Defending Blinds in NL Hold'em

[J Smith 0]

I have read a lot of conflicting views about how one should defend their blinds in NL Hold'em, ranging from the "call moderate raises with everything except 72" to "fold the AQ." Obviously, a lot of it has to do with the opponent, but is defending your blind as effective with people you don't play with regularly, for example online? I can see where defending blinds more aggresivelywith regulars is a winning strat in the long run, but what about in tournaments?Any advice here would be appreciated.

[wrto4556 0]

The first thing that came to my mind when I read you post was: "You gotta make a stand." You can't let people run over you all night, you loose too many chips.Unfortunately, there is always two sides to poker. If the blinds are really low, then you're not giving away much, and folding most marginal hands is probably correct...I figure you might lose more by calling, when you would have only lost $100 from your $3,000 stack.On the other hand, if you're deep into the tourny and the blinds are getting heavy on everyone, dead money becomes life support for alot of "small stacks" and big stacks just keep getting bigger. At these stages of the tournament you are giving away too much. It may only be $1,000 from you $20,000 stack, but it's giving the short stacks breathing room and the medium to big stacks a chip advantage. With the blinds at $500/1000 with an ante of $100, there is $2,500 in the pot before anyone see there cards. You gotta start protecting them.PROTECTING:That doesn't mean re-raise everytime someone looks like they are stealing. Sometimes you re-raise, sometimes you just call. If you miss the flop and have enough chips, you may even want to call them down SOMETIMES if the betting isnt too heavy...you gain info as to whether they were stealing or not, and prevent them from stealing later.So, don't call everytime...that would be a losing proposition, but call enough to keep them from running over you. I actually played with a guy online that protected the hell out of his blinds. It was at the final table and once it got down to about 5 people, he called almost any bet from the button, the cut-off and the seat right before the cut-off. He would call the bet on the flop with any two cards and if you checked the turn he would bet the river. It was tough playing against him. You couldn't pick up any dead money from him. You either had to show down the best hand or out play him on the flop...unfortunatly he would call you down with almost any pair if the bets weren't too much on his stack. He was a tough opponent. You really had to show some aggression to get him to fold. I can't count the number of times I went all in, praying to god he'd fold. I think if I didn't have such a tight table image I wouldn't have gotten away with it as many times as I did.So I guess I would say to protect them, but not to get carried away. You gotta kinda play to get the feel of it. I hope my advice was worth reading. Seems like alot of ramble. good luck.

[JaysonWeber 0]

WRTO Certainly made an informative post for you, I'd take what he said to heart. One thing I wanted to add quickly, not sure if it was previously mentioned. I wanted to answer something you asked directly, regarding defending then versus regulars and online, It doesn't pay to protect blinds with strangers, It really is something only useful with regulars at the table.. Atleast thats been my experience.

[J Smith 0]

Thanks to both of you for your advice. No, wasn't random babble, I understand theres so many situations and you covered a lot of them very well.

[Wlleiotl 0]

first of all, defending blinds is a tournament thing. you're not passing up much in a cash game by folding whenever you have rags in a cash game unless its shorthanded or really high standard. but if you were playing in that high a standard you wouldnt be asking this.secondly, its important you decide why this person is raising your blind. if hes in early position, fold, hes almost certainly not stealing. if the blinds are small compared to your stack, fold, hes not trying to steal to add 0.5% to his stack. if there were limpers before, fold because its not a good position to be in. if hes not raised in 5 orbits, fold, even if hes stealing then let him have one. i would only defend my blinds if its to be heads up and the raiser is in late position, is fairly loose but will lay down on/after the flop. now you have to decide is he raising because hes got something thats not great but too good to limp in with e.g. Ax on the button/cutoff etc or is he raising with two random cards. if its the first, then call, you probably wont get him off it preflop. if its the second then a reraise is probably in order. however, you'll have to reraise enough that you dont give him the odds to call with anything, which in most online tournaments means move all in. however, reads go wrong and moving in isnt a great idea. so unless you have enough to take him off a steal without risking a great amount yourself, a call is always in order.then, how do you win the pot. you bet the flop against most people. you check raise against some. it depends on how they play and how you're seen by other players, but make some sort of play against them. always getting the correct play comes with experience and even then you can be put in some bad situations. all part of the fun tbh.

[Smasharoo 0]

Depends on stack sizes, stack depth relative to blind size the size of the steal bet and about 90,000 other things.If someone pushes 1000 times your BB from the SB it's probably not a good idea to call with defending hands.