Low Limit Poker Strategy - Defending the Blinds
It s a common scenario in low limit poker: you re in one of the blinds, and everyone folds until a player in late position raises. Sometimes the raiser has a good hand, but often they re just trying to steal the blinds by having the small and big blind fold and win the pot right there. It can happen a lot, especially at a tight table, and if you fold to blind steals with all but your monster hands you ll be loosing more money than you should.
When you re the small blind, the situation is a bit simpler. Because you only have a half of a small bet in the pot, you only have slightly better odds in calling the raise. In general you can ignore your money in the pot and pretend you were calling a raise in early position, which usually means only keeping really good hands.
However in the big blind, you already have one bet in the pot, so calling the raise will only cost one more bet. Before you do so, first consider the raiser. If he s a tight player and hasn t tried to the steal the blinds much before, then only continue with your best hands. Much of the time though you ll probably suspect it s a blind steal. In that case you can call with hands like pocket pairs, suited cards, connectors, aces, kings and big cards. Avoid hands that can be easily dominated like K3. Re-raising usually won t cause the other player to fold at this point, so only do it if you have a monster hand (AA, KK, and the like).
When the flop comes, if you have nothing, then it s usually best to check and fold. Your opponent might have nothing too, but it s risky to bluff in a situation like this since the player has already shown that he s willing to bluff at least somewhat himself by trying to steal the blinds in the first place.
You want at least top pair, ideally with a good kicker (but it s not always necessary). When this does happens, it s often best to check-raise, since 99% of the time the other player will bet at you if you check, hoping to win the pot. If you do this and then immediately bet the turn, a lot of players will realize they re beaten and end it right there. Occasionally they ll get lucky and the flop or the turn will really help them and you ll loose more money than if you d just folded in the first place. However most of the time if you follow this strategy you ll make up for the other times when you loose, and maybe teach blind stealers not to go after you.
Related post
