Blind Defence with Dominated Hands - Small Blind vs. Big Blind

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Blind Defence with Dominated Hands (III) – Small Blind vs. Big Blind

by Miiwiin

This is the final part of the column series "Blind Defence with Dominated Hands". Up to now, spots dealt with a defend in the small or big blinds after button makes a steal.

This time, we're concerned with the direct blinds battle. Here, too there are some differences from a steal from the button; these will be discussed here. We recommend you read the two previous parts first, for a more complete understanding.

Specifics in the blind battle

The battle for the blinds takes takes the most basic form in the blind vs. blind play. The stealer has just one thing on his mind, that is, your big blind. If he acts first in, there's no chance that other players could still act (in contrast to a steal from the button, where the opponent not only has to pay attention to you, but also needs to take into account the possible reactions of the other players in the blinds).

In simple terms, there are four important points you need to consider in a blind battle, as soon as Villian attempts to steal:

One thing is clear: if the small blind attempts to steal against you, you always have the positional advantage. If he steals first in, then you'll be playing a heads-up pot in position, which isn't a particularly bad starting point. In each previous position, you had to act out of position.

Estimating opponents' ranges is extremely important. However, in particular the open raising range for a small blind is very difficult to calculate. There are players who act very tightly here and there are players, who steal very loosely.

The players themselves will decide whether loose steals are worth it or not, based on you. Put simply:

• If you fold your big blind too often, Villain will steal a lot
• If you generally defend passively and frequently fold postflop, Villain will steal a lot
• If you defend passively and are prepared to go broke more loosely, Villain will be more cautious
• If you regularly defend aggressively and 3-bet the small blind, he will also have to act more cautiously in the next rounds

If you assume you have a sensible player who sees you as an eligible player, there will be better situations for him than having to play against you out of position. Ultimately, he doesn't care whether you defend loosely now and just mutate into a calling station, or whether you fire back aggressively every time.

After a certain point, it will simply become unprofitable for your opponent to attack your blind out of position. Generally speaking, this is the state you want to achieve.

Of course, the question remains: in which phase do your opponent's ranges change? Unfortunately, this can't be answered, as each player has his own preference here. Some only look at equity and raise hands such as Ax/Kx, however, avoid drawing hands. On the other hand, some raise every suited connector, but don't play any off-suited aces from the small blind, for example (such as A8o-).

Your observations will become more and more valuable here.

Your willingness to go broke increases in the blind battle. On one hand, this relates to the preflop play, where fairly aggressive players are also prepared to invest their entire stack with very weak hands.

It's also carried over to postflop play, where a top pair is generally the best hand and it seems hardly possible to fold it.

If willingness to go broke even with medium strength hands rules, then on the other hand, fold equity will also go to the dogs. On the other hand this means you'll quite rarely be able to bluff your opponent with a strong hand, if you defend passively.

Now, keep the example AJ in mind: you hit in one out of 3 cases, so in roughly 66% of all cases, you're without any kind of hit. You need a plan for these situations as you can't fold every time.

What do you do if there's a hit? Call down every time, or raise sometimes? If you only call down in the blind battle with made hands (theoretically the principle way ahead / way behind is ideal here), how can you then make your opponent fold without a hit?

The principle question when balancing is: do I need to balance anything at all?

This was already suggested in point 3: if you want to bluff without a hit and play aggressively, you have to do so with your made hands as well (see example 4), even if these appear quite weak at first glance.

However, this isn't a rule of thumb. You need to ask yourself the following questions:

• What type of player is the small blind?
• Does he steal a lot against you?
• Why does he steal so much against you?
• Does this opponent even notice balancing? Is he interested in what you do, or does he only look at his cards?
• Is this player aggressive preflop, but weak postflop? Can you float him every time, so that he leaves you the pot often enough?
• Do you end up in this situation often, or are the opponents in the cutoff/button so aggressive that they create action earlier anyway? Or is the table littered with calling stations who generally already limped to the pot? In this case, the stealer will have to observe several players again and won't be playing against you alone.

If you play against a TAG who isn't gunning for you right now, then a passibe defend has lots of advantages:

• You're playing a small pot and your hand isn't particularly strong
• You play in position, so you can use your position well postflop (for example, floating, freecards etc...)
• You can determine pot control or protection yourself
• You don't isolate yourself against better hands
• You can't be bluffed out of the hand anymore preflop

Ultimately, lots of factors contribute to your decision, so let's take a quick look at a couple of examples.

