Blind battles - playing from the big blind
Introduction
In this article
- How to react to players completing and open-raising
- How to play in an un-raised pot
- How to play against aggressive players
Aside from the normal blind defence situation against players outside
the blinds, there is a special situation which differs from all other
situations on a short-handed or full ring table and is itself a very
dynamic subject: the blind battle
The blind battle situation is where no other players have put money
into the pot and the small blind has the opportunity to act first and to open the round.
This article will show you the game from the perspective of the big blind, showing you how best to adapt to your opponent.
What are the game specifics of BB vs. SB?
Naturally, we have to ask why the blind battle situation is so
special and how we can adapt to it. We must consider the
special dynamics of the heads-up situation, since the blind battle is
little more than a game of heads up on a short-handed or full ring
table.
For you, this means that your game is very much
dependent on the game of your opponent and you must pay attention to his
play tendencies and consider how to exploit them. It is thus the case
that there is no standard manner of play of which you can be confident that it is
+EV.
The psychological aspect is at the forefront of
the game, but you
cannot evaluate this as easily as you could in standard heads up, since the time
between blind battles can be long, particularly on aggressive tables. This means your opponents are less likely to remember what happened in previous
blind battles. You cannot always count on your previous call down or
float to remain in the memory of the opponent.
If he is playing several tables or is doing other things on his
computer besides online poker, he will often have long since forgotten
the situation. This will never happen in standard heads up play, since
players will be trying to adapt to their opponents.
Other than the psychological peculiarity, there is another factor to
take into account. Since you are now in a heads up situation, the
strength of the hands involved has changed dramatically. It is unlikely that both players will have hit the flop well.
As the big blind in this situation, you always
have position on the opponent and will be more willing to go to the
showdown with medium strength hands such as midpair / top kicker or
top pair
/ no kicker in order to win with the best hand. Precisely how you play
these hands, however, is strongly dependent on your opponent, since
against some you can discard top pair / no kicker if you run into resistance, while you can call down 3 barrels with bottom pair against
others.
The courage to follow your reads and to act accordingly is therefore often in demand in this
situation. How you
should adapt to your reads in particular is dealt with later, but first we
will deal with some fundamental questions.
What is the difference between a blind battle from the big blind in comparison to the small blind?
The question is, what is the difference between playing the small blind
and the big blind in a blind battle? Why are there two articles instead
of just one? Can't one play almost identically, whether one has paid
the small blind or the big blind? After all it is basically the same game
situation.
It must be said however, that while a blind battle always describes exactly same game
situation, that this situation can always seen
from 2 completely different points of view. This difference in
perspectives results mainly from the difference in position from which it is played.
Playing from the big blind, you always have an
informational advantage, both pre-flop and post-flop. Given this
advantage, you're in a position to play a wider range of hands
profitably. This is therefore also your goal as the big blind. You want to use your
positional advantage post-flop to force your opponent into
–EV situations.
You can even play marginal hands profitably in
this situation, since you have both informational advantage and greater
control of the potsize. Having these advantages over the small blind
means he will be less inclined to get himself into marginal situations.
How do you react to the small blind completing?
Many players play rather passively from the small
blind and only complete, hoping to find a favourable flop. The direct
odds for completing are always sufficient, since they are 3:1,
requiring only a pre-flop equity of 25% in order to make it a +EV-call. As we know, in
Texas Hold'em, we always have at least 30% equity against a random hand
range.
If only the pre-flop action
is considered, the SB would therefore not be making a mistake by completing. Because your aim is to force the opposition to make
errors, usually achieved by being aggressive, now is the best time to
start. A raise here is a good way of punishing him for completing,
since we take away the otherwise good price of seeing the flop.
Throughout the post-flop game, you will always have the positional
advantage and will not have a problem playing for a slightly larger
pot. Making your pre-flop raise will cause your opponent to make more
post-flop mistakes, since he will be confronted with larger bets.
Aggression towards a complete only has long term benefits for you. Should we raise every hand here?
This question can neither be answered negatively
or positively. It is dependent on your post-flop skills and your opponent's
tendencies. There are hands which are naturally suited to a raise here,
but also ones where we may just want to see the flop.
In this range are all the pocket pairs, medium and large aces and all broadway hands.
With these hands, you should tend to raise pre-flop, since you draw value directly from the hand. You will often end
up with the better hand on the flop and sometimes have the opponent
partially dominated. Here you should try and get the maximum value
from your hand both pre-flop and post-flop.
Additionally, it can be quite tricky to play small
pocket pairs unimproved without having the initiative.
By raising pre-flop, you gain the advantage of the initiative and the
chance of taking the pot without going to showdown. You have also
inflated the pot size in case you happen to hit a set, where it
would otherwise be difficult to stack off with only a 2 BB pot.
This range contains all the connected hands, as well as medium suited one and two gappers.
These hands are now borderline between a raise and
a check. On the one hand, you will not hit a perfect flop very often, while on
the other hand, these cards are well suited for post-flop semi-bluffing,
where it is easier for the opponent to let go of their bad hands in a
raised pot.
In favour of a check is the fact that since you cannot
expect to win at the showdown with a drawing hand unless your draw
hits, you do not want to put a great deal of money into the pot.
