Calling in the SB because you have chips in the pot.

[Gamer4455]

Here is another simple question. No matter if you are playing cash or MTTs. When you are in the SB do you call with most anything because you already have chips in the pot. Now I'm not talking about 72 hands, but hands that are possible wins if you hit them. Does that make even a little bit of sense. I mean that you already have 1/2 the BB, so why not call the other half. Anyway, GL to you all

 

[emzadii]

I think calling even a minraise from SB is mostly not advocated. It'd be better generally to 3-bet for value or 3-bet as a bluff, imho. Not having position (even relative position if the BB comes along) makes playing from SB sucks balls. Also, the middling range has difficulty realizing equity. Chasing set (implied odds) is another matter, though. So is open-limping, which I think DNegs advocates doing with 70% of hands (same advice from Jonathan Little).

 

[CowboyStomp]

It's a bad reason to play SB just because "you have half the big blind invested already"

It's one of the biggest leaks for new players. It's hard to play with mediocre hands.


I like this bit I found on the web...

Small Blind Always a Long-Term Loser

If you treat the small blind just like any other position only with better pot odds, then you should have no problem. It may seem that with such great odds you can do no wrong; the opposite is true.

Completing too often with weak dominated hands and believing your pot odds can overcome your positional disadvantage is a very real leak that far too many players have.

The small blind is a position that is always going to be a long-term money loser; that's just a part of the game. But if you remember what makes completing profitable, you're going to lessen the effect it has on your win rate and make yourself a better player overall.


Check out the Cardschat class on playing the small blind

The class has a good overview on how to play with more limping.

 

[lcid86]

Knowing you are out of position after the flop, you either have to like your hand or have a plan on how to bet post-flop. If you are just taking a flier, you will leak like a sieve.

 

[jeffman123]

That's a really good question. If you look at a vs RFI(raise first in, so when a player behind you opens) chart, BB is gonna do a lot of calling and is gonna be 3betting a lot tighter, while the SB is sometimes going to have NO calling range, and only a wider 3bet range. Why would this be the case? There's really 2 main reasons: If you call you're giving the BB an insane price to call very wide in position to you, and the second reason is that you really don't wanna be calling raises OOP too much.

 

[Swat1197]

No sense with such hands

 

[LadderingUp]

I tend to still fold the garbage

 

[Debi]

You are out of position post flop so playing any 2 cards because you already paid half the bb in the pot is a poor strategy.

 

[Aguimonteiro]

For me it's usually a bad idea to defend SB/BB with bad hands... With the right hand and a nice pot value sometimes I'm going to see the flop, but aware that I'm in too bad position...

 

[zerosalex]

They make blinds and antes to encourage the table to play, I don't easily get encourage by things so Big blinds small blinds don't really bother me and i'm not going to lose any money just because I already have some out pass the line. I consider other things first like my 2 cards in front of me. then who are the opponents still in the hand and their chip stacks and if they limp or not and how they have been playing and their positions vs mine. then I decided if i'm going to play my two cards or not and how. small blind doesn't really mean anything other than you are force to put half the blind to begin with. and I leave it at that. I do how ever never take a long time in the small blind or think about it or seem like i'm thinking about it just to limp in. if you do that expect a raise from the BB most the time. specially on tournaments when the blinds are big. (if I have AA I might hesitate and limp to encourage a raise from the BB, but little does he know he is about to lose his stack.)

 

[NWPatriot]

The blind discount is very deceiving. I like to think of them as a tax that we have to pay, and forget about whether I put the money in the middle or not.

If we must think of the SB as "our" money, then why would we invest even more money in the hand from the worst seat in poker with even a worse range/hand than the other players at the table. The discount just isn't big enough to rationalize this.

Play solid ranges considering your position at all times. Try and win the blinds with solid ranges in good position and let go of the blind with the garbage. (obviously if someone is relentlessly abusing your blind, you can and should push back. you should pick up enough decent hands to keep this from happening.)

