Omaha-8 Blind Defense 101.

Percentage of Voluntarily Playable Starting Hands for Full Game Play, not considering position
Henry, after keeping careful records of what starting hands actually showed a profit against strong, capable opponents, decided only approximately 15% or 16% of the starting hands he (and by projection anyone) was dealt were actually profitable. If those were the only starting hands he played, Henry would only have been voluntarily playing roughly one hand out of six.

However, although what to do in any specific case depends on a number of factors, Henry normally actually voluntarily played more starting hands than one out of six. The main reason, by far, he played hands of a type he didn’t really expect to be profitable was to increase the profitability of the hands he did play. And the additional hands Henry played were mostly marginal hands, which would occasionally win and thus were not overly expensive. Henry considered these slightly unprofitable primarily marginal hands a source of cheap “advertising,” part of the cost of doing business.

• If you only play strong starting hands, your opponents will realize you are playing tightly, and they will react accordingly. All of your opponents (some more than others) will tend to back off and play more cautiously when you do see the flop. Accordingly, your profit on strong starting hands that end up fitting the board well will tend to be minimized.

• On the other hand, if you play a slightly wider range of starting hands, you’ll be playing some hands that, overall, are not expected to have a positive expected valuation. However, your astute opponents will have a more difficult time putting you on cards. Accordingly, you’ll get more of a pay-off with your excellent starting hands. And, of course, sometimes you’ll connect well with the board with a marginal hand and show a profit.

What to do depends upon the interaction between you the specific opponents who are at the table with you. In addition to always playing the top starting hands, you need to mix in enough marginal starting hands to keep your opponents paying you off when you do have an excellent starting hand.

At any rate, since Henry wanted to be perceived as looser than he actually was for full table play, he voluntarily played roughly twice as many starting hands than the 15% or 16% he thought were actually profitable. But the extra hands he voluntarily played were mostly marginal hands, and most of them were played cheaply from late position (rather than from early or mid position).

In other words, when not posting the big blind, Henry didn’t like five out of six starting hands quite well enough to get involved, but in general, on the average he only folded about four out of six starting hands.

Small Blind Defense for Full Table Play:
Best advice is don’t defend the small blind in Omaha-8.

Don’t usually even complete unless you have an excellent starting hand. The terrific odds you seem to be getting from the small blind are misleading unless you go “all-in” before the flop. And then acting first on the rest of the betting rounds is a disadvantage.

If you have an excellent hand with a high potential to make the nuts, then that is a different story. Position is important in Omaha-8, but having the nuts is better than having position.

If everyone folds to you when you have posted the small blind, consider attempting a steal against the big blind. However, this is an offensive move rather than a defensive one and depends at least as much, probably more, on the skill of the big blind poster than on the cards you hold.

A good simple rule is “don’t usually defend the small blind when playing at a full table in Omaha-8.”

Big Blind Defense:
When Henry posted the big blind, he still didn’t like five out of six hands dealt to him – and since he was out of position, he liked hands dealt to him even less than usual. Although Henry didn’t mind getting raised when he held what he thought was a nice starting hand, he naturally disliked being raised when he didn’t have what he thought was a nice starting hand – and that was five times out of six.

But one never knows. Sometimes the flop favors a poor starting hand. Since he was posting, Henry wanted to see the flop, just in case his hand fit well with the flop – but he wanted to see the flop as cheaply as possible. Henry didn’t want opponents attacking his blind.

Is there a way to deter opponents from blind attacks?

The answer depends on your specific opponent(s).

Opponent dependency:
Keep track of how often each of your opponents voluntarily pays to see the flop and keep track of how often each of your opponents raises before the flop.

• (1) If a particular opponent only voluntarily plays about one hand out of six, and raises every time (or almost every time) he/she enters the action, then he/she is only entering the action with fine starting hands, hands that are very possibly the best starting hand currently at the table.
• (2) If a particular opponent voluntarily plays more than one hand out of six, and raises every time (or almost every time) he/she enters the action, then he/she probably doesn’t always have an excellent starting hand.
• (3) If a particular opponent is voluntarily playing more than one hand out of six, but only raising with one hand out of six, then he/she is may be raising with excellent starting hands and limping with marginal or poor starting hands. (This is not always true; see (4) and (5) below).
• (3a) Some opponents play a point count system and only raise with hands above a certain point count.
• (3b) Some opponents only raise with A2XY or A3XY hands and some only with A2XY or A3XY from late position.
• (3c) Some opponents only raise with AAXY or all high card hands and some only from early position with these hands.