Also in favour of a check is the fact that you get to keep
your large implied odds - once you know you are ahead, you can focus on
getting the money in. This argument is partially flawed however since many
players adopt the "Don’t go broke in
an un-raised pot!" philosophy.
A check is therefore not necessarily helpful for increasing your
implied odds as most players will be reluctant to play for
very much money in an un-raised pot.
In this range, as the name suggests, are small
aces, kings and queens, which often form top pair no kicker and are therefore often dominated.
These hands often have an pre-flop
equity edge against the opponent's completing range, yet will often prove to be difficult for you to play post-flop. If you play these hands
aggressively and end up with a top pair, no kicker hand, it will be hard to lay the hand down against an opposing
check-raise on the flop. As soon as you are
playing for a medium sized pot and don't end up with two pair or
better, there is always the danger that playing the hand to the
showdown result in you being on the losing end.
With these cards, the saying "small hands,
small pots" applies. You should therefore try and keep the pot small
and reduce the danger of being dominated, while also tempting your
opponent to value bet/bluff with weaker hands, so that your hand acts as a
bluff catcher.
With such hands, a pre-flop check is recommended, so that you don't end up playing for substantial pots with mediocre hands.
This range contains those worthless hands which you can generally throw away from any position.
With these hands, there is hardly any chance of
winning the showdown. Only rarely will you run into top pair or two pair
hands
(which will then still have to hold up). If the pot is contested here, you have little
chance of winning. In a normal situation, you can insta-fold these hands. Occasionally in a blind battle situation, you can raise these hands to try and
win a pot post-flop without a showdown. A fold on the part of the
opponent is only possible if you play aggressively.
Moreover, you can create a balance between raising
with these hands and raising with your good hands. If the opponent has
seen you raising with rubbish hands, it can be difficult for him to
play complete/fold with hands like K6o, since he is not sure he holds
the worst hand. Bad players will be lured into playing a wide range
against your pre-flop raises.
Even when you end up with a terrible hand on the
flop, you have the potential to win with a continuation bet, exerting
more pressure on the opponent. On the other hand, some players will be
tempted to call lightly with their dominated hands when you are playing
for value.
Of course, you should keep in mind the fact that, for
balancing purposes, you should play these hands aggressively when you
raise them. Therefore you should not always raise these hands,
otherwise you are raising your entire range too often and are too often
behind.
You have now seen all hands classified into 4
categories and now know the proper response to the small blind
completing in each case. It should be pointed out, however, that you
should not always act the same way given the same hand. You need a
certain amount of unpredictability to your play, so that you may well
have checked KQ or AQ before the flop in order to bring about
situations post-flop where the opponent thinks he is ahead, but is in fact drawing dead.
1/2 No-Limit Hold'em (5 handed )
BB: 200$
Hero: 200$
Preflop: Hero is BB with A
, Q
3 folds, SB Calls $1.00, Hero checks.
Flop: ($4.00) A
, 7 , Q (2 players)
SB Bets $4.00, Hero calls $4.00.
Turn: ($12) 4 (2 players)
SB Bets $10, Hero raises to $30, SB reraises to $85, Hero reraises to 194$ (All-In), SB calls $109 (All-In)
River: ($400) T (2 players)
SB shows 74
Hero wins.
This is an extreme example, which illustrates a
cooler situation for the opponent, but illustrates the strength of
some pre-flop checks. Had you raised pre-flop, you would have received
very little value from your hand, since he would most likely have
folded pre-flop (unless he is playing very badly) and on the flop would
have folded to a continuation bet.
The advantage of pre-flop checks with strong aces
is obvious. Had he held a worse ace, we would probably get
more value post-flop from a pre-flop check than if we had made a raise. With
a raise, it would be clear to him that you are often holding a high ace
and possibly have him dominated.
How do you play against a small blind who often plays complete/ 3-bet?
The first step in figuring out what to do is to
realize that the opponent does this. Make a note if you see this action
from the small blind.
In addition to the information that he re-raises
after a complete, note the bet-size and the hand of the opponent, if you
find out.
Many plays use the complete/min-raise move as a
trap, attempting to build a large pot with their strong hand. If you
note that strong hands are behind such a move, your calling range ought
to be pretty tight, ensuring that you do not get involved in large pots
with potentially dominated hands.
The bigger the effective stack size, the lighter
you can call with drawing hands, since we get better implied odds. The
opponent has shown that he has a strong hand, which he will be reluctant to
let go of post-flop.
Aggressive opponents use the complete/raise line
in order to bluff, usually making their re-raise somewhat higher, in
order to discourage you from constantly raising pre-flop. Here you can
call more loosely, of course, aiming to get to the showdown with a
medium sized pot and letting him bluff into you post-flop, since there
is less risk of you being dominated.
If an opponent is using the complete/raise move as
a "standard line" for a wide range of hands, against which it is
difficult to play post-flop you
should tighten your raising range while holding mediocre hands, to protect yourself from these
situations.
Your goal against such a tricky player is to let
your post-flop positional edge pay off. It does not pay off to make loose
re-raises against a frequent complete/raises line since we do not let
our post-flop advantage work for us. You should continue to play a solid
game.
How do you play an unraised pot post-flop?
If you decided it was correct to only check with your hand pre-flop, you should now consider the following things.
