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Poker – Playing Against The Blinds Part3
You can rapidly make up for the blind's advantage by being especially attentive to how he plays from the flop on. You can use psychology and position to help read the blind's hand, but only after the flop.
If you're in a hand against several other players and one of them is the blind, you should be aware of the fact that all bets and raises are not created equal. A bet or a raise from the blind means something entirely different than it does when coming from one of the other players. A check-raise from the blind, especially on the flop, is an excellent clue about the strength of his hand.
A player in the blind who flops a strong hand will usually not be able just to bet, knock players out, and win the hand. Why? Well, the strength of his hand is situational and temporary. A blind who holds 8*3* when the flop is 8*5*34 will almost always have the best hand at that point. The problem for him is that there are more cards to come.
If this blind bets, he knows that the players who have overcards, a pair, a flush, or a straight draw will call, hoping to see one more card to make their hand. So he will check-raise on the flop in an attempt to knock these players out of the hand. It's a good move, and it often works. It also gives away his hand to the players astute enough to know that a check-raise from the blind usually means just what I've described.
Another reason that this blind cannot bet and win is that the draws will often have the right odds to call and possibly beat him. If he bets on the flop and gets called, it's now mathematically correct for his opponents to call again when he bets on the turn. Anyone with a draw will then have the right odds to see the final card and possibly make his hand. The check-raise is an effort to keep this very predictable scenario from happening. It's an attempt to drive players out of the hand by forcing them to call two bets cold.
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Poker – Playing Against The Blinds Part2
5. If you miss your hand, you've put yourself in the position of possibly having to bluff from an early position at the end of the hand.
6. A raise from one of the blinds tends to build the pot rather than make players fold. A player who has called a bet and has to call only one more bet-because the blind raised-will almost always call to see the flop.
A possible exception to my rule against raising from the blind position is when you have a big pair in the pocket and there are just one, two or maybe three other players in the hand. If you go back and look at the above list of disadvantages to raising before the flop, you'll see that they're lessened with fewer players in the hand. Let your knowledge of your opponents and your understanding of the game be your guide.
Even though I advise against raising from the blinds before the flop, I do recommend that you always reraise if someone has raised before the flop and your hand warrants it. I would not raise from the big blind before the flop with KK, QQ, or AK. If someone else raised first, however, I'd certainly go ahead and reraise.
The problem with playing against a player in the blind is that you don't have all the usual tools available to help you read his hand. You can't make anything of his hand based on position, because he didn't select his hand according to his position. He got it at random. You can't resort to psychology to help read the hand, because he didn't have any say about choosing the hand. You also can't rely on statistics to figure out what the hand is, because it could be anything, since he's in the blind.
The three best tools you have to help read hands (position, psychology and statistics) are all useless when playing against the blinds early in the hand. The player in the blind literally has a secret weapon to use against you, especially if he's in the big blind, no one raised before the flop, and he did not exercise the option of raising himself.
So, how do you play against the blinds? First, be aware of a few basic facts. About four-fifths of the 1,326 possible hands are hands that most players would not voluntarily play. That means that the blind will have less than a premium hand about 80% of the time. If the flop is something like A4Q*10*, it's likely that the blind does not have two good cards that will fit in well with this flop. He'll probably fold if you bet.
If the flop is 9*6*3*, and the big blind bets out, you can be sure the flop hit his hand, even though he has to be holding bad cards for that to happen. If he bets into a large field, if he check-raises on the flop, or if he reraises on the flop, you can be sure he has a good hand.
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