• (4) Some opponents raise more or less independently of their starting hands, but instead mainly depending on the effect they think the pre-flop raise will have on their opponent(s).
• (5) Some opponents raise mostly when they think a raise will cause the big blind to fold. These opponents will always or usually raise when certain other players are posting the big blind but never or rarely when certain other players are posting the big blind.
• (6) Some opponents rarely or never raise before the flop. They are not a consideration in this current article.

Whether or not you defend your big blind has little or no effect on whether or not opponents who fit into categories (1) and (3) raise when you post your big blind. These groups of opponents are primarily playing their own cards in terms of pre-flop raising or not. I(Of course you’ll take their raises or lack of raises into consideration when trying to put them on cards). But you cannot do anything about deterring raises from opponents who fit into these categories.

However, you can do something about opponents who fit into categories (2), (4), and (5) above. And the action you can take is to defend your big blind.

You defend your big blind by either calling or raising.

Henry’s main idea in defending his big blind was to deter attacks specifically against it. And he defended almost all (97% to 99%) of the time someone raised, and he defended whoever raised. He still folded starting hands with four of a kind and almost all starting hands with three of a kind, and he still folded other truly terrible starting hands (K922-rainbow for example), but he at least called a single raise with almost everything else. It costs him one small bet to do this, and the reason he did it was not because it was a bargain or because he thought he had much hope of winning or even continuing past the flop, but simply to deter opponents who are raising or watching and who would otherwise be inclined to raise his big blind.

Defending Big Blind Odds:
Unless you (or your opponents) go all-in, the odds you are getting on the first betting round are always somewhat unclear. That’s because you can never be absolutely certain how much more the hand will cost you or how much your opponents will collectively contribute.

That’s more or less true in any poker game, but the situation is generally more complicated in a high low split game because of the difference between scooping and winning a fraction of the pot. You win everything your opponent(s) contribute to the pot when you scoop, but when you win half the pot, the amount you actually win is half the pot minus what you, yourself, have contributed.

And when you win a quarter of the pot, the amount you actually win is a quarter of the pot minus what you, yourself, have contributed. And when two opponents tie you, you win a sixth of the pot minus what you, yourself, have contributed.

The odds in a high/low split pot game are usually more complicated than in a high-only or low-only game because usually some of your “outs” will be scoop outs while other outs will be for high or low only.

Fixed limit odds for defending big blind
Very simply, in a fixed-limit game when you are defending your big blind against a single opponent, although it initially seems as though you are getting three to one odds to call a raise, unless you or your opponent goes all-in, since your opponent is likely to be initiating a bet into the pot each betting round, if you both have sufficient money in your stacks to cover all betting rounds, you’re realistically gambling six small bets to possibly win seven small bets (1.2 to 1 odds) if you scoop.

If you only realistically expect to win half the pot, when you defend your big blind against a single opponent (who may be attempting a steal), you’re gambling six small bets to possibly win one small bet (0.2 to 1 odds). And unless your opponent is the small blind poster, you’ll be out of position for every betting round after the first.

Pot limit odds for defending big blind
Defending your big blind or not in a pot-limit game is more complicated than in a fixed-limit game because there are varying amounts that are used for the raise, and also varying amounts involved on subsequent betting rounds. If everyone folds to the player on the button, who then makes a pot sized raise, and then the small blind poster folds, the big blind poster is getting two to one odds to see the flop. But unless one of the two players is immediately forced all-in, the actual cost to the big blind poster to see the showdown, if Button bets the pot each round, could be forty times the cost to see that initial first round raise.

Entirely different considerations are involved in big blind defense in a pot-limit game. Suffice to say you’re not getting anywhere near two to one implied pot odds or two to one reverse implied pot odds to defend.

Frank Jerome

Explanation: I somehow bumped a link to this article which didn't work. Here's the (slightly revised) article. I can't find the link, but if I run across it, I'll fix it so that it works. My apologies for any inconvenience.

