Defending Blinds in Limit

[pena]

Against a unknown/neutral button stealer I 3-bet with:
A8+,77+, and sometimes KQ
I call with something like:
66-22,K9s+,QTs+,JTs,T8s+,98s,KTo+,QTo+,JTo,T9o+

I don't really master blind defending very well. But those are roughly my hands I defend with. There's quite a little discussion from blind defending in the books I've read.

[calidris]

pena, what's the reasoning behind calling with so many hands rather than raising?

[dlorc]

[ QUOTE ]
pena, what's the reasoning behind calling with so many hands rather than raising?

[/ QUOTE ]

Getting capped sucks.

[calidris]

lol, that's true of course. I just never saw calling as a means of blind defense.

[fretelöo]

[ QUOTE ]
lol, that's true of course. I just never saw calling as a means of blind defense.

[/ QUOTE ]

At least my experience has been that ppl really start to worry if you just call their raise and then get crazy on the flop. Button raises, you call with JTo and cap a Txx flop - they usually fold right there. Do that twice, and they leave you alone.
3bet pf, they frequently assume you're trying to resteal and try some crazy c/r on the turn or so after which it's hard to call down...

[mmctrab]

In the blinds I consider calling with anything I would call or raise with in LP, but it depends on who the raiser is, and how light I've seen them raise (if I have).

[mmctrab]

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]

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]

[ 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]

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.