From One Extreme To the Other..Small Blind Woes

[colos1]

Ok, heres the problem I'm having. According to Poker tracker my small blind is my least profitable position, it's in the hole big time.

I used to fold my small blind constantly unless I had good playable hands and I never paid attention to how many people were in the pot when deciding to call or not. Now I am on the other end of the scale and I seem to always pay to see the flop no matter what I'm holding, either I tell myslef theres so many people in that if I hti the flop I will get paid off big time or I tell myself that there is so few callers that even If i hit a pair I will be good.

Afrer reading some posts on this board and re-evaluating my small blind play it was apparent this was a leak in my game. I realized that depending on the # of callers sometimes it is the correct play to call to see the flop, but here lies my problem.

How do you figure out the correct odds to call and see the flop? I have no problem calculating pot odds after I have seen the flop, that is easy but how do I figure out if I should pay that extra little bit to see the flop? For example if I have a hand like K 8 offsuit which i would never play how do i determine my pot odds wehen deciding to see the flop or not? Hands like 7/8 offsuit give me problems as well.

Can anyone point me in the right direction or explaing to me how to calculate the odds to properly determine weather or not I should call preflop..

Thank You

[Bob T.]

This is a really tough question, and the answer unfortunately is, it depends on a lot of stuff.

How aggressive is the game? The more aggressive it is, the more I like to complete if it is a half bet, because my opponents have partially denied holding good hands, because of the limping.

How passive is it, and I use the reverse logic except I am more likely to complete with hands that might flop a draw.

How well do you play postflop? How about your opponents?

Exactly how many are involved in this pot?

Playing in the blind, is an art, and it is something that experience helps alot.

It is the standard suggestion, but post some hands, and lets take it from there.

Good luck,
play well,

Bob T.

[WalnutFlush]

from the SB I call any no-gap connectors, any two suited cards, and any big cards with a half decent kicker (I think your K8o would qualify). When you call with those half-decent kickers though you obviously have to be wary of a better kicker, so unless you hit like two-pair or top pair with few callers you may have to release the hand under pressure.

obviously, if there's been a raise and you have to play for 1.5 SB, then you really need to tighten up and play premium hands.

[LetsRock]

You should be considering odds, table texture and position from the SB.

Odds can be figured just as easily as any other position and you're usually getting pretty good odds on you half-bet to complete with most drawing hands. 4 limpers and you're getting 5.5:1 (your half bet is already in the pot.

If the table is very aggressive, I tend to very tight from the SB because you have such poor position for the rest of the hand. I'll tend to apply my UTG standards in this situation. If the table is very passive, I almost always complete the blind.

How many players are in the pot will help me determine what to play - if it's a family pot, I'm probably not going to complete with say K8o but I might even raise with this hand if it's only the button and the blinds because now the hand will be played like a shorthanded game and this hand is much more valuable. If it's a multi-way pot and I'm calling a raise from the SB, you can be sure that a lot of people would have 3-bet that hand and I'm waiting in the grass for a big flop.

I think the SB is the hardest position to play correctly and is a bit of an art. It seems like "Well it's only a half a bet and maybe I'll get lucky with this 95" so it's easy to slowly bleed your chips away by being too loose. Every chip counts and all the half-bets add up.

Consider all of the things that come in to play, just as you would from any other position.

Is my approach by the book? I don't know, as I don't recall ever seeing anything that really addresses the blinds (especially the SB) in too much depth in a full ring game. I just try to apply all of the general game theory that I can to every bet, including the SB. How does this hand play multi-way? Shorthanded? Is BB gonna raise me a lot?

The one advantage to SB is that you get a good view of the action and if your neighbor on the left is tight/passive, it's as good a closing the action (unraised PF) - you know exactly what your odds are going to be and how many opponents you'll be facing.