[Buzz]

Corvus - Early in the tournament, when the blinds are small relative to your stack size, it's an easy decision. (I think you defend your blind. Period.)

Later in the tournament, when blind defense will take many of your chips possibly putting you in the position where if you continue much past seeing the flop you'll be all in, the decision is tougher.

Played one-on-one, unless you're up against AAXY, no hand you hold is probably far behind the attacker, if indeed you're behind at all. In other words, most one-on-one confrontations are coin flips or close to coin flips. On the one hand, you don't want to very often risk your tournament survival on the toss of a coin. On the other hand, you don't want to let someone steal your blind with a hand that is not actually much better (if better at all) than your own hand.

The stack size of the attacker is important. You want to avoid confrontations with fat cats who have large stacks. Alas, that's probably where the attack will come from.

What you really want to do is avoid being in the position where someone will attack your blind. And the best way to avoid being in this position is to let it be known by your actions (NOT your mouth) that you defend your blind.

There will come a time in a tournament where individuals (perhaps including you) will be looking for blinds to steal in order to survive. Good tournament players watch for opponents who might be easy targets for blind steals. And that is why you want to defend your blind in the early stages of the tournament when defense is relatively less expensive in terms of the proportion of your own stack size that would be involved in the defense. (You defend so that you won't become a target when someone is looking for a relatively easy blind to steal).

Late in the tournament, whether to defend or not is a very difficult, high pressure, decision. There's no simple answer as to what to do. For me it depends somewhat on who is doing the attacking, but I probably tend to over-defend, always thinking about my table image and the next tournament. I do not want my blind attacked - especially by someone who thinks I'm an easy target. It's just as simple as that, and I do what I can to avoid looking like an easy target.

In the short run, you may do better by not defending, but in the long run I think you do worse. What I mean is there will be other tournaments and you'll run across the same individuals playing in them over and over. Many of those who consistently make the final tabel will remember whether or not you have been a soft target for blind steals.

When you do defend, I think it should often be with a re-raise. Let everyone know that whoever attacks your blind is putting his/her stack at risk too.

Buzz