Good luck and God Bless.

 

[JJLakes]

I treat the small blind like any other position. If I have junk I'm folding. There are always exceptions to everything like if you're heads up or maybe have a monster stack,but I never bully it's just not fun to me.Having half the blind in to begin the hand used to tempt me as a beginner but now with a couple years experience it means nothing. TY.

 

[Luvepoker]

Being in the BB if getting good odds i can and will call more. This being said I am not calling with trash hands and still fold a lot. Just because there is a discount does not mean i am going to throw away my chips.

 

[flail1]

Never call, raise it up or else fold. Depends - Know how your BB opponent is playing and try to exploit.

 

[henriquemaduro]

Here is another simple question. No matter if you are playing cash or MTTs. When you are in the SB do you call with most anything because you already have chips in the pot. Now I'm not talking about 72 hands, but hands that are possible wins if you hit them. Does that make even a little bit of sense. I mean that you already have 1/2 the BB, so why not call the other half. Anyway, GL to you all

If anyone before raise my range to call is smaller, but if there is no raise before and I got a hand that can win like you said, I call.

 

[Phoenix Wright]

Here is another simple question. No matter if you are playing cash or MTTs. When you are in the SB do you call with most anything because you already have chips in the pot. Now I'm not talking about 72 hands, but hands that are possible wins if you hit them. Does that make even a little bit of sense. I mean that you already have 1/2 the BB, so why not call the other half. Anyway, GL to you all

I had the same thought a while back too; here is the forum thread I created, it might be valuable for you to see some of these responses too

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/learning-poker-57/why-defend-your-blinds-456860/

 

[akmost]

Generally the SB is the worst position , with 10-15bbs I don't have a flatting range it's a 3bet jam or fold situation for me and maybe 20bbs vs super aggressive opponents. Just because I have put 0.5 BB doesn't mean that I must play my hand. In the long term we gonna bleed money and EV.

Lately I flat hands with tremendous playability post flop like 9Ts , QJs, KTs ,A5s in order to see a cheap flop. I do that whenever I have a passive player in the BB. In the bigger buy ins you can't make that play that often because you give the BB a super easy squeeze spot but in smaller buy ins IMHO is a good spot to flop a super nice combination!

 

[1nsomn1a]

a call on a small blind is profitable not because of the chips already invested in the pot, but because of the favorable pot chances, only when several players are limping, and when raising, 3 bet is profitable, and the call is wrong.

 

[najisami]

Completing while in the small blind could be very profitable. But doing it just because you already have a down payement is definitely not a good reason.
Under the right conditions (a couple of limpers before us, not a prime but a playable hand, a tight BB.....), calling on the SB is not a bad move, but the intention should be "giving up" post-flop if we miss.

 

[ph_il]

Another way to look at this is: how often are we hitting the flop and getting paid of on our bad hands and how many bbs are we giving up in the long run.

The former is a bit hard to say as it's it's hand dependent but, in general, weaker/mediocre hands aren't hitting and getting paid often enough to warrant a profitable call.

If you're constantly calling off in the small blind, that's 10 bbs in 20 rotations. That might not be a lot in early stages with deep stacks, but if you get deeper and your stack is smaller, giving up 5-10+ bbs is a lot in comparison. You'd rather have those extra 5-10+ bbs for spots you want to play to maximize your value than spew them off in spots where you're going to giving them majority of the time.

In this situation, and this might just be personal opinion, chip preservation is a lot important than playing a spot where you're getting good odds preflop to play a mediocre hand that might hit sometimes and you may/maynot get paid paid off on. I don't think that happens often enough and I'd rather just fold and play a guaranteed +ev spot with more chips in my stack.

 

[Gamer4455]

Thanks for the replies you all. I read them all, and now I'm sitting here with only one thing in mind. If I'm ever going to get better, I'm going to need to start studying. Thanks again and GL to you all