If the opponent checks to you after completing
pre-flop, you should bet almost 100% of your range. Make this bet at
least 3/4 pot size.
The reason for this play is clear. If you bet ¾
pot size, the opponent must fold in 43% of cases for this move to be
+EV. Often when the opponent completes pre-flop he will not hold a pair,
so he will have connected with the flop only 1/3 times.
Thus, we expect a fold 2/3 of the time, where the opponent missed the
flop. Even if the opponent does not play check/fold whenever he misses
the flop, you will reap some extra money when he calls with no pair
when you yourself connected. Your opponent, however, could well be
trying to extract value with a check/call after he has hit the flop.
You should be tempted to call the bets of
aggressive players on the flop in an unraised pot, since they will
often just be trying to pick up the pot. Since you have positional
advantage, you are able to make lighter calls with hands that do not
have a great deal of showdown value.
If you play in an unraised pot, bear in mind that
you have very little information about his hand range, since he has not
been forced to make any major decisions. Make sure you do not get into
large pots in such a situation, since your opponent could surprise
you with either AA or J2 on an AJ2 board.
Only in the rarest of cases should you go broke for 100BB
unless you have the nuts, otherwise it is likely that the opponent
has the nuts instead.
How do you react to an open-raise from the small blind?
In this situation all options are open. You could fold, call or raise
with such hands as T8s in this situation. With 100-BB-stacks you can
employ the following basic strategy.
With large pocket pairs (JJ+) you
should almost always raise for value. You balance by raising inferior
hands and should have no trouble going broke with QQ in this
situation for 100BB.
With middle pairs (66-99) you should gravitate towards a call. You will often have the best hand, but should your re-raise and
continuation bet on the flop be called, you are most likely beaten.
Re-raising with such pairs will win you small pots but you'll lose
medium sized ones. The only way to win a big pot with these hands is to
hit a set, which will only happen in one out of eight times.
Since the middle pocket pairs still have acceptable showdown value, you will want to try and bring them to the
showdown since you have position. By making a raise, you minimize your
chances of winning via showing the best hand at the showdown.
With the small pairs (22-55), the situation is
again different. With these pairs, you have very little showdown value
if you run into any post-flop action. Therefore it makes little sense to
try and simply get to the showdown with these hands. Additionally, you can
call hardly any post-flop bets, since at the least, you are likely facing
two over cards and must fear even more bets. When your drawing hand has
two outs, you can never call.
Thus it is better to re-raise these small
pocket pairs pre-flop. This simplifies the situation and protects you
from tricky post-flop spots. You will often win medium small pots with
your 3-bet and additionally have the option of taking a free card on the
flop.
With small pocket pairs, you have great implied odds
for making a set. You might hit a hidden small set, while the opponent
has the opportunity to make a top pair hand. With higher pocket pairs,
the chances of this happening are lower, since the opponent will not
hit a good hand as often.
In summary, it can be said: you should tend to raise
with small and large pocket pairs, but you should generally call if you have a medium pocket
pair, to play to the respective strengths of these hands and mix up
your range.
Of course, you should not always play the same hand in the same manner, but the trends are described.
For the non-paired hands it is not so simple. For almost every hand,
each choice is possibly the right decision. It is beyond the scope of
this article to discuss every possible hand in detail because it is
always dependent on the opponent.
We will therefore cover the advantages and disadvantages of each of the various actions. Based on the various
considerations, you can decide for yourself which hands are suited for
each action. Here the hand categories which were previously discussed
for a normal raise after a complete are helpful to consider.
Fold
By folding, your goal is not to lose too much money
by investing in situations where you can at best hit a middle pair and
thus can't stand up to any resistance. Should you have this type of
hand, this is usually the best course of action against a solid player.
Pre-flop folds against open raises from the small
blind are important, since they convey the message to the opponent that
he can steal your blinds. Thus he is tempted to make light open raises.
If you play any two from the big blind after an open raise, you will
encounter a lot of aggression in the long run (and rightly so) since
your range will include many bad hands.
Raise (3-Bet)
A raise always has the advantage that you put the
opponent under pressure and therefore generate fold equity. With
a raise you can often get hands which have good equity but bad
playability (bad reverse implied odds) like small aces and kings to
fold. These hands are hardly profitable for your opponent to play out
of position.
Your raise will tend to distort the situation.
Either he folds too many hands which would have had sufficient equity
against your range, or he calls your 3-bets too often and ends up
playing with mediocre cards out of position for a medium sized pot.
Other than standard value hands, there are drawing
hands which are good candidates for a 3-bet pre-flop, since they will also
contribute to distorting the situation. With this raise you will not only be gaining
pre-flop fold equity, you can also continue to make use of your positional
advantage post-flop with a slightly larger pot, whereby you are able
to manipulate the size of the pot.
A significant drawback of the raise is that you give the opponent the
option of making a 4-bet. This somewhat diminishes your positional
advantage, since the opponent is committed to the pot after a 4-bet, so
the relative position is no longer an issue.
You should not exclusively view an increased
pot size as an advantage, since with just moderate strength hands you
are walking on thin ice. With these hands you should be careful that
you try to play only for small pots. By inflating the pot, even if you
check behind on the flop, the opponent can still push a substantial
quantity of his stack forward, forcing you to make difficult decisions.
