blind defense - help!

[morgan180]

from poker tracker (7,200 hands) - oufff....major leak

folded SB to steal: 88.2% (142/161)
folded BB to steal: 70.72% (157/222)
folded BB to steal HU: 69.19% (128/185)

attempt to steal blinds 16.86% (214/1,269)

can anyone give me some pointers on loosening up in the blinds to get these numbers down/up?

what cards do you play late to steal blinds and what do you defend with?

thx

[Phill S]

the way ive always looked at it is i make a raise with premium hands (AJs/AQ depending on player, and PP 99+). occassionally i re-steal with junkish hands (78s, JT) when ive short and push it all in if i feel ive enough fold equity to justify it.

something i like to do is call with junk (i just played a game where i did this with Q2). then either bet out the flop, or check raise depending on what i feel will best budge the opponant, how much he steals and so on.

this however is probably a little too weak however. i dont use pokertracker yet, but im sure the stats would bare this out as a weakness.

however i often look at it as a case of if i fold an orbit worths of blinds i can often take the same amount or often more with a steal/steal and flop bluff if called.

i like to play the game as proactive as possible, and let other be the reactive players - this is born out in me being too passive of late, and getting bad results to back it up. however after a tweak ive just played what i consider to be one of my best SnGs ever making some big steals and increasing the aggression at the key points (its a shame pokerroom is so shite with their hand histories, id liked to have kept it).
________

all mho, im sure others look at blind defense in a different way...

Phill

[Benholio]

Late and from the button I steal with any pair, any ace, good broadways. From the CO, I will steal with any pair, usually with any ace, and hands like KQ, KJs.

Defending is a tougher subject. Having any kind of reads on your opponents really helps you decide when to defend. I'll defer to others on advice for defending.

Actually, your steal numbers are very close to mine.

70k hands

folded SB to steal: 87.91%
folded BB to steal: 71.92%
folded BB to steal HU: 70.42%

attempt to steal blinds: 26.13%

[pshreck]

These numbers arent bad Morgan. What you have to realize is a ton of these aren't steal, but legitimate hands that are raising you. The times that they are steals, you aren't really likely to have any hand that is good enough to play for a raise out of the position. For the most part, it is quite correct to fold your blinds most of the time.

[Marcotte]

I don't use PT. What exactly is meant by "Folded X to steal"? Is it only counting open-raises from CO and Button when no one has limped? IOW, what counts as a steal to PT?

To answer your question, low and mid pairs become raising hands in late position if I'm the first in. Also A9+, K9+ and QT+. Suited is better, but not necessary. (This is only at 50-100 or above and 6 or less players.)

To defend it's about the same, but a little looser in the BB. Of course, it all depends on stack sizes, blind levels, # of players left and the size of the raise. I will call a min-raise from the big blind with quite a bit if it looks like a steal (or we are down to 3-4 players).

If I'm on a short stack, I don't defend much, esp against the chip leader. I think it's more profitable to try to steal it back later from someone else. If my stack is large (20+ BB) I might call with a bit wider range, but again it depends on the situation. Usually if I have that big a stack I can be a bit of a bully from late position and steal more from them than they steal from me.

The best defense is a good offense. (Re-raising them is key - don't do it too often with crap, but you have to throw some in to keep them honest.)

[Jason Strasser]

This is not limit holdem, and this stat is fairly irrelevant.

In fact, lots of Ptracker stats I would argue are completely useless. You can be a winning SNG player (not a huge winning player) with a -BB/100 hand mark. Blind defense means nothing, because early you really shouldn't be protecting your blinds. In general, for NL, blind defense means very little.

At least IMO.
-Jason

[A J Carisse]

I don't think a lot of players give enough thought to defense overall. I'm speaking of defense overall - in the sense that a bet or raise is "attacking" your cards whether you have any money in the pot yet or not.

Looking at quantitative numbers isn't the whole story here. "Defense" in the sense I'm speaking of isn't so much about quantity as it is quality. I want to look to break someone when I'm playing back this way and if I can see that someone is being too aggressive PF continually (which happens a lot of course in later stages), and I've got the hand, I'm going to take advantage of it. Too many players play too passively when someone is on the steal, and the key is to get a good read of course first. One of the reasons why I'm hesitant to do the multi-table thing.

A lot of weaker players will call too much from the blinds because they percieve they are getting better "pot odds." An obvious example is when you know a player usually only raises with high pairs and high aces. You're faced with a small raise, and you have ATo. It's only a little more to call, but you've got trouble most times regardless of the flop. In essence, you have few real outs to draw to - trip 10's or two pair are all you're really going to be fairly certain is going to be ahead. So the pot odds are pretty stinky.

This applies to one degree or another to just about all PF raises from the blinds. So having a higher rate of blind defense isn't necessarily a good thing. As a rule of thumb, from the way most people play (confusing true pot odds, or more likely, not thinking much about this at all), if your numbers aren't LOWER than your opponents or the typical player, THEN you're in trouble.

A.J.

[morgan180]

Thanks for everyone's feedback. I feel that sometimes I play a little weak-tight so I was looking to see if I was letting my blinds go to easily.

I think I can play a few more hands defending my blinds, but I think I have the decent beginnings of a real stealing strategy.

I think that I can loosen/tighten my defense hand selection by identifying where the raise comes from - and of course from whome.

Thanks to all.

[reecelights]

The number that jumps out at me is the amount you try to steal. You don't get many steal opportunities until the field has been thinned by close to half. With 5 players left, you need to win the blinds 20% of the time to keep pace. With 4, it's 25%.

I steal 27.97% of the time and win 74.36% of those hands. Of course the way I determine when to steal is by predefining a range of hands I will raise 3xBB with IN THE CO OR BUTTON. This is a looser range for me than in MP, and far looser than in EP or UTG. Many are hands I wouldn't call a raise with, but by being the aggressor, you put the other player to the test. You need to raise 3x, or it will seem like a steal. You will get called more if you only raise 2x.

You do have to take some other factors into consideration. You can steal more from tighter players than looser ones. If someone only folds 33% of the time to a steal in the BB, you should probably tighten up a bit in your range of hands, and limp some more to give you an easier exit strategy. If you've attempted a steal three times in a row, someone's liable to get tired of you pounding on them, and need to tighten your requirements. If you want a little more fold equity, you can increase your bet to 4x. If you want to be sneaky and make them think you're sucking them in, you can bet 2x afer betting 3-4x consistently, frequently with a worse hand than you'd normally steal with.

Also, there was a post with a link to an article not too long ago arguing, with some warnings and caveats, that it is mathematically correct to raise EVERY time it is folded to you in the SB, REGARDLESS of cards.

I agree with the previous posters that you should not think in terms of "defending your blinds." That stat is more useful in determining the frequency with which you can steal from other players (see above). I fold my SB 82.48% and my BB 64.05%, and BB HU 62.67%, although I also loosen up my steal requirements HU. Don't think of it as someone making a play on you unless you have a very STRONG reason to suspect that. Even then, you can't call a 3xBB raise with any 2. If you weren't in the blind, would you call a 3x raise with a less than top 10% hand.

Don't forget, once it's in the pot, it's not your money any more. Don't go chasing after it with hands you're more than likely to lose...you're just throwing good money after dead money.

Sorry for the long response. Hope this helps. I would appreciate any comments on this post.

Chuck