Player's Stories

Short Handed Poker: Defending the Blinds
By Jason Pohl

I received an email early in January regarding heads-up strategy. Tom asked, "How much is being in position worth? Or to put it another way, how often should you be defending your blinds?" In the last article, I examined reraises from the big blind. In this article, I will focus on how often you should be calling from the big blind.

Before I begin, let's repeat Sklansky and Malmuth's recommendations in Hold'Em Poker for Advanced Players. They suggest calling at least 40% of the time, reraising with the top quarter of these holdings. They include "Any pair, any ace, any other two cards that are both nine or higher, any other straight flush combination with no gaps or just one gap, and any king little suited. (You might add in a few more hands such as J8s, 98, or 97.)"

As I noted in the last article, I firmly trust the guidances in Hold'Em Poker for Advanced Players along with Theory of Poker. I believe Sklansky and Malmuth are brilliant teachers and excellent poker authors who take their material very seriously. However, I believe they use unsound logic to determine the number of playable hands in a short-handed game, and I don't feel our differences in opinion are insignificant. Sklansky and Malmuth have an irrefutible reputation that is well deserved. Therefore, I am not questioning their character, skill, brilliance, or credibility. It is only my intention to prove that in this one exceptional case, Sklansky and Malmuth's advice is flawed.

Could Sklansky and Malmuth be wrong?
The analysis used by Sklansky and Malmuth to find 40% does not quite make sense, and it can help indicate why current theory on short-handed play sometimes fails to designate the best strategy. Sklansky and Malmuth point out that in a $10/20 game, with the preflop raiser risking $15 to win $15, the raiser must steal the blinds only 50% of the time to make an immediate profit (assuming no reraises).

On one hand, they point out correctly that "{the small blind} is entitled to a profit because he has position on you and because you have a larger blind than he does." On the other hand, they follow up by suggesting, "The idea is to keep his profit to a minimum. This means that when the player on the button raises a lot you must call (or reraise) a lot." Herein lies the fallacy. Sklansky and Malmuth are saying that you should call because your opponent will make money if you don't call. Makes sense, right? If your opponent makes money (maximizes his profit), you must be losing too much, right? Let's recall an example from last week.

Example 1:
$10/20 heads-up game. Blinds $5/10.
You have AhAc.
Your opponent flips over 7c2s and raises preflop.
There are 3 small bets ($15 total) in the pot. But there's a catch. It will cost you $20,000 to play your hand due to some vicious house rules. Should you call? Of course not. It does not matter that your opponent makes $5 stealing your blind. Even though the opponent would lose money if you played your pair of Aces (and thus maximizes profit when you fold), it is still correct for you to fold because the only relevant point is that you lose much, much less (minimizing your losses) by folding.

Conclusion: Don't worry about the odds of the preflop raiser. Your only concern is whether a call or raise has positive expectation. We'll use some more examples to crystallize this argument.

Example 2:
$3/6 heads-up game. Blinds $1/$3.
To steal, the small blind raises $5 to win $4.
Using simple arithmetic, we calculate that the preflop raiser needs to steal the blinds 55% of the time to make an immediate profit, a considerable increase over the 50% needed in the $10/20 game. If your goal was only to counter your opponent's strategy, you could call less since you would only need to defend 45% of the time. Should you therefore play differently? No. As a big blind, you're facing the exact same situation in both games.

In the $10/20 game, there is $30 in the pot, and you must call $10.
3:1 ratio.
In the $3/6 game, there is $9 in the pot, and you must call $3.
3:1 ratio.
Also note that the small blind is still raising 100% of the time, so his potential holdings have not changed in frequency.

Example 3:
$10/20 3-handed game.
Blinds $5/10.
Again, we assume no reraising. Our assumptions are helpful to keep the playing field even in our comparisons of heads-up and 3-handed games. The button is raising 100% of the time, attempting to steal the blinds ($20 to win $15). Small blind folds. There is $35 in the pot, and you must call $10. 3.5:1 ratio.

Sklansky and Malmuth suggest that since the small blind is also defending, the big blind needs to call 70% as often as it would in a heads-up game. This advice is where I differ the most. As big blind in a 3-handed game, you have better odds to call then you would in a heads-up game, and with the small blind's cards in the muck, the proper play should clearly include more calling, not less. Remember, the button is still raising 100% of the time, and even if you assume the small blind is more likely to fold small cards, the distribution of cards that the button is raising does not change much.

Calling from the Big Blind
So, how often should you be defending your blinds? To figure that out, we only need to consider which hands are profitable to call. A reraise will affect how much profit will be won, not whether the hand should be played. In other words, both raising and calling will have +EV, but one play makes more profit than the alternative. After a certain point, raising becomes less profitable than calling. At another point, calling will incur a loss, and the hand should be folded. Last article, I argued for reraising with approximately the top 17% of all hands, although that number depends on certain factors. Now, we will examine how many hands should be called, again assuming that your big blind is raised 100% of the time. We will examine three circumstances: heads-up, 3-handed, and heads-up when the big blind has position.

