Defending Your Blinds

To what extent do you defend your blinds? I feel like in tournament play defending your blinds becomes somewhat less important than in cash games. In a tournament you only have a limited amount of chips, and while you cannot necessary let everyone run all over you stealing your blinds you can be more selective in whether or not you play your blinds for a raise. In tournament situations where my blind has been raised I feel that sometimes it might be more advantageous for me to save those extra few chip. Where as in a cash game I tend to play things looser. I tend to make my calls from the blinds based on pot odds. I might strike big and win a good pot. If I miss I can always put more chips on the table.

What are you thoughts on this?

You need to play hands, that have good potential odds (for example suited connectors). Take for yourself 35% of the TOP-range, and play against aggressive players. Against tight players who try to steal the blinds, the range of hands can be reduced.

I also play protecting my blinds when I raise the bet is to play with fewer players and with strong hands bet without having nothing is not with me, the bad is when I come in with good cards and I did not hit anything on the board, but poker is like that, right?

it depend if it's cash game or tournament. in cash game your defend range should be determined by the raise amount, so you defend looser the smaller the raise it is.in tournament, it depends on your stack and tournament stage.
in the early stage or with a small stack you shouldn't defend the blinds. in later stages and with a big stack defending the blinds it's a must.

The secret is you can start as many chips with your premium hands.

I hate defending my blinds, but know it must be done. My reasoning is, why would I throw good money out on a hand that is surely going to lose. I hate doing that, but do realize you can't just let people walk all over you. So if the bet is 3BB or so I'll defend, but if someone raises to 5+BB then I usually let them run all over me.
Unless of course like 4 people call. Then I'm in it for the size of the pot hoping I get lucky.

Best thing to do is remain balanced, if you’re going to call only with weak holdings and raise only premiums you will be spotted. There’s nothing worse than playing someone you feel knows exactly what you’re doing, because your play is very face up.

I hate defending blinds, but do in tournaments higher levels. I will only defend in cash games based on pot odds. I seem to get in trouble when I play hands I normally wouldn't see a flop with.

I particularly mainly in cash game games do not miss the opportunity to defend my blinds, especially if I have the opportunity to go limp, I'm a lucky player, always find myself in positions of advantage over my opponents to give Continuity in the game, and I consider myself smart enough to drop a big hand when it's obvious I'm losing. But every time I get a chance, I defend my blinds.

I play only tourneys and I'm not a huge blind defender except if I think someone is really out of line. I don't like putting more money into a pot with a mediocre hand that I will have to play out of position after the flop.

Hi Mate!


There's no correct answer about this but I recommand to defend your blinds 15% to 25% of the Time in early levels with any decent hand or even to 3-bet preflop in late levels in case you are playing against a loose aggressive player you need to play back with a lot of hands from the big blind to avoid getting exploited by sharp opponents.


What percentage of hands is my opponent opening?


Defending Blinds will be based on 3 key Elements


What kind of players opened?(Tight Aggressive/ Loose Aggressive/Rookie?)


What is the frequency of his voluntary Pot Input?
What percentage of hands is my opponent opening?
How many BB he has/and How many BB you have?


How many players are still involved?


What game and in what stage you are?


I will recomand you to read both Doug Polker articles about this subject


https://www.upswingpoker.com/guide-big-blind-defense-mtts-modern-short-stack-play/


https://www.upswingpoker.com/combat-steals-big-blind-tiny-short-stack/

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]good question; can be said that it would be a rule in the game of poker, but sometimes it is badly harmful that beneficial, I think that more should be done when you already know the game of each player at the table, usually I always do it even more When I am already in final instances or at a final table, but like any other move you have to act with great caution and not compromising your stack much[/COLOR]

Robocop

If somebody wants to "steal" my (valuable to defend) blinds, I tell him to get his chips for free somewherelse, as they are cheaper over there! Otherwise I tell him to go where pepper grows and fold
For what did I win that many chips?

All-in - so I'm defending my big blind in tournaments.

Defending blinds can be very important in tournament play as well, especially when the ante comes into play, and/or you have a short stack, and the dead money in the middle of the table is a decent percentage of your chips. It becomes a little bit more stock with the short stack once your enter the shove/fold part of the game. It is a bit more difficult when you have to make the call to either let your blinds go or play a pot out of position. Early on when blinds are negligible to your stack, I don't worry about it. In a multiway pots, you can call with cards that play well with multiple opponents. Against a late opener, I have been trying to work in a 3bet range against serial blind thieves; using merged 3bets against typically weaker cards, expecting them to play back. There is a good article on 3 betting here on this website.

One thing you can look at is the villans fold to 3b, and if its 70% you can reraise almost at will, and if you have a big enough sample size you can see what their 4bet number means.

JonathanAReth said:

I hate defending my blinds, but know it must be done. My reasoning is, why would I throw good money out on a hand that is surely going to lose. I hate doing that, but do realize you can't just let people walk all over you. So if the bet is 3BB or so I'll defend, but if someone raises to 5+BB then I usually let them run all over me.
Unless of course like 4 people call. Then I'm in it for the size of the pot hoping I get lucky.

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I like to pick my spots, sounds you pay like me that protecting the blinds is not how I feel I am gonna win a tournament. I am going to win a tournament by playing premium hands and getting in cheap with awful cards.