Call
The biggest advantage of a call is quite
clear. You are able to play the hand in position throughout and can
play hands completely based on their implied odds. Compared with an
unraised pot, you do not have the problem of a negligible pot size and
are therefore able to play for a medium sized pots post-flop. With a
call, you have a great opportunity to trap aggressive opponents. They
could interpret your call as weakness and try to bluff you off
your hand or keep making thin value bets through to the river with
top pair / no kicker
hands.
Additionally you have all options open to you after a pre-flop call. You can easily separate yourself from your hand, bluff raise on the flop, or float the turn, while holding with some outs which
might fall on the river. This gives you a lot of flexibility and lets you avoid marginal situations.
There is a downside, however. Hands which are very
likely to have a pre-flop equity edge against the opponents range are
not fully taken advantage of and run the danger of being
out flopped by worse hands. Frequent calling will also put you in a lot of potentially difficult post-flop situations for medium sized pots, which can be especially expensive for players who lack post-flop experience.
You must choose your actions depending on your
own post-flop skill. If you are still not confident with your post-flop game, you
should make fewer pre-flop calls. If you are not as confident when
playing 3-bet-pots, since the increased potsize makes it difficult to make decisions, you should hold back on making 3-bets.
This however does not cover every action available with
unpaired hands. At the end of this section you will also get some ideas of how to
play some of the difficult hands like aces and kings. Perhaps you
think hands such as AK, AQ, A7 or KQ and
K6 are not big problem hands, but this is not necessarily the case.
Many players play these hands straightforwardly,
partially folding and calling with weak aces and kings and 3-betting
with the stronger ones. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you should also seek to explore different playing styles which might not be so obvious for many.
With these hands, you do not always have to make simple
3-bet pre-flop with the aim of winning the pot directly or with a continuation bet on the flop, in the event of a call. Sometimes of course you will also hit and try to win a medium sized pot at the showdown.
Yet especially the large aces and kings are particularly well
suited to a call pre-flop after a raise from the small blind. Calling
here lands you in a situation where you could potentially take a lot of
chips from the opponent. If you run into action on the flop and hit
your hand, you will often have the opponent dominated and they won't
expect it. Many players will give little thought to domination in this
situation, since they think a good TAG must re-raise hands such as
AK, AQ
or KQ pre-flop.
You could get value from this situation with the lines call flop /
raise turn
or call flop / call turn / call river or call flop / call turn /
min-raise river, since the opponent will often try to either bluff you
out of the hand or place thin value bets thinking he is ahead.
It should be clear that hands such as AK, AQ, AJ,
KQ are better suited for this than A5, K8 or QT. With these latter
hands, the problem is that you yourself may well be dominated. Even if
you are not, the opponent will have such a small kicker that he ends up
playing passively, or you end up splitting the pot.
There are hands, particularly small aces, which in
general are too weak to 3-bet, are too strong to fold and when you call
with them they tend to win small pots and lose large pots. With these
hands, you need to play them depending on your opponent, since
statements like "You should always fold these, since they only cause
you problems" are suboptimal and inappropriate.
Later in this article, we elaborate on specific opponents playing styles, how to adapt to them and show where the strengths of these hands lie.
What role does the opponent's raise size play?
What we have neglected so far is the size of the pre-flop raises and how this influences your decision. There are two aspects to consider - the size of the raise and the effective stack size. You must be aware of the relationship between the two. You cannot say that any min-raise can be called, unless you know the exact effective stack size.
Below you will find various suggested adaptations when you have an effective stack size of 100 BB. Then follow the modifications you have to make when the stack size varies.
We can summarize in two sentences.
The better your post-flop positional advantages will work for your hand, the more inclined you should be to call.
This sentence is pretty self explanatory. With a small bet, your hands are naturally more profitable to play and as such can call weaker hands on the basis of being able to extract more value if you hit. The larger the bet size, the smaller your implied odds, so the better your hands playability need to be to justify a call.
The higher your opponent's raise, the more you should be inclined to 3-bet.
This sentence required a more in-depth explanation since it might be somewhat confusing at first. It is founded on two basic ideas. On the one hand, you do not need as much fold-equity to make a bluff-raise, since there is more dead money in the pot when they are making larger raises.
You will of course have to choose a larger bet size for a 3-bet since you cannot use the same re-raise size against opponents who raise 2.5 BB as against opponents who use 5 BB for their open raise. Since you are raising more, your re-raise looks a lot stronger to the opponents, making them think twice about playing for stacks.
The second idea behind re-raising more often against an opponent who makes larger-than-normal open raises, is that you do not want to let your opponent push you into a passive role where you are only calling, thus letting him see any flop he wants just because he is investing a bit more than usual pre-flop.
The ever popular min-raises are covered here in an isolated manner, since your adaptations for these are very opponent dependent. Many players (whether good or bad, it doesn't matter) pursue different goals with their min-raise.
One goal of the min-raise may be to see a cheap flop against a presumably weak range, since the big blind can call with any two.
Another objective, similar to the complete/raise line is to provoke a 3-bet so that they can re-raise again, putting you under pressure.
