Defending Blinds in Limit

winkydinky85 · #1 02-02-2007, 05:23 AM

Hey guys I was wondering what you guys defend your blinds with against a button or cutoff raise. Just post your range in general so I can see if I am too tight defending the blinds. I will post mine later just want to see where I stand in blind defense in comparison to you guys. I am in a pretty bad downswing (now at 365 BB), and my stacks just seem to wither away as I sit at a table and I am wondering if it has a lot to do with me being too tight from the BB and SB. Thanks guys in advance.

calidris · #2 02-02-2007, 05:36 AM

I can assure you, with quite a bit of certainty, that bad blind defense would not be the main cause when you're down 365 BB. Well...if you always do it no matter what then maybe...

How about sloppy table selection? Maybe you've become over confident and go with "well..this table is good enough"? There's a thin line between -0.5/BB and +3BB/100 on table selection alone in my experience.

winkydinky85 · #3 02-02-2007, 05:41 AM

I am playing on UB at night at the moment and all the tables have stats shown at around $11-$14 and 27%-33% players seeing flop longhanded. So those are good enough to play in my opinion.

calidris · #4 02-02-2007, 05:57 AM

What limit?

winkydinky85 · #5 02-02-2007, 06:00 AM

$1/$2 Limit Longhanded

calidris · #6 02-02-2007, 06:09 AM

Well, that's over my BR and I just play .25/.50 long handed at stars. That said, I would never volountarily(SP) sit at a table w 27-33% players to the flop. That's like you and 1-2 more guys. In essence it means that you're sitting at a table with your peers and of course it's hard to win when everyone is equally good/bad. Combine that with your long run of bad cards/not catching sets etc. and it can be one part of the equation.

I like to see table numbers in the upper 30's to mid 40's, then I'm sure there's at least 2 overly loose players in there. But maybe such tables doesn't exist in $1/$2.

mmctrab · #7 02-02-2007, 08:55 AM

There's more to it than that though, because that's an average. You need to be good about getting up and leaving if you wind up in a bad seat at a table where there are a lot of people betting preflop with garbage hands. I've sat down at tables with those numbers where almost every hand was raised preflop. The odds are that many of those raises were garbage. That's fine if you keep picking up good hands. But if you're not, and you can never limp in from the blinds, you find that your stack just starts whithering away, and you don't get to play hands that you would normally get to play.

winkydinky85 · #8 02-02-2007, 08:58 AM

I had a table there that I played at that I played 250 hands and did not check once preflop. I would say about 60% of the hands are being raised but it is more of a maniacle fashion not a skill fashion.

mmctrab · #9 02-02-2007, 09:04 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I had a table there that I played at that I played 250 hands and did not check once preflop. I would say about 60% of the hands are being raised but it is more of a maniacle fashion not a skill fashion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, I see this quite a bit. You can spew chips right and left at a table like that. If you're in a downswing, I would leave a table like that and find somewhere else to play because it's hard enough to play a table like that when you're running good.

kerowo · #10 02-02-2007, 09:09 AM

Can we just nip this "longhanded" nomenclature in the bud right now and go back to calling it full ring like God intended?

Without reads on someone I'm not defending very much without a playable hand. If I have a read that someone is stealing light I'll open up the range a bit. Just as a reminder the two basic defense lines are call the raise c/r the flop, or you can 3-bet pre-flop and lead the flop. Of these two the 3-bet/lead line is for strong starting hands or if you want to get the BB out. Neither of these really depend on the cards too much, but again reads help.

Against a good player you will probably get raised somewhere so don't do this against good players. You can also just call down if you have some of the board if you think villain is full of crap.

There are filters in PT that will let you see what your blind defense/stealing numbers are, look at them and see how much you are winning/losing in those situations. If you are mistaking aggression for cards too much in steal situations you can easily piddle away 5BB/100, which is a great motivator to fold K2o against an unknown stealer.