Defending Blinds

Limit hold'em is my game of choice because players are required to make meaningful decisions on every street. Often in no-limit hold'em, all the decisions are made preflop, and a lot of those decisions aren't very interesting. Don't get me wrong, I love no-limit hold'em. And, I grant that the decisions in no-limit hold'em usually have a much greater impact than the decisions in limit hold'em. But limit hold'em keeps the action going. No-limit hold'em has been described as hours of boredom mixed with moments of terror. Limit hold'em is constant terror, which to me is fun. Also, limit hold'em is all about extracting value from medium-strength hands, and I consider my ability to do just that one of my biggest assets as a poker player.



In this column, I want to look at one of the key questions in limit hold'em, and that is: "When should I defend my blind against a late-position raise?" Your ability to play from the blinds will very likely make you or break you in this game. So, let's think about all the things we need to consider when deciding whether to defend.



The first factor is the number of players in the pot. You should defend your big blind much more liberally in a heads-up pot than in even a three-way pot. One of the best things you have going for you in the big blind is that you can represent anything. But if you need two players to fold, it's twice as hard for you to win with no showdown than it is when you need only one player to fold. If a late-position player raises and another player calls the raise, I'll fold a hand like a ragged king, or a small connector like 5-4 offsuit, from the big blind. Those hands are easy defending hands against a single late-position raise.



The second factor is where exactly the raise came from. A raise from the cutoff seat (one spot to the right of the button) shows ever so slightly more strength than a raise from the button. If I've got a hand with just a touch of high-card strength, such as J-6 or Q-5, I might muck to a cutoff raise but call a button raise.



The third, and arguably most important, factor is the player who raised. If certain players raise from the button, I will defend my big blind with any two cards. And if certain players are two to the right of the button (commonly referred to as cutoff+1), I treat them pretty much as if they are in early position, and fold big blind hands like K-J and A-10 to their raise. Everyone knows that an assessment of a particular opponent can drastically change the way a certain hand should be played. But this concept is so important that I don't mind repeating it here.



OK, so these are some of the things to think about when deciding whether to defend your blind. Any of the above factors could sway your thinking when you have a close decision. But what constitutes a close decision? Well, when facing a single late-position raise in limit hold'em, I potentially face a close decision with any two cards. I once heard a great player recommend defending with a hand as weak as 7-4 offsuit. Still another great player says he'll usually defend with anything, even 3-2 offsuit. Good players do this because the pot is laying them 3.5-1 immediately (the raise is two small bets, the small blind and big blind total one and a half small bets, and it costs one small bet to call), and furthermore, the late-position player is going to bet the flop after the big blind checks nearly 100 percent of the time.



So, in a way, we're really getting 4.5-1 to call the raise. The plan going forward, after calling our opponent's raise, is to check the flop no matter what, and then raise with any pair or draw (and sometimes without a pair or a draw). By playing this way, we give our opponent the opportunity to fold, but we make sure he puts in that automatic flop bet before doing so. Remember, this applies only in heads-up situations.



I would love to have hard data to support defending the big blind with a hand like J-3 offsuit against a late-position raise, but unfortunately I don't have nearly enough hands in my database (I started making use of a good database only this year) to form conclusions about which hands are profitable and which are not. I will say, however, that up to this point, when I'm in the big blind, I'm showing an overall loss of less than one big blind with 140 of my 169 hand combinations – meaning that as of now, I do better by calling with those 140 combinations than I would by folding them. To me, this is a pretty strong indicator that all of the people who advocate a loose blind-defending strategy are on the right track.



A final consideration about defending the big blind is how it will affect your image, and your overall limit hold'em profit. No one wants to be known as an easy big blind to steal. If you defend often, your opponents will be less inclined to go after your big blind in the future. In fact, when I busted an opponent in a recent limit hold'em tournament after defending my big blind with J-4 suited, another player at the table said aloud that he knew enough not to go after my blind for the rest of the event. That's huge. And the best part is, it's usually positive expected value (EV) to defend your blind anyway, so you don't even have to sacrifice profit to gain value on your future hands.



I read an opinion somewhere that it would be a huge error to call with J-3 offsuit in the big blind against a late-position raise. That's just not true. Assuming you know what you're doing after the flop, your call would be a minor error at the absolute worst, and against a maniacal opponent, it's absolutely the right play. So, why not give the appearance of action and call with those ragged hands? You'll have more fun, make more money, and maybe get paid off when you actually have the goods.

Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player, which is available at http://www.cardplayer.com/. He has made the final table of limit hold'em tournaments at the World Series of Poker, World Poker Finals, and Borgata Poker Open.