Buzz

This article is awful, in my opinion.

Whether or not this statement is true, the reply is worse.

Would you care to enlighten us as to why you think its awful?

Posts like this keep others from posting potentially helpful stuff. I guess we should be thankful that you probably took a few minutes away from berating the fish to share your opinion with us.

Great article, provides some brilliant insights into blind defense which was a grey area for me. Not any more though! Thanks for the bump!!!

The article was insta-saved under my favorites - very good stuff!

@b4l
Please explain. Is it poker-wise or do you find the punctuation incorrect?

There's an equal amount of substance between the OP and my reply. I was angry and wanted the 5 minutes of my life back that I spent reading this article.

Either you play at limits where blind defense is a complete non-factor, or you play at limits where awful, sweeping generalities like "Henry believes only 1 in 6 hands to be profitable" are worthless to you.

This has got to be for full ring, playing using this advice at 6max will get your BR demolished

The part where Frank discusses the "true odds" for defending one's BB in a fixed-limit game is just a disgusting mischaracterization of how BB defense actually works.

Good old Buzz, still writing enormous posts with content that is either worthless or counterproductive.
Good old Boc4life, still trolling Buzz, providing no real content of his own besides "don't follow Buzz's advice"

imo it aint about the pot odds its about the ranks and suits of your holecards and the man you playing

tbh i dont give the blindest bit of consideration to what the odds are

to put it real simple, all i know is:
if its two or three to the face, better have an ace
if its only one more, combo of ace to four
if the man bets in stacks, better pop him back
if the man rarely bets a chip, call the raise n hit

This was my favourite bit, it's all so clear now.

Seriously, this is a pile of ****, if something of this level was posted anywhere else it would be laughed at. It was crap in 2008 and it's crap now.
Usually I'd just ignore stuff like this but it's so bad it's laughable

rant over

I hope everyone who took adequate time to read and digest the article at least found food for thought in the ideas presented, whether they agreed or not.

Note the reference to “full game” and “full table” in the emboldened sub-titles:
"Percentage of Voluntarily Playable Starting Hands for Full Game Play, not considering position", and
"Small Blind Defense for Full Table Play:."

At the time I wrote the article, I thought readers would be able to sort out what was applicable for their games for themselves, taking what was applicable and discarding what wasn't. (That's more or less how I read articles myself).

But as I read your response, it occurs to me I should perhaps have given more emphasis to pointing out where the various concepts are applicable.

My working title while I was writing the article was Big Blind Defense for Full Game Play. Then when I was finished but before I sent it in, I thought "Blind Defense 101" was a catchier title and I added the small section on small blind defense.

You have to decide for yourself what works for you in the games in which you play.

I believe some of the considerations are applicable for six max play. And perhaps some of my thinking is something that has not occurred to you, just as some of your thinking has not occurred to me.

Buzz

Thanks for your kind words. Reading boc4life's review was pretty discouraging to me.

Buzz

Thank you. I hope reading the article and thinking about it improved your game.

Buzz

Sometimes it's hard to know why someone is angry enough or spiteful enough to write such an unfavorable review.

Buzz

???

Evidently.

Sorry. I would give you back your five minutes if I could.

I hoped the time thinking about the concepts presented, and perhaps disagreeing with my point of view would be worth one’s while and might improve one’s play.

If that didn’t work for you, then I'm sorry we wasted your time.

Buzz

I was being sarcastic. I feel bad now, sorry

A wonderful read, but who is Henry?

I like these maxims, for PL. Would like it more if you were to take a few more minutes and turn it into a limerick.

The article in the OP is useful advice for 9max or 10max low limit games, like the 6-12 FL games you see in LA and Vegas.

These games aren't really seen online, so if your play is entirely or almost exclusively online the article is going to seem like bunk to you.

Agreed that if you tried to play this way in 6max (FL or big bet) you're going to get cut up -- those games are much more player dependent, and fun, IMO.

I would like to see the blind defense stuff developed more. I feel like OP agrees that BB defense is player dependent but didn't focus the article there. I also feel like the criticisms were from people who think that BB defense is entirely player dependent. There is substantially less gamesmanship in FR games where more than 2-3 see the flop.