Defending the Blinds...

[x2ski]

Hi All,

Below is a response I made to a PM I received today regarding a $3/$6 hand on Saturday.

The other 2+2er was quasi-stealing with 77 in LP and I called from the blinds (I don't remember what I had, but was most likely just defending).

The 2+2er commented that being tighter preflop might help me during my downswing, giving me the impression that my defense call made him think I was generally too loose:

- "Oh ok thanks for getting back to me lol... I folded 77 in the SB to a steal attempt earlier today that I thought you were talking about.

Anyway, regarding tightness, I'm pretty tight (14-15 VPIP), but I'm trying to defend my blinds more with hands I would normally fold outside the blinds... not terrible hands, but more like AT-A8o, KTo, and QJo (sometimes QTo).

Is this terribly wrong? What do you think? I only do it when it is an obvious steal attempt. If I don't hit, I'm out." - END

Do I have blind-defense strategy all wrong? For a while I was just re-raising and trying to push the stealer off his hand if I didn't hit anything. Now I do the above if it feels right.

Thanks for your help.

[Evan]

Especially at 3/6, being "too" tight out of the blinds will often be a very good thing. I was talking to scrub about this a couple days ago because I'm super tight out of the blinds compared to some, we came to the conclusion that it was for the best.

[Rubeskies]

I play 3/6 (as I believe you do) and one thing I was doing wrong was that I was defending too much in the small blind. Because of the 1/3 blind structure is really isn't worth it to defend your small blind. I was losing a lot of money doing this.

As far as from the big blind, try 3-betting more hands like KQ, AJ, 77, and the like. This will often give you the upper hand in the blind battle.