These are the objectives which might be pursued pre-flop and whose success you want to prevent. Especially against a tricky opponent, you should therefore not make loose
3-bets, where you will often be forced to fold to a 4-bet. If the opponent frequently folds to 3-bets or simply calls them, then you can 3-bet your good hands for value.
You should also pay attention to how the opponent plays post-flop. There are some bad players who typically min-raise and call 3-bets, followed by a light call on the flop.
If you are playing against such an opponent, ensure that you do not tilt and keep trying to push them out of the pot. It would be a simple mistake to make the pot large pre-flop with medium strength and weak hands if the opponent can't let go of bottom pair post-flop. Here it is best to play some solid ABC-value-poker, seeing cheap flops and making thin value bets.
Remember, you should resort to playing solidly when faced with a tricky player, or one who cannot let go of his pairs post-flop, by calling pre-flop and using your positional advantage to manipulate the pot size.
How do you adjust to different stack sizes?
Many players forget to adapt to the different stack sizes. The adjustments are covered in the following section.
There are two basic situations in addition to the standard 100BB stack - stacks much smaller than 100BB and stacks much larger.
The larger the effective stack size, the better your position can be used to your advantage. You can tempt your opponent to make ever more costly decisions. Your position works to your advantage through increased post-flop play. It is important to keep in mind that you need to be capable of playing for a sufficiently large pot.
It does help you to be in an unraised pot with a 170 BB deep stack, since you won't have the option available to you to put 170 BB into the middle in an advantageous situation. You should always be careful with such deep stacks and note that your opponent could bring his whole stack into play at any time.
Precise lines of play cannot be covered here. Simply be aware that when deep stacked, you post-flop skills are even more important. You should learn how to evaluate the various board textures, identify when to use pot control and when to protect. You should recognize good bluffing spots, choose ideal bet sizes and always check whether you can value bet profitably.
If you are playing against a player with a stack of 95 BB or 80 BB, it will hardly change your game, since the difference is minimal. But if you are playing against someone with 50 BB
or even 25BB and less, the situation becomes more interesting and adaptations are needed.
If the opponent is playing with a stack of around 50 BB you should be careful not to 3-bet too lightly, since his stack is perfectly suited for a re-steal push which you can only call with your strongest hands. Since you want your post-flop advantage to work for you, you should not be rushing to end the hand pre-flop.
But why is this stack size good for working your positional advantage? This is because most hands you run into will be one pair hands, which are not well suited for playing for large pots. With a stack of 50BB we can play for pot control and win a medium sized pot at the showdown. The larger the stack becomes, the more you need to be careful not to give the opponent an opportunity to force you off the hand with a raise. You cannot always play the most aggressive line. When stacks become smaller than 50 BB, you have less of a problem and can go broke with pairs more readily.
In addition, you will find some good spots with these stacks to float on the turn or semi-bluff. You create a lot of fold-equity with this move because the opponent will have to choose whether to invest his whole stack.
If you are playing against a short stack, you will soon arrive at a point where you can go broke pre-flop with marginal hands. Here you should naturally collect as much information on the short stack as possible. If the short stack is a "fish", who is using up the last of his money, you should play conservatively and try to take it from him post-flop. If he is a "professional" short stack, you are confronted with more problems. Now you have no choice but to try to also pursue an optimal short stack strategy. As a big stack you will however not be as familiar with the optimal pushing ranges.
A good short stack has two moves in his inventory - either a first in push, or an attack on your blind with a normal raise.
After the opponent pushes, only two options are available - call or fold. Depending on your assumption about your opponent's pushing range, you must now try and determine whether a call is +EV.
The problem, of course, is making a suitable assumption about his pushing range. Does he always push here or will he make a normal raise from time to time? How much does his current stack influence his pushing range?
Estimating the opponent's pushing range is up to you. If you have AA, then his range, of course, does not matter, but you do not always have
AA.
If you can make an assumption about his pushing range, you then follow these steps to find out if you have a +EV call or not.
- Determine the stack size of the opponent (in big blinds)
- Estimate your hands equity against the proposed range using Equilator
- Place the two values in the formula below to determine the EV of a call
S : Opponent's stacksize in BB
E : Equity of your hand vs opponent's pushing range
EV = E * (S+1) – [(1-E) * (S-1)]
If you get a positive value, you should call, otherwise fold.
Example
Opponent's estimated pushing range: 22+, A8o+, A5s+, KT+, QT+
1/2 No-Limit Hold'em (5 handed )
BB: 30$
Hero: 200$
Preflop: Hero is BB with A , 9
3 folds, SB raises to $30 (All-In), Hero ???
Your equity is 44,39%.
His stack is 15 BB.
Thus we get the following result:
E = 0,4439
S = 15
EV = E * (S+1) – [(1-E) * (S-1)]
EV = 0,4439 * (15+1) – [(1- 0,4439) * (15-1)]
EV = 7,1024 – 7,7854
EV = -0,683
From these assumptions, a call is –EV so you should fold.
At least in retrospect you can calculate whether a call is advisable. When you are at the table, this is not possible.
You can prepare yourself for such situation by using the Sklansky-Chubukov-numbers, a table which gives you the required calling range against a push from a short stack. Of course, this works optimally only if the opponent is pushing according to the Sklansky-Chubukov-chart. With some diligence and the Equilator, you will get a feel for the situation.
