Why defend your blind?

[twoakers]

Why is the predominate theory to defend you BB? It seems to me that you have already posted the blind, so it's gone. I understand that pot odds sometimes make staying in with a crummy hand the right play, but why is it seen as a weak move to fold on the BB. It seems to me that if I am sitting on a hand I figure is behind and there has been strength shown by a raise, why do I call the raise more in the BB when I would throw the same hole cards away in, lets say UTG? I will be out of position the rest of the hand, so not only do my cards suck, but I'm also fighting position. It seems people want to defend your blind to avoid people stealing them, but if I am simply staying in with bad cards because of that theory, am I not just throwing away more money?

[MathEconomist]

Well the people who are attacking your blind are presumably doing this with a much wider range of hands than they would raise with in another situation (note that this assumes you've observed their play and they do make more raises from the button than from say MP), so you can play back at them with a much wider range of hands than you otherwise would. Additionally, folding on the BB to a raise from LP unless you have a legitimate hand will lead to people making even more steal raises against you costing you even more of the equity you've put out in the blind and making you easier to read.

I think the first of these points is more important. With the BB, SB and a raise in, there's not an entirely trivial amount of money in the pot. And when you know that your opponent could have a lot of fairly weak hands, you need to play back because you're winning the pot often enough to justify it. Small pots add up over time.

[r0eKY]

in a cash game i just fold, unless its a hand i woulda open with

[Dan BRIGHT]

I defend my blind so I lose less money i nthe long run than if I just let them have it

In Limit it would be impossible to be a winning player if you did this. If you have poker tracker, have a look at how much it has cost you to post your SB and BB.

I only play 6handed, and in about 7500 hands at 10/20 (and a few 15/30) I am up $4700, and I have paid 15,145 to post the BB and 7,755 to post the SB. That's $22,900 in losses if I folded every time in the blinds. I'd be down 18K...

Perhaps someone who plays 10handed could posted for the amount it cost them to play the blinds, as the blinds are not as significant as 6handed, but still important.

[cowboy2006]

Its more about who is trying to steal your blind than anything IMHO. If CO is a complete rock and he raises-its more likely that he is raising because he has a decent hand than he is trying to steal blinds. If the guy is a mainiac, not telling what he has and unless he does something stupid like a really big raise, its probably not a bad idea to call and see what happens after that. Right now, the hardest thing I am dealing with about live tourney TH is having someone try to blind steal and I look down to see a marginal hand (ATos and whatnot) in the blinds. You are out of positon and even if you hit fairly strong, its still gonna be trouble against really aggressive players.

In live games, I think the situation rises more often when someone (mainly an over aggressive player) straddle bets. You are in the blind, there is decent money already in the pot and its not that much more to call, but you have some jack@$$ behind you who will do who knows what. In a situation like this, it really comes down to who you are playing.

The blind steal/straddle bet has taught me more about playing the player versus playing your cards than anything. If your opponent is one to sit back and play strong hands, then it probably isn't a pure blind steal. If someone straddles or is more aggressive pre-flop than he really needs to be, then your marginal hands become a lot stronger.

[WhoIam]

As you move up in limits, your winrate tends to go down and not defending your blinds becomes a big leak. It really isn't that important at lower limits and can actually cost you a lot of money if you aren't very good at it. Once you get to mid- and high-stakes, it becomes a necessity. Or, as the other poster mentioned, if you play 6-max, you'll get killed.

[donkeyradish]

It doesnt mean you should play bad cards, some players will try and steal your blind ALWAYS from the button with no limpers.

Against such players you can reraise with any hand that is better than 50:50 heads up and make some $ in the long run.

Conversely if a player does not defend his blind often enough you can try and steal every time.

[Shandrax]

[ QUOTE ]
Why is the predominate theory to defend you BB? It seems to me that you have already posted the blind, so it's gone. I understand that pot odds sometimes make staying in with a crummy hand the right play, but why is it seen as a weak move to fold on the BB. It seems to me that if I am sitting on a hand I figure is behind and there has been strength shown by a raise, why do I call the raise more in the BB when I would throw the same hole cards away in, lets say UTG? I will be out of position the rest of the hand, so not only do my cards suck, but I'm also fighting position. It seems people want to defend your blind to avoid people stealing them, but if I am simply staying in with bad cards because of that theory, am I not just throwing away more money?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you are a 4:1 underdog and the potodds are 1:1 you are making a big mistake to play the hand. If you are a 4:1 underdog and the potodds are 3.5:1 you still make a mistake to play the hand, but the mistake is rather small. Winning poker not only means winning a lot with your good hands, it also means losing the least with your bad hands. By defending the blinds with weak (but not terrible) hands you will still lose money, but not as much as if you throw them away all the time.

If you are in the BB in a $10/$20 game and you face a raise it costs you $10 to play for a $35 pot. You are getting 3.5:1 for your money, to see the flop (hitting a pair in 32% of the cases). Even if you decide to call it down all the way, you are still getting 1.42:1 on your money on the river, so you only need to win 41,32% of the hands (42,63% with a 5% rake) to break even.

I wouldn't call it defending the BB, I would rather call it gambling under favorable circumstances. All you need to do is to figure out which hands win the appropriate percentage against a raise from the button.

S&M claim that the button should not be allowed to win more than 50% of the hands without a contest (HEFAP p. 192). You might want to follow up on this.

[twoakers]

Thanks guys. Those are the kind of responses I was hoping for. I think I was taking the "defending my blind" thought process a little more aggressively than it was meant to be. From waht you all posted, it seems that I should mainly be looking at raises from LP, with either folds, or a limp or two prior. If someone raises in EP or maybe even MP, they are showing strength (barring reads that tell me differently), meaning let a poor hand go. Also, I plan to get PT in the very near future, I am sure that the stats from that will help me grasp the +/- EV results from my SB and BB play. Thanks again, Chris.