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Texas Hold ‘Em – playing blinds
How do you avoid throwing away money on the big and small blinds at the start of a hand? Former InsideEdge poker expert, the late Andrew NS Glazer, revealed all in this article.

Blinds in hold’em serve a purpose similar to antes in stud games: they create an incentive for a player to invest and/or attack. Without any ’starter money’, there would be little incentive for an intelligent player to make the first bet, even with a very good hand. If everyone else folds, he’s won nothing. Without blinds or antes, the first bet is merely a target, and the other players could safely fold without an unbeatable hand.

By forcing the player to the dealer’s left to post a small blind (SB) and the player to his left to pay a big blind (BB – usually double the small blind), hold’em becomes much more interesting and action-filled. Each hand begins as a battle for the blinds, and once that battle begins, the pot starts growing, and the reasons to play grow with it. Low-stakes games rarely end with the first raise; in high-stakes games, especially no-limit tournament final tables, the first raise often does end the hand.

Even though blinds serve a purpose similar to antes, they function quite differently. Antes are ‘dead money.’ Anteing merely entitles you to receive cards; you still must make a bet to engage in the action. If you post one of the blinds, though, your money counts as a bet (it’s ‘live’). If you post the BB, and no one else plays, you win the hand. You won’t have won much – only the SB (which is usually half the size of the BB, although it can vary from one-third to two-thirds of its size). While any win helps, more often the fact that your blind money counts as a bet will make getting involved in many other hands easier, because you’re getting to play for a discount price.

Correct blind play: making the best of a bad situation

When, why, and how you should play when you’re getting that discount is a widely misunderstood subject. Let’s start with a key principle behind correct blind play. Some situations are natural money losers, and the hands when you post the blinds fall into that category. If you had to post the BB on every hand, you’d get slaughtered: you’re in early position (bad), and investing money before you see your cards (also bad). Over the long haul, you will lose money on your blind hands – not every time, of course, but on balance. The key is to lose as little as possible, so you can make money overall by taking advantage of your premium situations, like when you sit in late position.

Let’s start with an elementary blind play decision. You’ve posted the 30 BB in a no-limit hold’em game; your neighbour to the right has posted the 15 SB. Everyone folds around to the button, who decides to raise it to a total of 90 (a 60 raise). The small blind folds, and now it’s up to you. Does this hand continue, or does the button win 45?

Understand the risks
Assuming you have a plausible hand (more on that in a moment), you have to assess your risk/reward ratio, and to do that, you have to decide whether you’re going to try to win the pot by calling and then winning on the flop, or by raising and trying to win right away.

Raising will cost you 60 plus the amount you raise; let’s say you raise an additional 180, a total bet of 240. The tricky part is to understand what you’re trying to win with your raise: you’re trying to claim only 135. Some people mistakenly think ‘After I call, my raise is giving me a shot at a 195 pot’ (in other words, thinking that their 180 raise might buy them 195). They’re wrong: the pot only becomes 195 after you call. Your 240 bet is a shot at the money already in the pot, and that was only 135 when you made your move!

There’s a mighty big difference between risking 180 to win 195 and risking 240 to win 135. The first play (were the numbers accurate) doesn’t even have to succeed half the time to be profitable. The second has to work 64% of the time just to break even (actually a bit more than that when you remember you’re paying a rake).

The maths changes when you try to win by calling and then making a decision on the flop. Your 60 call cannot win the pot. All calling does is give you the right to make a play later in the hand, and that will necessarily mean risking more money then. If the flop is favourable enough, it may not be much of a risk; if the flop is unfavourable, your money may be gone and your only remaining chance will be an opportunity to lose more.

Your 60 call creates a 195 pot. If you assume that you will only make a move at the pot when the flop is favourable (good players’ actions are more complex than that), you can call, in a purely mathematical sense, if the flop will be favourable 30.8% of the time (60 divided by 195). Whether hitting a flop is easier or more difficult than that depends to some extent on your hand, and to some extent on how easy or hard it is to outplay your opponents on the flop. How well you think you can get ‘paid off’ when you hit your hand also makes a huge difference, and remember, it’s much harder to get paid off handsomely when you’re acting out of position – and that’s exactly what you’re doing when playing from the blind.

Defending blinds ain’t easy – no matter what the game

In limit poker, it initially seems easier to defend the blinds because the investment odds are usually better. The button can’t raise as much, so you don’t face as much immediate pressure. The problems in analyzing limit poker defending don’t end there, though. It’s much harder to win the pot with a re-raise, because the amount you’re re-raising isn’t enough to knock out someone who had raised from the button; even if he was stealing, he’ll usually call and look at the flop.

In limit poker, it initially seems easier to defend the blinds because the investment odds are usually better. The button can’t raise as much, so you don’t face as much immediate pressure. The problems in analyzing limit poker defending don’t end there, though. It’s much harder to win the pot with a re-raise, because the amount you’re re-raising isn’t enough to knock out someone who had raised from the button; even if he was stealing, he’ll usually call and look at the flop.

In limit poker, it initially seems easier to defend the blinds because the investment odds are usually better. The button can’t raise as much, so you don’t face as much immediate pressure. The problems in analyzing limit poker defending don’t end there, though. It’s much harder to win the pot with a re-raise, because the amount you’re re-raising isn’t enough to knock out someone who had raised from the button; even if he was stealing, he’ll usually call and look at the flop.

Position is all-important
Suppose you call and you do hit the flop. Do you bet? If you do, your opponent still has most of the power and options. If his hand missed the flop, he might concede, and you’ll only win the money that was in the pot to start. If he hit the flop too he can raise, and now where are you? Do you call a re-raise? The problem will become even more troublesome on the turn. You bet the flop, but your opponent didn’t go away. Assuming the turn card doesn’t help you, where do you go? Do you bet again, hoping to scare your opponent off? Do you show weakness by checking? To win the hand playing out of position is just far harder than most people realise.

Worse still, when you do win, you usually win much less than you could have won if you had been the final player to act, rather than the first.

Because of the position problem, most players defend their blinds far too often. They see that they already have some money invested, and are getting a ‘discount’ on their call, but fail to think the hand all the way through. They may be getting a discount, but they are getting a discount on damaged goods. Efforts to show that you can’t be ‘pushed around’ in the blind can be very costly. Most players would win much more (or lose much less) if they defended their blinds less.

Because good poker advice is rarely black and white, you shouldn’t turn into an easy target every time you hold the blind. If you don’t defend at least occasionally, you can be certain that you will be attacked every time, and that will cost you more money. The occasional call, or better still the occasional re-raise, will alert the late position players that your blind is not free for the taking.

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