For further information on this topic, see the following article: Sklansky Chubukov Numbers and Pre-flop pushes
In this case we have not only the call or fold options. We could decide to re-raise. With a re-raise, you are committed to the pot and will end up seeing all 5 cards if the opponent plays the hand further. You should therefore make a direct push against a short stack, since the stack would be going in anyway.
Case 1: You decide on a re-steal
In this situation it is important for you to know how the shortstack plays. Will he fold to a reraise some of the time or does he always commit to the hand after making a standard raise? Do you have any fold-equity or must you rely entirely on your hand's strength?
If you estimate that you have no fold-equity with a push, you need information about the opponents range so we can see our EV as before.
S: Stacksize of the shortstack (in BB)
E: Your equity against the opponent's hand range
EV = E * (S+1) – [(1-E) * (S-1)]
If you think your push might produce some fold-equity, then you have a couple more steps to determine your EV. We must first make an assumption about the opponent' calling range and then we can use the Equilator to get our equity.
You can then use the following inequality in order to calculate your required fold-equity.
R : Opponent's open-raise size (in BB)
S : Stacksize of the shortstack (in BB)
E : Your hands equity against the range of the opponent
0 < f * (r+1) + (1-f) * [E * (S+1) – (1-E) * (S-1)]
Based on this value and your assumption about the opponent's calling range, you can now calculate how big opponent's initial raising range he needs to fold to make a push +EV.
Example
Estimate opponent's calling range: 22+, A8o+, A5s+, KT+, QT+ (20,06%)
SB: 30$
Hero: 200$
1/2 No-Limit Hold'em (5 handed )
Preflop: Hero is BB with A , 9
3 folds, SB raises to $6, Hero reraises to $30
Your equity is 44,39%.
His stack is 15BB.
E = 0,4439
S = 15
0 < f * (r+1) + (1-f) * [E * (S+1) – (1-E) * (S-1)]
0 < f * (3+1) + (1-f) * [0,4439 * (15+1) – (1- 0,4439) * (15-1)]
0 < 4f + (1-f) * [7,1024 – 7,7854]
0 < 4f + (1-f) * (-0,683)
0 < 4f –0,683 + 0,683f
4,683f > 0,683
f > 0,1458
f > 14,58%
Now you calculate how big his open-raising range oH must be.
oH = 0.2006 / (1 – 0.1458) = 0.2348
oH = 23.48%
This represents an open-raising range of 22+,
A5o+, A2s+, KT+, QT+ and thus means that the opponent folds A5o-A7o and A2s-A4s against your push.
If the opponent has a wider open-raising range than the accepted push calling range, then you get a +EV-Push.
This sounds very mathematical, but such basics will help you if you try to analyze your game away from the table and notice that you are pushing too tightly or too loosely. With this analysis, you get a good feeling for the right ranges and end up making the right decisions increasingly often in these situations.
Here you will find an Excel file with tables which take care of the bulk of the calculation: Excel Chart for playing against short stacks and aggressive 4-Betters
What you should not forget is that an opponent may push his weaker hands according to the Sklansky-Chubukov-numbers but make a normal raise with his strong hands in order to provoke you into making a re-steal. With the opposing open-raising range being so tight, you will have no fold-equity with a push. If you know the opponent uses this strategy, your pushing range should be very tight!
Case 2: You call pre-flop
Instead of re-stealing, we might consider calling and playing the flop in position. There is no way for us to set up mathematical formulas to explore this situation fully. You must be aware of the following things.
- The smaller the effective stack, the more worthless your positional advantage
With small stack, one bet can commit you to the pot, so there are fewer game options. You can therefore neither float nor bluff-raise on the flop since you cannot create any fold-equity. In addition, pot control is worthless with small stacks. Your positional advantage doesn't mean a great deal anymore, since you only have to decide whether to go broke or not.
- The opponent can act first on the flop
When the stacks are large, this is an advantage for you, since you get information about your opponent's hand. With small stacks this is a disadvantage because the opponent does not need to have a hand in order to make a continuation bet. You do need one, however, in order to react aggressively. In this situation, it is often the case that the first one to fire a bet collects the pot if both players missed the flop. Thus the opponent is now at an advantage, since he has the opportunity to fire the first bet.
- The better the shortstack, the more he is aware of the situation's dynamics
If you are playing against a bad player who is passive post-flop, a call here can be good, since you could very well end up winning the pot without showdown. The better the short stack is, the more likely that he is aware that he has some advantages in this situation and will use these accordingly. With a good player, you cannot assume that he will let go of his hand post-flop after he has made a continuation bet. This may be the case with a bad player, however.
Be aware of what you are getting involved with by making a preflop call and select your range accordingly. In order to make such a call, you require hands which can gain showdown value, so you should refrain from calling with suited connectors, for example, since there are no implied odds.
How do you play against an opponent who frequently 4-bets against your 3-bets?
This will depend on how large the 4-bets are. Does the opponent commit himself to the hand or make small 4-bets, which leave the possibility of a fold open to him if he is under pressure?
If you are playing against an aggressive pre-flop player, hold back with your drawing hands and 3-bet with them less often. You must shift your range here to regain equal footing by adapting to this aggression.
There are two ways of doing this:
- You 3-bet less, so that you can respond to loose 4-bets with value 5-bets.
