Blind defence

One of the incontestable truths about short- handed cash games is that you must steal blinds with regularity. But this also means you will be on the receiving end of attempted blind steals from other aggressive opponents. For the most part, I won’t tolerate a table where a strong opponent has his button on my big blind. It’s too much like hard work.

Playing out of position against loose- aggressive tricky opponents is a sure-fire way to lose money quickly. Sometimes, however, the game will be so juicy that you will have to put up with a couple of good opponents in order to take advantage of a couple of overplaying idiots or big calling stations. So you have to learn to deal with the thief two seats to your right.

One thing you should not be concerned by is how often he raises your big blind. No, he isn’t trying to pick on you. No, he isn’t trying to get involved with you because your game is weak. He simply knows his positional advantage more than makes up for the weak 8-6 offsuit he has raised with.

By regularly raising he sows seeds of doubt in your mind, doesn’t allow you to narrow down his holdings and masks and misinforms your knowledge of his hole cards. And by constantly putting you under this kind of pressure he is enticing you to play back out of position. This is a mistake. In a game where most of your opponents are acutely aware of how aggressively you are playing, there is nothing better than finally getting a monster hand and finding an aggravated customer with top pair good kicker. He is trying to get you to play with emotions rather than smart decisions. Don’t rise to the bait.

In this positional game you have to realise that you will lose a lot of money playing from the blinds. The fact that you are out of position the entire hand is a good reason why you shouldn’t complete from the small blind very often with dodgy Q-8 type holdings, despite your great pot odds.

KEY POINT

If a player is picking on your blinds, don’t take it personally; he can do so because he’s got superior position. The worst thing you can do is try to compete with a weak hand

OBSERVATION NATION

The first step to successful blind defence is crisp observation. You need to be well aware of just how regularly your opponent is stealing your blinds. You should be watching every hand at all times, trying to get into their brain and working out specific strengths and weaknesses. Will they fold to scare cards easily? Do they bet enough to chase out draws? Do they keep betting with pot sized bets if they assume you are drawing? All of these titbits of information allow you to build a player profile. This information lets you plan a specific strategy for taking his stack.

Players who raise too regularly are prime candidates for re-raises pre-flop. If a guy raises very frequently you have to be prepared to come over the top of him with more marginal holdings. A-J/A-10/K-Q are re-raising hands. Medium pocket pairs (6-6 and above) are also strong enough to come over the top of him. You should make your re-raise substantial, really forcing him to fold.

For example, you are playing in a fishy $1/$2 no- limit short-handed game, with a noted loose-aggressive opponent to your right. He raises to $6 to play on your big blind. Holding A♠-10♠ your first instinct (as in all forms of poker) should be whether or not to raise. Here, you should make a substantial re-raise to $24. This serves several purposes. It puts him under real pressure. It helps to define your hand, broadcasting that you have a premium holding. And most importantly, you take the initiative and pot control from your opponent.

I would conservatively estimate that in heads-up pots, the pre-flop raiser takes down 70% of those pots, on the flop, with a continuation bet. Re- raising allows you to make that continuation bet on the flop, regardless of the flop’s actual consistency.

Players who don’t bet enough post-flop can be exploited easily. Against these players, drawing hands that have good potential but which are not dominated are your best friends. Hands like 4-5, 6-5 and 7-6 suited are worth a call.

Always bear in mind your opponent’s stack size before automatically calling. If he has bought in short, it is not worth playing these speculative hands, as the payoff is never great enough. This is one of the rare instances where you would rather call pre-flop out of position than re-raise. Your hand is disguised well and your implied odds should warrant a call. The other hands you would call with are small pocket pairs from 2-2–6-6.

The problem with re-raising is that it’s very hard to stomach sticking a $40 continuation bet into a K-10-8 board with 3-3. Play ‘no set, no bet’ out of position with these holdings and make sure that your implied odds are correct before calling. If he has $80 in front of him and raises you to $8 pre-flop, it would be correct to call with 3-3 if he is the type of player who will pay you off. I find the ‘rule of 10’ works well in this instance.

Although we know that the odds of improving to a set on the flop are about 7.5/1, giving yourself implied odds of 10/1 slightly compensates for those sadly inevitable set over set situations and your positional disadvantage.

KEY POINT

Successful defence of your blinds is all about knowing your opposition. If they raise regularly pre-flop, they’re ripe for a re-raise; if they don’t bet enough post-flop, you can call with speculative holdings like suited connectors, hoping for a big payoff

LEARN TO FOLD

Most of the time, the better part of valour is to fold. The worst thing you can do is to start calling with dominated hands like K-J out of position, suited or not. Folding saves money. A bet saved is a bet earned. This is a key concept in blind defence. Aggression works, and passive calling is a sure-fire way to disaster.

Occasionally, about one session in seven, I will play a more reckless strategy knowing that I will book a probable loss. It’s purely to keep my opponents guessing. When you are a proficient player, writing off one day’s profits can be hard to swallow, but always remember that getting caught playing like a ‘donkey’ or with your hand brazenly in the cookie jar is never a bad thing.

Advertising pays dividends in the long run and should be part of your meta-game strategy. I would like to point out, however, that you only really need to adopt mixing strategies when you are constantly playing the same pool of players. On the smaller online networks, it is often a case of just the usual suspects. On the larger ones, this type of strategy has very little value because the likelihood of being paid off in the near future is remote.

But even then, in order to maintain real profitability, you must mix up your play to keep opponents guessing. Simply rocking up will make it easy for observant opponents to exploit you. So we need an alternative strategy to keep them in a state of bewilderment. I have a simple way of randomising my play.

I usually assign face cards (and Aces) a value of 10 and the other cards their respective number. Whenever I get a combined score of 7, 8 or 9, I re-raise pre-flop. If they make it $6, I’ll make it $18/$24. This allows us a good shot at re-stealing with a non-dominated hand, so even a flop isn’t the worst outcome in the world. Good loose-aggressive players will fold a lot of the time to aggressive re-raises.

SHOW OF STRENGTH

Around 50% of the time I’ll just fold. The rest of the time I’ll call and see flops. This is where the fun starts, but it works better when you have a 1/2 stack as the smarter opponents realise their implied drawing odds are reduced. If the pot is $15 pre-flop, the strongest play is often to lead out here for the full pot. Ensure the board is relatively dry. Boards with one high card and two low ones are ideal.

Lead out regardless of your hand with any two cards for the full pot. This shows immense strength and is rarely used. But in terms of risk reward from the big blind, it is very strong. Another notable play is to check-raise any flop with a single King, Queen or Jack. Knowing as we do that most hands miss most flops, he has to be holding this face card in order to call.

I hope some of these strategies have got you thinking about blind defence in a different light. Some you might use, some you might totally disagree with, but as long as you are working hard on improving all aspects of your game, you can’t go far wrong.

You should be watching every hand at all times, trying to get into their brain and working out strengths and weaknesses