Defending the big blind

When defending the big bling against a possible steal, going heads up against an early to mid positioned player.

Do you often do bet out first, assuming you’ve flopped something?

I have found A small raise in the dark whilst in the small blind against the BB and some other opponent in early to mid has been pretty effective sometimes, as an outright bluff.

But what about donking in the BB, heads up?

i would defend the big blind depending on situation and pot odds

check fold post flop, unless you hit the board, bet the flop

ssangyongpoker said:

i would defend the big blind depending on situation and pot odds

check fold post flop, unless you hit the board, bet the flop

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This being said vs a min raise and a call with antes in play - we can defend 100% of our range from the BB profitably. Yes that means 72o - if you dont believe me, equilab will tell you otherwise.

Facing a min raise we still defend quite a bit. I would say somewhere around 60% of our range is profitable. It may be closer to 70%, hard to say without looking at a range chart.

Anyhow, as the bet sizes get bigger our odds go down so we have to defend tighter. But when we are short deep (70bb+) we can call alot of 3x raises wider than usual profitably. Just takes a little time to get the feel for what we need to defend and how often we should. Over a year ago it was probably one of my biggest MTT leaks, just not defending enough.

I always defend my blind if it's not an all in or Im the short stack,of they want it I won't leave it without a right.

Almost always im going to defend mine BB, unless its all in push. But even all in pushes i would call on the wider range.

I try to defend my BB with combinations that flop well.
I don't think that we can characterize early position open raises as steals because the earlier the position the strongest the range.

In my humble opinion donking from the BB vs an early position (which can contains all the monster hands) is the most fishy move , I find it way more reasonable to make the check raise move especially if the board hits more often your range.

Versus later position steals we can defend even more wider our BB because they say that we realize more our equity and can't outplayed due to shallower stack , so we pretty much play straight forward out hand!

Seams I go bust in most tournaments by defending bb with bad hand and hitting on the flop. So I don't defend with bad cards for this reason.

I know its the all the rage now to defend your big blind but anything larger than a min raise from your opponent and you really should have a hand that can flop something effective nuts to call. K3 off would be a pitch hand yet K3 suited would be a call just as an example.

I think if you are going to defend you should generally not donk bet if you hit the flop. Let the opponent hang them self a little bit. I do think you can mix in donk leads as a bluff but it needs to be against opponents that fold too much post flop. Your move here after defending really should depend on the post flop tendencies of the opponent. If they are not known then go with the default of check and see what action the opponent takes.

johnsulliv said:

When defending the big bling against a possible steal, going heads up against an early to mid positioned player.

Do you often do bet out first, assuming you’ve flopped something?

I have found A small raise in the dark whilst in the small blind against the BB and some other opponent in early to mid has been pretty effective sometimes, as an outright bluff.

But what about donking in the BB, heads up?

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It is quite difficult to force yourself to defend the big blind with a bad hand, but the reality is that the 6h2h hand in 10% of cases will catch either two pairs or a combo draw on the flop. For example, the chance to get a flush draw on the next two streets will be 15%. If there are at least some donkbets or bluff check-raises on the flop in my poker arsenal, then getting another 5% to break even calls is not difficult.As I already noted, in order to balance the range, we will have to 3-bet from time to time with weaker hands that do not belong to the range of our 3-beta. This does not mean that we should 3-bet with absolutely marginal hands. Hands slightly out of our range

I will defend my BB with a fairly wide range of hands against a min raise. Vs a 3x or 4x raise I will narrow my range so I'm not jumping in the pool with just anything.

Then, you say, you would consider a donk bet if you caught a piece of the board or even as a bluff. I'm not a fan of this move because I can't see a strategy going forward. In other words what's your plan? If it's a straight bluff and it doesn;'t work I assume you are folding. But, if you donk bet because you flopped something what do you next? If he comes over the top with a big raise you're now looking at playing a possible big pot out of position and there are two streets of betting to go. If he just calls what do you do on the turn? The point is you are playing a hand at a disadvantage by being out of position. Each time you lead out you face a possible raise or even a shove. The situation can get out of hand very quickly.

If you call the pre-flop raise and then check the flop you have kept things simple, preserved your chips, and left your options open.

I think it depends on your stack size, and also the player who raised. If I have a comfortable stack and the player who raised doesn't look like a maniac, I'm not going to throw chips away defending my blind to play mediocre cards out of position. That's a good way to bleed chips. If my stack is getting short and I have a hand that has potential and the player who raises is constantly getting out of line, I'll shove it and try and teach them a lesson and hope for the best ha ha

i usually fold BB if i have junk and it requires a bet. if its doable ill call... advantage is definitely called.