I found myself struggling a little with my blinds tonight. Blind defense is not something I've studied much yet because at the stakes I'm playing at I haven't run into many players who steal appropriately. I'm going to look up some of the blind defense strategies tomorrow after the struggles I had tonight but I also wanted to get some commentary going to see what the forum's thoughts are. Go through what my thought processes are and try and correct errors before I look it up.

1. First hand was after my first orbit at new table with all unknown players, so I'm mostly readless. HJ raises to 12, BU calls. Look down and QJc in BB. Call? 3!? QJo I'd likely fold readless.

2. New UTG limps, (3rd time limping since seated) SB completes. I look down at AJo in BB. Raise OOP or see a cheap flop? With more players I'm more likely to just check AJo in a limped pot, its just weak enough to play passively pre OOP in my opinion. In a raised pot I often fold AJo due to chances of domination. But should this spot be a steal? Kind of a value steal?

3. TAP[?] older Asian male raises to 11 from HJ. Again, haven't seen this V play a lot of hands, he's fairly new to table, but instinct based on the action he's been involved in skews to TAP to me. Folds to me in BB with 9Tc. This is one of the hands I can like to 3! with some of the time, can often steal pre, has decent equity if called, can lead on lots of flops and get those mid pairs which are the likely calls to fold. Call? 3!? Fold with a very basic read that V may be TAP?

4. Action folds to BTN. Have good reads now. BTN started with heavy action, lots of 3! pre, but got beat up a little by some of the stations at this table and has calmed down for the last hour. BTN is definitely positionally aware. He bets $12. I look down at Q9o. This is a definite fold the vast majority of the time at these stakes, but I'm completely unsure what to do with a hand like this against an obvious steal attempt. Too weak to 3! for sure, but is it too weak to call as well? This one just seems right on the border to me.

Assuming 100bb effective. Note I'm a huge nit.

1. I call. This hand plays fine multi-way. It's also fine to 3bet but I only go fat value for 3bets OOP multi-way in live poker.

2. I call but this hand is exactly on the cusp for me. I raise ATs+/AQ+/TT+. Would raise HU against 1 limper if they are a typical LLSNL player.

3. Not folding, call or 3bet, not 3betting if he is tight and passive though because we get crushed by his range and have to play a bloated pot OOP.

4. This is a dogcrap hand which I just turbo fold.

I think you have the right idea. You shouldnt be overly concerned with blind defense in live games because chances are they arent positionally aware so their raises have less to do with stealing blinds and more to do with them liking their hand, and the one's that are dont have a logical 3bet defense range. They'll just call with their K2s out of spite, so lean to basically value every time you do it, but your value range can still be super wide. I'd say 67s/22/KQo/AJo or better. You can do this whether it's multiway or not. Maybe lean on just flatting the PP's since there's so much value in flopping a set multiway.

Q9o is just trash. I mean you *can* include this in your range but you're just gonna start making the session stressful on yourself. If someone is really stealing your blinds that much consider a seat change.

1) Call. QJs plays well multi-way, even OOP, as long as you don't overplay pair/2p.

2) Raise. AJo is trash multi-way OOP and their ranges are very capped.

3) Fold, imo. Hand is great multi-way IP and crap HU OOP against a likely strong range.

4) Super easy fold. Just because he's OTB doesn't mean he can't have a hand.

Hand 1: Call or fold depending mostly on stack sizes. With short stacks QJs doesn't play well because you get committed with top pair second best kicker too often.

Hand 2: I like a raise in this specific situation (UTG appears to be limping a lot of garbage and SB is likely calling too wide) but in general I prefer a limp with AJo OOP against unknown opponents.

Hand 3: Without a good read just fold. If you had better reads on villain this could be a situation worth considering. Unless you are really deep, in which case a call to see a flop half the time or so is good.

Hand 4: Call is the worst option. If you think he has a lot of steals then a resteal sometimes is workable. Does he actually have a fold button? A lot of players that steal here get sticky with their garbage and you have garbage also. I would rather be stealing with the T9s then the Q9o.

If your reading any theory on defending your blinds keep in most of that is written with online in mind. Online you have to defend more because opponents can see with mathematical precision how often you defend. That isn't a concern live, many opponents are not paying any attention and even most of the ones that do notice won't adjust their play much. Also live your opponents will be more sticky after they open. This pushes good strategy towards defending a narrow range but raising bigger.

H1: If deep, I prefer a 3B, however at lower depths could make a case for call or fold. HU, I'd call.

H2: Ez raise OOP with some fold equity vs. small pps.

H3: Ez defend HU.

H4: Ez fold based on hand strength and position.

Fwiw, I think these spots are neat learning opportunities for our post-flop game.

