How should you play from the blinds against big opens?

[kdmeteor]

I play a lot of live 2€/4€ poker in my local casino. There is no standard raise size; the most common one is probably 14 (so 3.5 BB), but it's normal to see 12, 16, 20, sometimes 10 or 22.

Assuming someone makes it 20 (and that this doesn't tell you anything about their range), what should your ranges from the blinds look like? I think it's known that flatting from the SB is mostly a losing play, but with only a 20% discount, does this now also apply to the BB? Should you play 3bet/fold from both blinds? It feels very awkward to do either of that with a hand like T9s. I've noticed that even the winning players in the casino flat such hands from the BB (and often the SB as well).

I've started folding a lot more hands on the blinds recently, including suited connectors, and it feels like it's better. I'm sort of feeling like, if the bets are that large, then blinds are kinda irrelevant and then why would I play OOP if it has negligible benefit. But ultimately idk.

 

[BetterThanAvgButNotByMuch]

Keep it simple. If you're not ready to play those hands, then don't. The game is hard enough as is. Playing out of position like in the blinds is a quick way to bleed money.

Those suited hands are good for multi way pots that you will find in calling station, loose game at 1/2, 1/3, 2/4, and 2/5 that you can play them here and there in the blinds since the action is nearing an end especially if the person to your left is tight and probably won't reraise the action after you put in your chips from the SB.

But you're going to have to put in a lot more money because your chances of hitting a straight or flush on the flop are outrageously low and you're going to be dominated or not know where you or if your hand is good enough if you actually hit a pair on the board.

So you have to understand that its going to cost you a lot more to see the hand completed and there's a good chance when its all said and done that you're going to look at your remaining chips and say something like "I can't believe I put so much in the pot with a stupid ten high", lol.

Look at position and WHY its important then lookup when to play those suited hands.

 

[pavel1111111]

I usually try to play / defend my bbs with any suited connectors 😁

 

[fundiver199]

The larger, people open, the less it matter to have already paid the blinds. So in the extreme you can fold anything but premiums from the blinds and then instead call a bit more, when you have position on people.

 

[kdmeteor]

I usually try to play / defend my bbs with any suited connectors 😁

Do you have a mathematical argument for why that's correct and/or statistical evidence that it's profitable?

I don't doubt that you can be a winning player while defending suited connectors on the BB because ~everyone defends suited connectors on the BB (I'm not sure there's a single person in the casino who folds 87s to a 5BB open), and if you do the same as everyone, you won't lose money. But that doesn't mean the play itself is good. I'm worried that the actual reason people defend those hands is "it feels bad to fold 87s to a 2bet".

 

[kdmeteor]

Those suited hands are good for multi way pots that you will find in calling station, loose game at 1/2, 1/3, 2/4, and 2/5 that you can play them here and there in the blinds since the action is nearing an end especially if the person to your left is tight and probably won't reraise the action after you put in your chips from the SB.

This touches on another question I've been thinking about, which is whether suited connectors become better or worse if it gets more multi-way. Like, say (1) CO opens 5BB and it folds to the BB vs. (2) CO opens 5BB and BN and SB call. Is it relatively better to call 87s from the BB in the first case or the second case? The reason it may be worse is that you could make a flush vs. a better flush.

I think with suited Aces and middle to low pairs I want as many people in the pot as possible, and with unsuited non-pair hands I want as few people in the pot as possible, but with suited non-aces I'm genuinely unsure.

 

[Station_Master]

The difference with BB v SB (assuming no straddle straddle) is you are closing the action so fine to have a flatting range, so it doesn't need to be 3 bet or fold.

That said I would defend much tighter and 3bet more.

 

[blueskies]

If you are more likely to get paid if you make the str/flush and you are most likely to get called if you 3bet, then it's fine to flat.

If villain(s) do fold to aggression, then 3bet more frequently. I doubt live play is TAGgier than online though.

Depends on the villain.

 

[kdmeteor]

The difference with BB v SB (assuming no straddle straddle) is you are closing the action so fine to have a flatting range, so it doesn't need to be 3 bet or fold.

That said I would defend much tighter and 3bet more.

I agree that flatting is better if you close out the action than if you don't (and hence is better from the BB vs. SB).

But that doesn't mean flatting from the BB is good. It could be the case that vs. a 5BB open, any flatting range from the BB is slightly negative EV compared to a 3bet/fold range, and from the SB it's significantly negative EV.

Speaking informally, it's unclear to me why flatting would ever be correct. Presumably we want to 3bet premium hands (and perhaps bluffs) and fold junk, so the only point of debate is marginal-ish hands, with maybe 45-53% equity or something. Again those make a ton of sense to play for pot odds, but with only a 20% discount, it remains unclear to me whether it ever makes sense to flat. Playing deep stacked, equity realization for a 53% equity hand OOP would probably be <50%.

