How to play in the Small Blind?

One topic which I don't see covered anywhere is how to handle playing in the SB. I find myself calling the half-bet irrespective of how many other callers there are if I don't expect the BB to raise.

Should I only be calling with a set of starting hands? Or maybe not at all (Fold or Raise)? Or what?

Steve

The key thing to realize is that you will be in the absolute worst position after the flop and for the remainder of the hand. I don't know your level of poker experience but let me say that playing a lot of hands out of position is like lighting money on fire.

Even if the big blind doesn't raise you are in a tough spot. If you don't flop a monster hand you are in trouble. If you hit something like top pair medium kicker what do you do with it? With everyone to act behind you in an unraised pot you have no idea where you are at but you have committed chips. At that point check/folding is safe but you have wasted 1/2 a bb and donking the flop is worse, especially if the pot is multi-way.

the half a big blind that you invest every time you complete without a good hand may not seem like much but over thousands of hands its a huge leak and you won't make up for it by the occasional monster that you hit.

If you do have a hand thats really worth playing from the worst postion on the table raise with it. Your goal is to take the pot down pre flop or get it heads up. By raising you take the initiative which helps to compensate for your bad position.

tldr/cliffs:

1. dont play trash/marginal hands oop
2. If you are going to play from sb RAISE.
3. Limping is always bad.

Exactly

Playing out of position is like running across a busy freeway at night with your eyes closed.

Not suggested.

Thanks guys, you seem quite definite about that and what you say makes a lot of sense. That's the first thing I've learnt from CardsChat. :-)

Its rather interesting that the subject of the SB never comes up in the books (well, I've never seens it, anyway)

Steve

As an extension of this, am I thinking right that a similar thing applies to the BB. e.g. what often happens online is this:-

Blinds are 20/40 UTG raises to 80 and is called by a couple of others in later position. It is so tempting for the BB to add the 'extra' 40 with a marginal hand. After all, its only 40 to see a flop with around 300 in the pot.

Same thinking applies right? i.e. no call unless the hand is good enough to raise?

Steve

I hate the small blind to. Thats what i usually do only play a number of hands from there depending my stacksize and blind size

If there are other limpers, I like to limp a huge range. I'll even limp Js, AKs, etc to draw value. Raise any KK, QQ, AA, and then often a lot of hands like 67s if I think I can pick up free blinds. With no limpers, I tend to minraise almost every hand, unless I have absolute crap. If it is raised to me, I'll fold most hands except T1 and maybe some drawing hands. If the button raises, I tend to give credit a lot until I notice they like that raise. I'll reraise with any legitimate hand and some drawing hands.

Any opinions on the BB thing (above) Is it a similar case?

A third case would be a medium or small PP hoping to hit a set. The kind one might well risk a few chips on from any position? Surely, that would be worth the half-bet, no?

Steve

I think it all has to do with who's in the blind next to you. If I notice the person tends to raise to limper's then I tend to raise or fold when coming in, and lately it has just been to fold unless I got a great hand because to me there is not that much value. What I love to do is get 4 limper's in high blinds and move all in lol, sometimes it works.

So to the posters above, you recommend that if there are no raises before SB, you would NOT take a chance at limping into the pot with something like Q5s or J4s? What about 67s, 89s, 910s, 910os? I mean, it doesn't hurt just to see the pot with these hands does it? I don't necessarily feel I am bleeding chips with these hands because I find I hit something I can play 20% of the time and it turns into a profitable pot I can win. Otherwise I fold.

What are you playing? That makes a huge difference.

You do make a good point alaskabill, but it does change a lot if you're the SB and it's folded to you, you're heads up against the BB, what do you then?

We can take in account every suggestion that you mentioned but almost most of the time we're gonna be ahead of BB ranges (since you're against one player only) thing is that if you do it often they can 4 Bet to you and if you have a marginal hand you're gonna be in a tough spot.

Misofer,

Good question. If I am in the sb and it is folded to me I open my range a bit since its heads up but if its truly a junk hand I just fold it and move on. Playing hu out of position stinks and if I'm going to play it I will raise it to take the initiative. If I get 3-bet it depends on my hand and any reads I might have on the big blind but in general I'd rather just let the small blind go and find a better place to invest chips.

On the other side of that situation, if I am in the big blind, its folded to the small blind and they just limp I raise ATC unless I have a good read saying otherwise. I take a lot of blinds doing that. Balugawhale recomends this approach strongly in his videos.

If I had to, at gunpoint, fiind a scenario where its ok to limp ths small blind it would be if, say 3 other people had already limped and I was convinced that the big blind wouldn't raise I suppose I could limp because of the size of the pot but I still don't like playing in the worst seat at the table.

It can very well hurt if you aren't able to fold your pair of Jacks with a lousy kicker. Limping gives the big blind a solid positional advantage postflop, and you have no idea what he has.

I have gone out of a lot of tournaments hitting something in the blinds -- not fun.

As for limping suited cards, it is gonna be really hard to make any money if you hit your flush OOP. Not worth it, IMO.

Raise to take that blind or consider the small blind your fee to get the button on the next hand, where you can really do some damage!!