Blog crosspost: Blind play, part II

#1 24th January 2006, 11:28 AM

In the last post, I talked about how to think of your position relative to the raiser when playing marginal preflop holdings out of the blinds. Playing those situations correctly will do great things for you, but a situation where you can save or win even more money if you play it right is against a steal attempt.

Now, playing loosely out of the blinds is only a winning proposition if you can play well once the flop comes. If you're going to bleed chips when you hit third pair and refuse to lay your hand down after you checkraise your tight opponent and he 3-bets you on the turn, you will need to play a lot of blinds like you're David Sklansky to make up for it. But a few general guidelines may be all you need to turn your profit out of the blinds from "very red" to only "slightly red" - actually being a <i>winner</i> long term in the blinds is not realistic; you're being forced to make a bet blindly and completely out of position, but you should at least be able to minimize your net losses from those positions.

A blind steal is when it's folded to someone in late position preflop, and he comes in with a raise. This can mean that he has a good hand, but it can also mean that he's holding a hand that he normally wouldn't raise with (or maybe even enter the pot with at all) but because of his late position, chances are so good that he will just pick up the blinds right there and then that raising yields him positive expectation.

And that affects how you play your blinds. For the postflop concepts, I will presume that the pot is heads-up, meaning that it's just you and the stealer left. I'll focus on the big blind, because in the small blind your odds in comparison to a raise are simply not that different from not having put in any money at all; you're getting 3.5 to 1.5, you're out of position and you're not even last to act preflop! If you're going to play a hand, make it a strong one, and most times, 3-bet. If you have a monster (AA, KK or AKs), consider coldcalling to lure the big blind in if you want, but any other hand that you want to play, get him out of here. The pot is shorthanded (can't be more than 3 in the pot), so you won't do well with your suited connectors anyway. But enough about the small blind - big blind, ohoy!

Big blind against a steal
The small blind has folded, and now it's up to you. Clearly, you're getting good pot odds here; there's 3.5 small bets in the pot already, and 1 more to call. There aren't that many hands that have a strong enough lead over yours to actually make folding here a very popular decision. A noteworthy exception is if your opponent has an overpair to your two holecards, because pairing up won't help you. Overpairs are not that common, however, and given your opponent's position, you usually have no reason to give him credit for such a strong holding. This is, of course, where reads come in handy. If you (through memory or PokerTracker or other means) have a way of knowing that your opponent would never attempt a blind steal with only a decent hand - that he in fact only raises preflop with AA, KK and QQ, then very few hands are worth calling with here.

But let's say you have Q-9, and you know your opponent to be loose and aggressive. You should call. It's possible that he has a big ace, maybe even AK, but giving him credit for AA-QQ is a bit silly. For the time being, consider all the hands he would raise with in this position, and put him "on the mean", or the hand in his range that is of average strength*. So if you think he would only raise with a pocket pair, but would raise with all pocket pairs, put him on a pair of 7s or 8s and act accordingly. Half the time, he'll have a stronger hand than you thought he would, and half the time he'll have a weaker hand than you thought; if you play well, these times should even out. This concept applies to all of poker, of course - putting your opponent on a range of hands - and preferably a very narrow range - and adjusting thereafter is what defines an expert. But in this particular case, where you're looking for pot odds to call preflop, it's very clear. Very often, your hand is good enough to call with.

Now, the observant ones of you will have noticed the title of this post, specifically the reference to reverse implied odds. Now, reverse implied odds are usually spoken of as a bad thing (if you want to know what reverse implied odds are, make a post in the forum - I'll make a crosspost of this blog entry there, and can answer questions if you have any), but in this situation, they're your best friend. You have complete control, because you can fold at any time you so please, and you're not the aggressor. Let's return to the example above, when you held Q-9, and say that the flop comes

A-K-4

You check, your opponent bets, and you can fold without hesitation. Sure, he could have J-2, and you're actually ahead, but who cares? He stole it, let him have it. Don't tangle here.

But let's say that the flop comes 9-8-2. You have got to believe yourself to have the best hand here. Giving a loose and aggressive player on the button credit for TT-AA or A9 is overly paranoid. But how do you play it? Well, if you check, he's going to bet - I can virtually guarantee that. If he has a legitimate hand (and this is why he bet preflop), he will bet to protect it. If he's on a steal, he'll want you out of "his pot" and bet. So check, and give him a chance to bet.

Now you face an interesting decision - do you checkraise him here on the flop? You should raise at some point in this hand, for sure, not raising for value is horrible. But do you pop him here or on the turn? With this particular flop, I would checkraise now. Your hand is sensitive to overcards, and you want to make sure you charge him for any overcard pair draw that he might continue with (and he will continue with virtually anything here). If the flop had been Q-8-2 instead, pairing your top card, I would have called and checkraised him on the turn instead, as there would only have been two different scarecards then, as opposed to four.

Continuing with the Q-9 example, what do you do if you don't pair up? You fold. Unless the flop brings you an open-ended straight draw, in which case you get odds to peel one off on the turn, or some other draw that you think is worthwhile, don't bother with it. Remember: reverse implied odds. Make him win the minimum and lose the maximum. Fold when you don't have it, trap him when you do have it. If you flop nothing, get out of that pot first chance you get. It's only 4 small bets, and you should not - NOT - risk another 10 small bets to win it (call flop, call turn, call river = 10SB). Put the stealer in trouble by only coming with him when you have legitimate hands. He'll have to either give up his steal or lose money to you by desperately bluffing. Once in awhile, he'll manage to spike his king or whatever on the turn or river, and you'll take a beating. But that will happen about as often as you spike a second pair when he actually has something, so that should even out somewhat. Play smart after the flop. Never bet out on the flop, and never call down**. If there's not a checkraise in there, you're probably doing it wrong.

As usual, and with everything, all of this advice is highly dependent on who you're up against. Reads help alot here, because knowing how big his range is when you decide to call due to pot odds is critical.

More on blind play in the next post!

/FP

* Math know-it-alls: I'm well aware that mean and average are two different things. You get my point, though.
** And never say never.

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