Head Games: Big Blind Defense Strategies and Proper Etiquette At the Table With Paul Volpe, Justin Young, and Darren Elias

Craig Tapscott: We see a lot of top players defending their big blind much wider today than in the past. Talk about this trend and your big blind defense strategy.

Paul Volpe: Personally, when deciding to defend, I consider three main factors: my stack size as well as my opponent’s stack size, the number of players in the hand and if it’s a heads-up pot, and I take note of the player’s strength and ability. A lot of pros are defending the big blind with as few as 10-15 big blinds (BBs) and, in some cases, even less. You are often getting a good price to defend the big blind if the opener is raising around two times the blind, so I don’t see a huge problem with this, but I tend to not defend with a super short stack.

If you are going to defend, you should have at least two suited and/or connected cards. I wouldn’t recommend calling with hands like Q-3 and 9-4 offsuit, for example. It will be tricky to play those hands post-flop if you catch a piece in most cases. If the pot is multi-way, I will flick in a call almost always if I have a nice size stack. Obviously, with more chips, there is a lot more room to win the pot even without making a hand. If a weak or bad player opens, I will call with almost any two cards knowing that I can probably win the pot on a later street by outplaying a soft opponent. If you are a less-experienced player, I would not recommend defending with less than 20 big blinds. When you are a short stack, it becomes one of the trickiest spots in the game post-flop.

Justin Young: Over the last year or two, there has been a very noticeable trend to defend the big blind with a wider range of hands. This is a reaction to a few successful styles of play that have become popular over the last ten years.  Over that time, there has been consistent movement downward for opening sizing. The early poker writings had you opening three to five times the big blind. If one did that today, some smug players would scoff at them and enjoy a good laugh. 

During recent years, the trend has been for the opening sizing to diminish to 2x-2.2×. Also over this time, the range of hands people will open with has gotten quite a bit larger. A natural reaction to these styles is to three-bet, but sometimes stack sizing and the willingness for the opener to four-bet makes a three-bet too high variance and unnecessary, especially in the big blind.

Usually when you are getting 4:1 or 5:1 on your money to call a min-raise from the big blind, it gives you the right odds to call a large percentage of hands, even out of position. This strategy requires a lot of thought and practice, as you will be out of position and, most likely, with an inferior hand.

The strategy for defending my big blind is situational and player-dependent. Against tighter and more straightforward players, I call very wide with the confidence I can read the hand strength of my opponent on the flop given his tighter range preflop. This allows me to take down pots that miss his range regardless of my own holdings, with the potential of winning large pots if my garbage turns to gold. As for defending against the loose-aggressive player, the range constricts towards higher cards where I am likely to have them dominated. Also, with higher cards I can call flops without pairs knowing I am still likely ahead of their wider range. 

Darren Elias: I think this trend is a natural adaptation that top players are making to combat most tournament players’ game plans. Nowadays, we are seeing defends that may have been deemed too loose or even fishy a few years ago. For example, defending A-5 offsuit vs. a loose early positional opener when you have 40 BBs, is now being made at the highest stakes by the best players in the world. This progression makes quite a deal of sense to me, and there are actually a number of reasons to defend your big blind more liberally in today’s current game state.

The first and most obvious motive for defending wider is the reduction of the average open size over the last few years. The next two reasons are a bit more subtle and are related to the post-flop tendencies of today’s typical tournament player. As the average open size has been dropping over time, the average continuation bet percentage has been rising just as quickly. A typical tournament player’s continuation bet percentage today is probably somewhere between 70-80 percent Working off the assumption that we will be facing a two or three big blind continuation bet on the flop, that often we are now getting better than 6:1 pot odds to defend versus a minimum open (assuming standard antes).

Although the flop continuation bet has been on the rise, the same cannot be said for further turn and river aggression. There has been a strong inclination among tournament players to fire their flop bet and shut down on the turn and river if they do not make a hand. This helps us defend our big blind wider by lowering our reverse implied odds with marginal hands as we encounter those tough spots where we face three barrels out of position.  

Craig Tapscott: What are some things the younger generation of poker professionals could do better at the tables in regards to their etiquette?

