[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.