+1, important stuff to keep in mind, OP.

Online preflop raises tend to be much smaller (2-3x rather than 4x+) and much wider. Defending ranges tailored for online games will be way too wide for a typical live 1/3 game.

Even more important for narrowing your range, live bet sizes tend to be 5bb or 6bb rather than 2.5bb or 3bb. I think this should telescope your ranges down to basically suited broadways and pockets 100bb effective. You could probably bin 22->55 even.

Generally I'm happy to call getting a discount in the BB instead of 3-betting these hands that play really well post.

1. Straightforward call.
2. 100% raising a single limper who we've already identified as a fish and a SB completion. I'd raise ATo too. $20 is good.
3. Straightforward call.
4. Fold but it's on the cusp. I'd call vs. 3x I guess. I'd call QTo.

Overall, I'd completely remove "blind defense" from my vocab. If you're sitting at a 1/3 NL table where blind defense is integral to how you do at the table, then you're sitting at the wrong table.

Being that we're in the blinds, we're already going to be at a big disadvantage thanks to being OOP. And on a few of your hand examples it sounds like we also have the disadvantage of being fairly readless as well. These in themselves are two pretty good reasons to simply lean to folding almost everything in raise/HU spots.

So, with that said, I'd:

1) I'd just fold (readless, OOP). There was a time I'd be much more apt for calling here, and if your opponents are complete morons then I think there is a good argument for that; but nowadays most opponents are less moronic, so position / reads / nutmaking-ability-to-always-be-on-the-good-side-of-coolers are important.

2) I'm either/or. The more limp-big-hands-trappy or difficult my opponents are, the more I'm cool with just seeing a flop. The more loose / ABC my opponents are, the more I raise. Also somewhat depends on stacks (I'm not looking to be playing a stack size where I'd get myself uncomfortably committed with a raise).

3) For me, HU OOP without huge reads I mostly just fold here.

4) Again I fold. Is it really worth going to war OOP against a non ABC player with an incredibly mediocre hand?

I'm grunching so I haven't read others thoughts, and my guess is that a lot of others will lean towards continuing in some manner in a lot of the hands. The more expert you are, the more you can do whatever you want. The less expert you are, the more you should mostly just fold and move on to the next hand (where you'll quickly be in position). i.e. some will say 3bet this and that, but if you don't know how to play that spot postflop when called (be honest: do you?) then you're toast.

GcluelessNLnoobG

1) pretty standard call for me. It’s not good enough to value raise, but it’s good enough to take to the streets. You can 3 bet sometimes if the OR is foldy to 3 bets

2) you likely have the best hand now. And AJo really isn’t a great hand to take multi-way deep. Give yourself a chance to win the pot now by raising to like 7 big blinds.

3) you can play this hand. The raise isn’t huge and T9s does okay even against tight ranges.

4) I fold this vs 4x. It’s a little too weak to call and it doesn’t really have that much to offer as a 3 bet bluff. Plus you’re bluffing a ton with your 3 bets if you have hands like Q9o in there. Plus this guy is at least somewhat aggressive, so I’d rather just leave him alone.


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+1. At 1/2, if someone is open raising to $15 (which is common), that plus rake means you basically don’t even have an investment. So you can basically play 3 bet or fold strategy from the big blind, 3 bet when you have a value hand and fold when you don’t. That’s the way to exploit people who bet too big anyway: you lose a little bit of value a lot of the time because you have to make tight folds, but when you have a good hand, you get tons of value.

Like think about it, online with $300 in front, dude raises to like $4.50 and your three bet is $18. Live, this 3 bet OOP is $60. 20% of your stack. Makes postflop Easy and makes preflop incredibly profitable.


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Thanks for the replies, folks.

Couple notes: I did not mean blind defense in the literal sense, of making sure we are in there enough to make sure we arenÂ’t exploitable. I meant generally whatÂ’s playable so that we arenÂ’t calling too much and losing money.

Basically I went from playing the blinds too much early on, to now folding them most of the time so IÂ’m not OOP. Now I think itÂ’s time for another change - to playing in a thinking manner about what I can make profitable post.

Reading a hand chart about this is less about having a cookie cutter response to my blinds, and more about having a guide to profitable decisions to start from, then adjust to specific opponents and take advantage of mistakes.

You all confirmed for me IÂ’m on the right track. QJs mostly call but can be raise under certain circumstances. AJo mostly raise, maybe call. 9Ts call. Q9o fold.

1. I usually call sometimes 3 bet. It depends and I often randomize.

2. I usually raise.

3. I call.

4. I fold.

1. 3-bet
2. Raise
3. Call mostly
4. Vs a 4x sizing but I could get behind a fold