Paul Volpe: In my opinion, there are a lot of things younger players could change about how they act at the poker table. When playing in live tournaments, everyone is there for a payday, but there are other aspects of the game to consider.

First and foremost, as a professional in the game, you should try to make the recreational players have a good time and enjoy themselves. The game wouldn’t be the same if they weren’t there. A lot of the younger players are very serious and not talkative, which is definitely a bad thing for the game. You should try to engage in small talk and have a good time with the “fish” at the table so that they want to come back. Also, a lot of the younger players wear the same poker pro uniform with the hood up, sunglasses, and headphones on. No amateur wants to be at a table with a bunch of young robots sitting in silence with their sunglasses on. This look can be very intimidating and would be another reason for the recreational player to not want to play after such an experience. Again, it is important for the game to have the occasional player return. In my opinion, they will do that if they continue to have an enjoyable experience while playing.

Another huge mistake I see young pro players doing is talking down or berating the “fish” after they play a hand badly or get lucky. This is, by far, the worst behavior any “professional” player can take part in. If you berate an amateur in this type of situation, it becomes unfriendly and very uncomfortable for the “fish.” A player in this situation should also never explain why the “fish” made a bad play or what they did wrong. The amateur players are one of the most important components to live tournaments, so you should let them play their hands accordingly without them having to worry about being scolded for doing so. 

Justin Young: I believe the younger generation has missed the mark when it comes to the people part of the game. Most seem to have a good demeanor away from the table, but become cold and introverted once there.

Poker is a game of hidden information and one of the best ways to obtain information is to talk to your tablemates. While there are plenty of tactics to gain information that do not require a peep, gaining a respectful relationship with the table will uncover a new layer. In addition to pure strategy, talking to people at the table and learning about them is the most rewarding part of the game. I have lifelong friendships due to simply extending my hand and asking a person’s name.

While the great game of poker is made up of intense competitiveness, there is still room for humility and fun. It is tough to question the younger generation with all the success they have had, but I believe it is a professional’s responsibility to help make recreational players feel at home. Being an ambassador for the game is a privilege that we as a community should take pride in.

Darren Elias: Although I wouldn’t say that the younger generation has poor etiquette at the table, there are still a few things I think we could be doing better. My first suggestion is that we need to stop wasting time tanking on mundane decisions. As a disclaimer, I completely understand players taking their time in some specific scenarios, the first being once in a lifetime high-equity spots like deep in the WSOP Main Event, and the second being legitimate tough decisions that come up very rarely and require deep thought. My quarrel is not with tankers in these spots, but to the players taking over 30 seconds to continuation bet a 5-2-2 flop on day one of a tournament. There are a lot of decisions that are nearly automatic in this game, and I think it’s okay to treat them as such. Our younger generation is under the belief that taking more time with a decision makes them more intimidating at the table or tougher to play against and that is just false.  

The second issue I have with our generation is one I have admittedly been guilty of for most my career. We should be making more of an effort to be friendly and social at the table, especially with the recreational players. I know a number of part-time players with other jobs and most of them tell me that when they play a poker tournament they are playing for the entertainment. Players like Antonio Esfandiari and Daniel Negreanu come to mind immediately as players who do a good job in this regard and I think more of us should follow suit. This is something that requires little effort on our end and can help the long-term sustainability of poker.  ♠

Paul Volpe is a professional poker player from Philadelphia, PA. He has been very successful in no-limit tournaments as well as mixed cash games. He has more than $7.4 million in tournament cashes, live and online. Volpe can be reached at twitter @paulgees81.

Justin Young worked as a mechanical engineer while playing poker on the side. In 2006 he turned his hobby into a profession. Justin is a cash game grinder and plays in some of the biggest games in Las Vegas. He’s also accumulated more than $3.4 million in live tournament winnings. When he’s not working, you can find him with his best friend, Otter the dog. Justin can be reached on Twitter @Justinyoung07.

Darren Elias is a two-time World Poker Tour and two-time PokerStars WCOOP champion with more than $6 million in tournament earnings.