Heads-up (Small blind has position.)
The irony of Sklansky and Malmuth's analysis is that even though the reasoning behind the recommendation is imperfect, playing 40% of hands in the big blind is close to correct against an opponent of equal skill. The exact number is impossible to discern, because it depends on the skill of both you and your opponent. If you are a complete novice, but your opponent is a novice also, the disadvantage of being out of position is lessened. If you are an expert, but your opponent is also an expert, the disadvantage of being out of position is magnified.

My recommendation is to tend towards a tighter strategy for several reasons. First, the 40%+ strategy includes many marginal hands such as J8s, 97, 64s, and K3s. While these hands appear to have sufficient pot odds, they also have two fundamental problems. They will not hit any of the flop approximately 40-50% of the time and will give up on the flop. Also, when they hit the flop with a pair, it will often be a very exposed position, susceptible to a well-timed bluff or semibluff. Since so much of today's opposition relies heavily on bluffs and semibluffs, hands that are exposed to these moves will pay a significant penalty after the flop.

Finally, these marginal hands are more likely to hit and still finish behind, either because the opponent has flopped a higher pair, or because the opponent draws out on the turn or river. The vulnerability of these hands can be reduced to some degree with strong play, especially in position where free card plays are available. Out of position, they will lead to some of the toughest decisions to be made in short-handed games, and these tough decisions will cause even experts to make mistakes.

The other reason to lean towards a tighter strategy involves the overall aggression you will want to incorporate into your post-flop style. You should be reraising preflop 17+% of the time. Coupled with postflop aggression, consistently revealing strong cards will likely lead to successful bluffs and semibluffs, as well as having the general effect of slowing down your competition (which is rarely a bad thing). While it seems that an opponent could thwart your strategy by simply giving up on the flop without a big hand, the reality is that you will either get action with your big hands or win with your bluffs/semibluffs more than your fair share, depending on how your opposition adjusts.

3-handed
We should assume the small blind has folded to be able to compare fairly. In Hold'Em for Advanced Players, Sklansky and Malmuth state, "you need to realize that the little blind should be aware that the big blind may also call. Consequently he should only play his better hands. Thus the little blind should play about half as often as the big blind, and their combined playing fequency should be only a little more than it was for the big blind when the game was heads-up. In other words the big blind should play approximately 70 percent as often as before, and the little blind should play approximately 40 percent as often as the big blind played in the previous case." We will discuss the small blind's quandary another time, but the key for now is that this advice is incorrect for the big blind.

As a big blind, you do not care what "should" happen. Nor should it concern you that the small blind did not have a playable hand. The only important items are (a) the skill of the button player, (b) the likely raising hands from the button, and (c) the pot odds you are receiving. In both (a) and (b), there is no difference from the heads-up example. However, the pot odds have increased. It is straightforward that you should play more hands out of your big blind since the pot size has increased for your call. I would recommend calling with 40-45% of hands in this situation.

Remember, your real concern is not how much your opponent is winning or losing. It is only how much you are winning or losing. The two matters are not necessarily equivalent.

Heads-up (Big blind has position.)
This position is unique and should only occur when everyone has folded to the small blind in a 3-handed or larger game. If the small blind raises 100% of the time, how much should you call? In this scenario, we continue to assume an average player raising 100% of the time, as well as the same 3:1 pot odds. However, now the big blind will have position post-flop.

Obviously, position makes a tremendous difference, with the advantage yielding dividends immediately on the flop since you will be able to gain information about your opponent. If your position will earn an edge, and you have 3:1 pot odds, it should seem obvious that you can defend very liberally against an opponent who raises 100% of the time.

Personally, I would play about two-thirds of all hands (sometimes more since I tend to make good use of position), as you should find a significant profit in several ways, such as earning extra bets when you hit your hand, picking up pots when your opponent misses, buying free cards, and many more. You wouldn't mind winning ½ a small bet (and saving your big blind) when your opponent folds, but if he is raising 100% of the time, you will turn a tidy profit by taking advantage of position. Some hands I would call include: QXs, JXs, T7s, T6s, 96s, 85s, 74s, J8o, T8o, T7o, K8o-K4o, Q8o-Q5o, 87o, 76o, and 65o. Of course, this assumes my opponent is raising 100% of the time preflop. In reality, I don't see players make that mistake from the small blind above the $3/6 limit (and even then it is fairly rare).

Learning to Think for Yourself
In conclusion, this has been a very difficult article for me to write. When I began, I re-examined correct big blind play and compared it to Sklansky and Malmuth's recommendations. I found some similarities, but ultimately concluded that the advice I read in Hold'Em for Advanced Players was based in part on faulty premises. The concept of playing to reduce the opponent's profit can go too far. But even the best strategists and theoreticians can be wrong sometimes, and so each idea should be examined on its merits, even when it is the advice of authors who are "correct" 99.9% of the time. After all, whether you win or lose does not depend on what you've read as much as it depends on what you learned and how much it helps you think.

If you have any questions, or comments, please feel free to email me at jason@pokerpages.com. I received a lot of great emails in the last month, and I hope to hear from more of you in the future.