but I don't think I really know what the standard is. Can everyone tell me their typical hands that they defend a mid/late position raise with, and how they usually play it postflop? My thought process preflop is usually, "If I play this hand, what can the flop look like for me to like my hand?". Aside from defending the big blind, when it's folded to the small blind and the small blind just calls, I usually raise 4x with any two cards unless they're a nit/call station/or I have reads that they limp with monsters whenever they get them.

[rpm]

i dont typically have a certain range. it always depends on who else is in the pot and what they've done. if the BU opens to 3x and i know this person is a typical tight aggressive player, steals a lot in position (thus has a weak range when he opens 3x on my BB) i'm going to be 3bet bluffing him a lot. because he folds heaps. if there are two limpers and then a very aggressive player (who likes to raise preflop and doesn't fold to 3bets very much) raises in the CO, i'm going to decide to 3bet a lot of hands for value from the BB that i wouldnt against other players, like maybe 99+,A9s+,ATo+. dont take it from me though. i suggest you search and work through spoonitnow's beginners circle exercises which help you understand exploitation and adjustment (i think the threads are called "Spoony Exercise 1: (topic being covered in that post", "Spoony Exercise 2: (topic being convered in that post)" etc). once you understand these posts, i'd search "Blind stealing 101", "blind stealing 201" and "raising behind limpers" to get a more in depth look at preflop exploitative play.

[!Luck]

Call me a nit, but even against poeple with 30% ATS, I will play the BB about as tight as UTG, though I might add a few 3 bet bluffs with Axs.

Also, I tend to fold 22-66, it really should fold 77 and 88 but I let myself decide that on a villain by villain basis.

[Hoopy]

I sometimes flat SC's against regs that steal a lot but give up too often postflop as they can continue on more flops than say 44. Also 3 bet them occasionally.

Against people who play very fit or fold leading flops with draws/air can be profitable because they fold so much of their range.

Obviously setmine against 8/7 types.

Depends on the player mostly but you won't go wrong by playing tight in the blinds - position is so important in NLHE that you should be trying to defend the button and play hands in position much more than defending the SB/BB.

[Sabr1988]

I presonally dont like the thing about defending my blind with allmost any 2 cards, i think if your not an experienced player its easy for the SB(example) to let you think hes trying to blindsteal, but really he may have a monster, thats what i mostly hate about defending blinds, i often end up losing a good part of my stack when i make mistakes thinking someone just try to blindsteal, so the recent weeks i really try to work on cutting down my "blind defending". Ofc. unless i have a hand that i believe in, AND i have a usable read on the opponent thats raising against my blind.

My advice for you, stop defending your blinds that much, instead you shall try to focus on stealing blinds from your opponents, I think its harder to read the one who raises me, then it is for the raiser to try to bluff me. Thats why the pros are agressive players, its lot harder to read them, like they say about Ivey and Gus, they play aces allmost like they play 89os.. So again, my advice lol, focus on your raise, and dont think that you just MUST defend EVERY single blindsteal, you probably know what to do when you got the right hand dont try to defend your blinds if you do not have a read on the "blindstealer" - you never know exactly what hand he is playing.

By the way, I'm talking about tournament play, and not cashgame. In cashgame im willing to call alot hands if someone trying to raise me when I'm BB, any suited connectors, bottom pairs, allmost anything, the only thing I care about is how much im getting raised and what reads i got on the player raising me.

Maybe its not a help, but there you got my view on "defending blinds".

[surviva316]

a lot of the responses are tl;dr, so i only glazed over them.

the short and discouraging answer to your question is that the question is WAY too general and no one is going to be able to give you a magic range to play in a magical way preflop.

here are some very very good articles on the subject, though:

http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...se-173291.html

http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...nd-167405.html

the second one obviously isn't quite as relevant as the first, but i don't think that nearly enough beginners realize the importance of planning a wide range with which they can reverse the initiative at some point in the hand against a villain with a wide range when we're OOP without the initiative. just calling with some kinda weakish range isn't magically going to make profit for us, we're going to have to do a fair amount of 3b'ing, calling PF with the intention of c/r'ing a lot of flops, calling a lot of cbets with the intention of betting at most rivers if the turn goes check check, etc.

it's hard to get much more specific about such a general question because you should play a hand like 87s or 44 (check out the small PP's facing a steal thread) or AJo or even QQ COMPLETELY differently depending on gameflow, image, reads on villain (if your only read is "standard tagg," then you have no reads because there's no such thing as a standard tagg), stack sizes, etc. it's the first time i read that reversing the initiative article in a long time, and i like how it points out that we should be more likely call preflop and play back at their cbets than to 3b preflop the more and more villain is an auto-cbetting bot.

i wouldn't so much search for a magical range, so much as i'd consider the value of hands like 87s, AJo/KQo, 22-66, QQ+, J7s, A2s,

i would also read this article: http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...rs-173495.html

and i'd compare each of those hands i listed to 72o and highlight the advantages they have over that hand, and from there consider different types of taggs and think about when they're most likely to fold an exploitable amount (to preflop 3b's? to donk leads? to flop c/r's? to flop calls and turn c/r's? to river floats? to cbets after preflop 3b's? to multiple barrels in 3b pots? oftentimes the answer is never) and which spots they're most likely to continue too light and give you value an exploitable amount (do they 4b your 3b's too much? do they call your 3b's too much? do they spazz out when you lead out on flops? do you have a dirty c/r'ing image? etc) and plan your ranges around this.

this will all obviously take a lot of work, and posting hands along this theme will be a nice shortcut to get help from your fellow bc'ers, and asking a ton of questions in irc is probably the best venue to have an informed conversations on this instead of just "std preflop fold" or something like that.

[Imthenewfish]

My advice for you, stop defending your blinds that much

This was intended for cash games, and I already play really tight from the blinds. I'm just trying to get an idea of non-premium hands that i can defend with and still make profit against "unkowns" or "standard Taggs". Thanks for all of the links to other threads, they helped a lot.

[Sabr1988]

This was intended for cash games, and I already play really tight from the blinds. I'm just trying to get an idea of non-premium hands that i can defend with and still make profit against "unkowns" or "standard Taggs". Thanks for all of the links to other threads, they helped a lot.

Ohh i see. Well if i was forced to play some hands while defending my blinds i would call any pocket pairs(mostly hoping for a set) otherwise i would play allmost any suited connectors and hope for the best to flop..

Cant really tell you what hands you should play, i think you know it better yourself when you are playing, its you who have the read of your opponents. But try to figure if opponents either have a good hand and try to make you think they are blindstealing, or that they are just trying to steal with any 2 cards, its up to you to decide if you want to defend or not, the other player dont know what hand you have, you can play them back as if u had a monster, but keep in mind that its dangerous, waste of chips mostly i would say.