- You 3-bet with the same frequency, but with a slightly different range, so that you can make bluff 5-bets often enough.
You can also combine the two, making fewer 3-bet, but also mixing in some bluff 5-bets.
For the first adjustment, you just take the drawing hands from your own 3-betting range and you will automatically be 3-betting less. You can use this adjustment against opponents who commit themselves with a 4-bet or 4-bet push all-in.
For the second adjustment, we must consider which hands we want to 5-bet bluff with. Naturally these are hands which have quite good equity against the opposing calling range, so that we do not end up seeing the showdown with 72o for instance. So we use our problem hands - medium and small aces (particularly suited aces) to 3-bet so that we can push them as a bluff.
Such a hand could be as follows.
1/2 No-Limit Hold'em (5 handed )
SB: 215$, 4-bet frequently in blindbattles
Hero: 200$
Preflop: Hero is BB with A , 4
3 folds, SB raises to $7, Hero reraises to $24, SB reraises to 56$, Hero reraises to 200$ (All-In)
With the above hand, we can do a mathematical analysis to see whether the (semi-) bluff push is +EV.
In the following calculation it must still be mentioned that increasing your bluffs will lead to a better payout for your monster hands. If the bluff is also +EV or even break even, we can promise ourselves that this move is profitable given our increased payoff for our monster hands.
At the beginning of the computation we must make assumptions about the opponent's calling range. In the example we analyze three different opponent types, who would call your push with different ranges.
- Opponent 1: QQ+, AK (2.6%)
- Opponent 2: TT+, AK (3.5%)
- Opponent 3: TT+, AQ+ (4.7%)
Your equity against each of the three opponents:
- vs. Opponent 1: 29.7%
- vs. Opponent 2: 30.7%
- vs. Opponent 3: 30.7%
With hardly any difference in the equities, you see that the specific calling range of the opponent is not that interesting. The size of the calling range does, of course, have an influence on whether this move is +EV.
The next step is to figure out how large your fold-equity must be in order to justify a push. If you are familiar with such calculations, you will realize that the fold-equity required against each of the three opponents is almost identical.
Fold-equity against opponent 1:
0 < f *(24+56) + (1-f) * (0.297 * (200+24) – (1-0.297) * (200-24))
0 < 80*f + (1-f) * (66,528 – 123,728)
0 < 80 * f + (1-f) * (-57,2)
0 < 80f –57,2 + 57,2f
137,2f > 57,2
f > 0,4169
f > 41,69%
Fold-equity against opponents 2 and 3:
0 < f*(24+56) + (1-f) * ( 0,307 * (200+24) – (1-0,307) * 200-24))
0 < 80f + (1-f) * (68,768 – 121,968)
0 < 80f + (1-f) * (-53,2)
0 < 80f – 53,2 + 53,2f
133,2f > 53,2
f > 0,3993
f > 39,93%
Based on these fold-equities we can now calculate the minimum-4-bet range of these opponent's which make a 5-bet bluff push +EV.
For this we need only a small three sentence calculation.
Opponent 1:
4-Bet-Range = 0,026 / (1- 0,4169) = 0,0445 = 4,45% (Range: TT+, AQ+)
Opponent 2:
4-Bet-Range = 0,035 / (1- 0,3993) = 0,0582 = 5,82% (Range: 88+, AQo+, AJs+)
Opponent 3:
4-Bet-Range = 0,047 / (1- 0,3993) = 0,0782 = 7,82% (Range: 77+, Ajo+, ATs+, KQs)
Based on these calculations, you can calculate the minimum range with which each of the three opponents must be 4-betting in order to make our push +EV. The greater their actual 4-betting range is, compared with the minimum required, the more profitable it is to make the push.
The following link gives you an Excel chart which does the calculations for you: Excel Chart for playing against short stacks and aggressive 4-Betters
Our range adjustment is not completely finished. Given that we will receive more action from the opponent, or if the opponent is simply weak, we are now in a position to make lighter value pushes.
Your value pushing range is thus no longer just QQ+, AK. Since you are using small suited aces as bluffing hands in particular, the opponent might be tempted to call with AQ or even AJ. You can therefore loosen your requirements for calling with pocket pairs, since these benefit enormously from the adjusted calling range. The following table provides the equity of different ranges. We use 88 as our reference pocket pair.
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Equity of 88 against various ranges
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Your equity with pocket pairs increases by as much as 9%. This is an enormous increase. In the situation above, you need 44% equity in order to push for value, assuming the opposing calling range is the same as his 4-betting range. Since opponents will not 4-bet as tightly as this in reality, you will have some fold-equity and can therefore push for value with some pocket pairs.
It should be clear that you can react to enormous aggression with selective counter-aggression. If the opponent realizes that in such spots, you are increasingly favored in an all-in situation, he will cut back on his aggression. If he does not realize this, you have found a great way to profitably adapt to his aggression.
The other option is to 3-bet more tightly and call more often, letting your position work for you to exploit an aggressive opponent. The opponent would then have partially achieved his goal. As suggested, you can make call-downs in this situation with medium strong hands. The better your postflop game, the more you should do this while refraining from making preflop bluff pushes.
How do you play against small blinds who like to check-raise the flop?