PartyPoker $100 NL Hold'em (6-handed)

Stacks & Stats
UTG ($100)
MP ($100)
CO ($100)
BU ($100) (40/13/1.9/29/32/1102) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
SB ($100) (15/13/2.9/33/24/1000) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
Hero ($100)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A , J
4 folds, SB raises to $4.00, Hero...

You're dealing with quite a tight player who you can classify as a TAG. He doesn't necessarily appear to be an aggressive stealer, however he does seem to search out some spots.

What are your options? Either you find a call, or you play 3-bet/fold. Going all-in preflop with AJ against a 15/13 player is overplayed, even in the blind battle.

Proof:

If you should decide on a 3-bet, you can assume that this opponent will almost never call your 3-bet. He either 4-bets you or folds. From this you can conclude that your hand strength is totally irrelevant. Ultimately, you're playing a type of bluff which you could also implement with 72o at this point.

If he actually does call your 3-bet, then it will often be as a trap with a strong hand or hands such as AK/AQ. This won't really help you much.

However, the question remains, is there something to balance? The button is a very loose player, who will often limp in the pot. This means the small blind will rarely have the opportunity to steal against you first. This means there's no pressing need to give him a pasting.

Furthermore, the opponent seems quite passive, however his WTS value is low. You can play out your position well here. It may even be enough to have a plan to call preflop, call the flop and float every turn, without having seen a card on the board.

Clearly, you shouldn't pursue plans like this; the flop contributes to the decision. However, it should show that you can win the pot often enough here as well, without a hit. At the same time, this also shows your opponent that he would do well to think twice in the coming rounds how he wants to steal against there.

If you hit, a call down is definitely in order. If only because the opponent could easily pull out a bluff bet with an AF of 2.9, but doesn't appear to be the calling station type at all. You don't want to broke unnecessarily here either.

PartyPoker $100 NL Hold'em (6-handed)

Stacks & Stats
UTG ($100)
MP ($100)
CO ($100)
BU ($100) (40/13/1.9/29/32/1102) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
SB ($100) (15/13/2.9/33/24/1000) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
Hero ($100)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A , J
4 folds, SB raises to $4.00, Hero calls

Flop: ($8.00) 4, A, 8 (2 players)
SB bets $6.00, Hero calls $6.00

Turn: ($20.00) 7 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($20.00) T (2 players)
…Hero is ready to call a bet or bet himself...

The way ahead - way behind principle works best here. It will bring a bluff bet on the river often enough. If Villain only checks, you can value bet. You've sold your hand so cheaply up to then that it could look like a cheap bluff.

It's unlikely that Villain is holding a draw here and, even if he is, pot control is a higher priority than protection.

Summary:

Considering all the conditions, a passive defence would be a slightly better solution here.

PartyPoker $100 NL Hold'em (6-handed)

Stacks & Stats
UTG ($100)
MP ($100)
CO ($100)
BU ($100) (17/11/1.6/24/26/561) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
SB ($100) (25/21/3.7/45/24/1455) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
Hero ($100)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A , J
4 folds, SB raises to $4.00, Hero...

Now the situation looks a bit different. You're holding the same hand and of course find yourself in the blind battle, as before. This time, however, the stealer is much more aggressive. His ATS value also indicates this.

On the other hand, the Button is a more of a  tight player who isn't particularly aggressive. This means the small blind will frequently have the oppportunity to raise first and so will often attempt to fight you for the pot. If you don't send a clear signal here about how far he can push it with you, you could become his plaything.

You need to pose a different question against him: if you 3-bet, can you fold to a 4-bet? This isn't particularly easy against him. You might be prepared to go broke against him in certain circumstances preflop, however, more reads about his 4-bets would be very important here.

Summary:

On one hand, the 3-bet option is good, as you often see yourself exposed to this situation and have to defend yourself. On the other hand, you're playing to the cards of an aggressive player with 3-bet/fold and giving up your good equity. However, even in a blind battle, you shouldn't automatically consider 3-bet/push.

You won't make any mistakes with a call, however, you will then also need to behave appropriately postflop. This behaviour relates to possible bluffs, provided you have remained unimproved, as well as potential value plays, should you have hit.

Your whole game needs to fit. If you decide to defend passively, you need to let rip postflop. How do you play a possible bluff? Raise flop?

If you prefer to raise the flop rather than float (which is certainly good against a very aggressive opponent in the blind battle, as this player will also regularly tend towards 2nd barrels, meaning your float either won't work or will transform into a bluff turn push), then you will also have to balance with marginal hands.