Another argument would be that people can't 4bet a flat, but this isn't very relevant in a field where almost no one 4bets. Idk, overall I still feel like this question is very much unresolved; currently I'm leaning toward only flatting suited aces and pairs and only as an exploitative play vs. a weak field.

 

[Station_Master]

I agree that flatting is better if you close out the action than if you don't (and hence is better from the BB vs. SB).

But that doesn't mean flatting from the BB is good. It could be the case that vs. a 5BB open, any flatting range from the BB is slightly negative EV compared to a 3bet/fold range, and from the SB it's significantly negative EV.

Speaking informally, it's unclear to me why flatting would ever be correct. Presumably we want to 3bet premium hands (and perhaps bluffs) and fold junk, so the only point of debate is marginal-ish hands, with maybe 45-53% equity or something. Again those make a ton of sense to play for pot odds, but with only a 20% discount, it remains unclear to me whether it ever makes sense to flat. Playing deep stacked, equity realization for a 53% equity hand OOP would probably be <50%.

Another argument would be that people can't 4bet a flat, but this isn't very relevant in a field where almost no one 4bets. Idk, overall I still feel like this question is very much unresolved; currently I'm leaning toward only flatting suited aces and pairs and only as an exploitative play vs. a weak field.

I am sure 3bet or fold would be OK, but there are definitely hands that rather flat, e.g. v an early position 5bb open do we really want to 3bet or fold TT, 99, JTs, A3s etc? You are not getting a great price but it's still 4bb to win 10.5 so just under 40%. If you 3bet those hands for 20bb and get called it will often suck postflop! Or even worse you get 4bet off your equity.

As I say though , i would still 3bet alot.

 

[kdmeteor]

Yeah, which suggests that you might want to fold those hands. I do plan to call pairs and suited Aces, but I think that's an exploitative play. Against good players I think those hands are all folds (except maybe TT which could be a 3bet depending on the case). JTs i'm planning to fold in the future even against the weak field, barring someone convincing me otherwise.

 

[Aballinamion]

I play a lot of live 2€/4€ poker in my local casino. There is no standard raise size; the most common one is probably 14 (so 3.5 BB), but it's normal to see 12, 16, 20, sometimes 10 or 22.

Assuming someone makes it 20 (and that this doesn't tell you anything about their range), what should your ranges from the blinds look like? I think it's known that flatting from the SB is mostly a losing play, but with only a 20% discount, does this now also apply to the BB? Should you play 3bet/fold from both blinds? It feels very awkward to do either of that with a hand like T9s. I've noticed that even the winning players in the casino flat such hands from the BB (and often the SB as well).

I've started folding a lot more hands on the blinds recently, including suited connectors, and it feels like it's better. I'm sort of feeling like, if the bets are that large, then blinds are kinda irrelevant and then why would I play OOP if it has negligible benefit. But ultimately idk.

From the big blind it follows as this: as bigger the raise or our opponent, less inclined we are calling with. However, we have to defend the blinds sometimes and for this we must know a couple of things about the profile of our opponent. And we are going to flat with the same hands that can also 3-bet. If we see that the hand is good to call and bad to 3-bet, we fold.

 

[eetenor]

So the issue here is we have 1/4 of the info we would need to make decisions about this---how the Villains play flop turn and river is the other 3/4 of the info- If a V is passive post flop we can play more hands---if they however put on max pressure every street then we need to be playing a range that can flop well but not trap us. The term tighten up would suggest playing paint cards and folding 76s but if the V is raising better paint preflop we have reverse implied odds to play KToff KJoff QJoff AT etc etc

Whenever we play 100bb or deeper poker the streets is where we lose more bb's-- when we are calling a big open size those dominated hands can really eat up our ROI.

 

[antonis32123]

I don't know about live or high stakes or medium stakes . But at the micro zoom on ps I find it difficult to defend blinds with nice cards , they tend to call ATC and give me bad beats . So nowadays either I shove or bet crazy or I simply limp call even with AK I have done it

 

[AdamasDate]

The rule is the larger they bet the least you have to defend so high suited connectors suited aces high cards is a good place to start

 

[kdmeteor]

Update on this: I now just fold my blinds almost every time; I think I might actually play fewer hands from the SB than any other reg in the casino. Occasionally there's still a small open and I defend the BB, and of course sometimes I 3bet (bluff or value), but I rarely flat.

My guess so far is that flatting (especially from the SB) is a major mistake that even the big winning players make. There's a guy whose been crushing the field for 10+ years and another whose been a professional for 15 years, and I honestly wouldn't be shocked if both of them lose more than 0.5BB/hand from the SB. As for all the losing players, I'd bet good money that they would do better from the SB folding every hand. I might be totally off here, but that's genuinely my guess right now.