Taking advantage of small blind

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edcwy

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Do you take advantage of the likely looseness of the small blind? Are you too loose playing the small blind because you think you're already half in the hand? So not so much more to see a flop?
 
This Fish Chums

This Fish Chums

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Defending your blinds

There's this concept in poker called defending your blinds. For a long time I hated the concept because the thought of throwing out extra chips when you have an obviously weak to marginal hand was not appealing to me. However, lately in tournaments I've started defending my blinds by calling up to a 3 BB total bet and I have started to see a difference. It comes especially when it is the button raising. After you call their blind steal a few times they tend to calm down and back off trying to steal the blinds on you allowing you to see more flops. Plus, when you're willing to play out of position like that it makes people think twice about continuation betting the flop with garbage, because they are used to people only calling like that when they have a big hand. And, of course, when you do get lucky no one sees it coming and you take down a big-time pot. So, for me it's not so much a matter of, "I'm in for half I might as well be in for more" it's a matter of not allowing other players to bully me out of pots. Because once they know they can bully you they've already got the game half-won.

NOTE: I said I do this in tournaments. I don't have the courage to do this in Cash games. Not yet anyway.
 
Vfranks

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I try and play very tight from the SB (and BB too, TBH), especially since you are going to be OOP after the flop. Yes you do have to defend your blinds at some point, but I think you need to be careful about it as well.
I remember when I first started playing I would have the thought of "well I am already in for half, or whatever", but once I started to analyze my play I realized how much money I was actually losing from the SB and tried to plug that leak.
 
Peppinotom

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I will even defend the BB out of my SB position, when I see that Button is stealing every round and BB is not defending himself. And yes, half paid is almost in the hand, but not with 72o.:reddy:
 
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erlanditas

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To call from SB you only need to win 1/4 of the time, so it's ok to play loose, you got the odds to call
 
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Narcotic35

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Pete "Carroters" Clarke argues that for 6-max cash games you should have a polarized strategy that hardly ever calls. It's fold or 3-bet most of the time. Remember that the button can open raise with almost any hand, because there is such great fold equity from this position. Again, not with total garbage and try to have blockers to villain's hand range if you do 3-bet with a marginal hand.
 
AgentXtreme

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This exact position is so hard , because you're acting first post flop , I will choose to open or 3-bet with a good hand , than can allow me to play post flop very comfortable without any fear , it can profitable with less weak hands , depending on big blind stack and yours too , with a big advantage I can steal very often and it's a great situation to steal .
 
Gulas

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Also it's important to know how the big blind will react, if you're SB. Sometimes they're are predictable, and with that you can adapt your play.
 
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Do you take advantage of the likely looseness of the small blind? Are you too loose playing the small blind because you think you're already half in the hand? So not so much more to see a flop?
It's very hard for anyone to answer a question like this, because there are too many variables to discuss in a quick post, a whole book could probably be written just about this particular topic.
 
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NBB

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Extremely difficult understanding your question, do not understand your thinking on the “likely looseness of the small blind”
I have rarely seen any small blind become extremely loose because he was in a small blind position, actually just the opposite is what mostly always happens.

As far as becoming too loose because ½ of my obligated chips are already in the pot, so it is not much more to see the flop.

Well, if every other player who decided to join the pot did not raise the blinds, then probably yes, but it would also depend on a couple of factors, whether my hand was total junk, [meaning the chances of it ever being successful in a multi-player pot] and what size my chip count was vs what size the blinds were with my rag hand.
 
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Binraker

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My commitment to the hand is nothing to do with whether I’m half in or not. It’s one of two situations.
If it’s raised in late position then they have a wide range and I’m getting good odds so long as the BB isn’t big on 3betting. Easy call with a wide range of implied odds hands (especially in early stages of MTT).
If I have a 3bet/3bet bluff hand, then it’s a great spot to re-raise. Not loads of bluffs but enough so that after I’ve been called I can get paid off with AA etc.
 
proud2Bwhack

proud2Bwhack

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here is an interesting strategy not yet mentioned:

when you will be playing against 4+ likely if you call from SB, calling is much safer because you can check out after flop knowing someone will probably bet and then you will actually get to act last. This is a strategy I heard Annie Duke expound and some of her bracelets arent from Nordstroms... :)
 
The_Times

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I will call or I won't depends at first on the hand with I have. For example, you have AJ, so why not call someone's preflop raise being without position? The second thing is when nobody raised, there are just few calls so with a marginal hand it's ok to call because of good bank chances. You pay a little price to see the flop. And who knows, may be it will be yours.
 
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corieaddison

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The blinds do usually get messed with if it folds around to the cutoff area. Try not to let the fact that you are in the sb bb alter your play. You are still only guaranteed to the flop. Since you are not in position, this is not the best spot on the table post flop. This is not a bad place to re-raise though and be aggressive post flop. just don't do it often.

Good Luck!
 
tauri103

tauri103

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the reason always dictates to me not to defend my hands trash even in the blind position especially in cash game. But during a tournament it depends on several other factors that come into play and that allow me to decide to defend or not my blinds.in general if I have enough chips to reach the bubble I play tighten.
 
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