This player seems to be quite a thinking player and, as mentioned, you'll often come across spots like this against him. This results in teh following hand:

PartyPoker $100 NL Hold'em (6-handed)

Stacks & Stats
UTG ($100)
MP ($100)
CO ($100)
BU ($100) (17/11/1.6/24/26/561) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
SB ($100) (25/21/3.7/45/24/1455) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
Hero ($100)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A , J
4 folds, SB raises to $4.00, Hero calls

Flop: ($8.00) 3, 9, J (2 players)
SB bets $6.00, Hero raises to $20.00, SB pushes all-in, Hero calls all-in

Considered in isotlation, this hand may appear overplayed. It would also be a way ahead - way behind spot. However, it's a flop raise against this player, due to the balancing. Raise/fold with a top pair doesn't come into consideration anyway and certainly not here in the blind battle against an aggressive opponent. Following your raise, it's clear that the money will migrate to the middle.

If, for example, you should be confronted with an opponent who you can read well postflop and who you know regularly folds on the flop and therefore prefers to float with a bluff, you should do that in this example as well and only call the flop.

PartyPoker $100 NL Hold'em (6-handed)

Stacks & Stats
UTG ($100)
MP ($100)
CO ($100)
BU ($100) (26/19/3.2/35/26/777) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
SB ($100) (35/15/1.6/30/30/438) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
Hero ($100)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A , J
4 folds, SB raises to $4.00, Hero...

A close call once again. An opponent who appears loose but doesn't appear to play completely normally, open raises in the small blind. With this type of opponent, it's almost impossible for you to estimate ranges. He can open raise a lot here, however PFR and ATS are certainly in an acceptable position.

Now of course, you can say you want to play a 3-bet pot in position against a potentially weaker player and therefore want to make a standard 3-bet. It's absolutely fine to do this.

Nonetheless, a passive defence has a slight advantage here.

On one hand, the button will steal quite often, thus, unlike in example 2, this situation won't happen particularly often.

Furthermore, you don't necessarily need to balance a lot against this kind of player, it already seems as though he's a player who's more likely to play his hands, rather than pay attention to your actions and adapt to them.

His VPIP of 35 also gives rise to a further conclusion: he will call your 3-bet quite a lot, more often with weaker hands as well, but certainly with better hands (even where estimating ranges here, as described above, is difficult: this opponent will almost always call AK/AQ, 4-bet now and again, but never fold).

You definitely will not get out of the hand any more postflop.

Summary:

The tendency is to call. Postflop however, you can play differently against this opponent. Balancing is secondary, value play is important. That's why there's now a potential postflop play with a passive defence. Also pay attention to the turn play compared to the turn play in example 1.

PartyPoker $100 NL Hold'em (6-handed)

Stacks & Stats
UTG ($100)
MP ($100)
CO ($100)
BU ($100) (26/19/3.2/35/26/777) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
SB ($100) (35/15/1.6/30/30/438) [VPIP/PFR/AF/ATS/WTS/hands]
Hero ($100)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A , J
4 folds, SB raises to $4.00, Hero calls

Flop: ($8.00) 4, A, 8 (2 players)
SB bets $6.00, Hero calls $6.00

Turn: ($20.00) 7 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $15.00,...

In example 1, you checked behind on the turn in order to induce a bluff. The opponent was more tight aggressive. This means he doesn't call everything, but bluffs now and again.

This opponent, however, is more the opposite example. He is capable of looser call downs, but not necessarily the type of player who needs to bring out a bluff on the river. That's why a turn bet is worth considering here.

It's comparable with the basic play on a draw heavy board against a loose passive player, where you would rather bet the turn in order to gain value from draws and you can take the free showdown for yourself on the river.

If you check behind on the turn in order to induce a bluff, you are hoping for an aggressive opponent who will fold a lot on the turn, but who will conversely often (bluff) bet/fold the river.

Only a flush draw is possible here, however this opponent is more likely to call down loosely here, rather than carry out a bluff. That's why way ahead - way behind falls away into the background a bit here and you have a value bet on the turn. However, with a check raise, you'll probably have to give up your hand on the turn against this player.

LINKS
Related articles: Blind Defence with Dominated Hands (I) – Button vs. Big Blind Blind Defence with Dominated Hands (II)– Button vs. Small Blind Discussion forum: Discuss the article