In particular you do not want to see min-raises. Here you can make fewer continuation bets, both in the case when you hit and do not hit the flop, so the opponent has less opportunity to check-raise. After checking behind on the flop you have two good lines at your disposal, which many opponents are not familiar with and will have difficulty adapting.
On the one hand you could play check-behind flop / raise turn or you could check-behind flop/ call any turn / re-evaluate river.
Both lines protect you from the check-raise on the flop but still allow you to extract value from your hand because of your positional advantage.
Both lines have their special uses. We will now discuss the pros and cons of each.
This line is best used against the "one dimensional" aggressive opponents whose purpose in check-raising the flop is to steal, who will thus often fire off a bet on the turn hoping to collect the pot.
You are now in a position to steal the pot by raising on the turn. You do not necessarily need showdown value, since this move will usually generate enough fold-equity. Another advantage of this line is that you can get quite a lot of value from improving to a monster hand on the turn. A two-pair on the turn is perfect for stacking an opposing top pair. This line is also naturally suited for slowing a top-set, where an opposing player has difficulty letting go of his one pair hand.
Against aggressive opponents you can often get through two bluff-bets (including one on the river) and can still keep the pot relatively small with this line. If you try to act as a bluff-catcher after a check-raise on the flop, you have the disadvantage that the pot is inflated and the opponent has another two streets to get his stack in the center. This can be quite expensive for you if you run into a better hand, or if the opponent's hand improves on the turn or river.
In order to play this line, it should be clear to you that your hand must have some showdown value or some outs, since you show no aggression on the flop or turn.
Another advantage of this line is that you leave yourself with the possibility of a bluff on the river, provided a scare-card shows up. Many players do not think a regular will bluff on the river, since they classify him as a solid ABC player. Therefore you can eliminate a possible leak with this line and balance some of your river bets with bluffs. You should select these river bluff-raise spots carefully however, since it makes little sense to bluff on a scare card when against an aggressive "showdown monkey", who is liable to call with second pair, good kicker.
There is an obvious disadvantage to this line as well. If the opponent bets the turn and checks the river, you have created a somewhat amusing situation. If you hold a busted draw, you do not know whether to make a bluff bet, since the opposing line looks like a check/call for bluff induction. If you hold a made hand, it is difficult to know whether to value bet because you have gathered little information about the opposing hand. You now need to find the right balance, not letting too much value slip by with passive play and not making thin value bets.
If you are playing against tricky opponents who might play check/raise on the river, both as a bluff and also as a value bet, your decision becomes even harder.
Both lines require some postflop skill to implement well, however you now have a defense against the check-raise on the flop. If the opponent does not bet at the turn, it is not bad for you because you now know more about his hand because of his two checks and weak hands with showdown value (A high) can get to the showdown more easily. Moreover, you have the opportunity of making a delayed continuation bet with weak hands, particularly if a high card falls on the turn (A or K). Lastly, you can make value bets on two streets with your made hands.
The check-behind is therefore a very effective weapon against those opponents who will happily play check/minraise on the flop to get you out of the hand.
How do you play against opponents who forgo their continuation bet on the flop?
This situation depends a lot on your reads. Does the opposition estimate you to be a strong or weak player? Does he think you are a hyper aggressive TAG and is he looking to turn this into a weakness?
Good players often do not make a continuation bet on the flop when they have a hand with showdown value and do not want to let the pot grow too large out of position. Such players will rarely hold drawing hands in this situation and rather bet the flop with these, so that they can play for more value if they hit.
You should therefore not run into the trap against a good regular by going for a 3-barrel pure bluff. Although this may succeed often against weak postflop players, it makes no sense here because he will usually have made the check with a medium to strong made hand.
If you are playing against a fairly straightforward player whose check here suggests that he has nothing, you can try and collect the pot without having hit the flop yourself, of course. You gain the initiative and in an uncontested pot, when both players have nothing, you put pressure on the other player.
If you have something on the flop, then you should play more cautiously here, acting based on your hand strength and the flop texture. The more draw heavy the flop, the more you need to protect your hand, but you should be capable of folding if you encounter a raise. If the board is dry and you hold a strong hand, you need not bet to protect it, which would only put you in danger of a check-raise which might result in you folding the best hand. You should check behind with the philosophy "small hand, small pot" in your mind.
If you have a made hand which is often ahead on the flop, but there is a high chance it will no longer be on the river (e.g. bottom-pair, no kicker), you should try and protect this on the flop.
What errors should you avoid in the blind battle situation?
There are two things to note. The first is to avoid making too many continuation bets and leaving yourself open to check-raises which inflate the pot.
The second common mistake in a blind battle is to be too eager to push the opponent out of the pot and make a lot of spewy plays as a result. You have positional advantage and should use it accordingly given the situation. There is still some demand for some solid play. Simply firing at the pot and thinking the opponent will get out of the way because he is out of position and the pot isn't large is a weak and substantially –EV play.
Conclusion
After reading this article and its counterpart Blindbattle as the Small Blind you will have a good overview of the blind battle situation. With the ideas presented in these articles, you have more techniques for winning in blind battle situation in order to make a profit in the long run.
Again we give you the link to the Excel file, which you can use for calculations regarding playing against shortstacks: Excel Chart for playing against short stacks and aggressive 4-Betters
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