Defending/Attacking the blinds.

[Tater10]

Any basic strategies for defending and attacking the blinds? I play 2/4 and 3/6 on party, and this is my biggest leak.

[deacsoft]

First of all you need to have some kind of idea of what type of player may be trying to steal your blind or who is in the blinds you're thinking of stealing. I'll talk about defending yours first.

When defending you blinds you need to call a few to see what the other player is trying to steal with or if he has good hands when raising in late position. Watch on all hands to get a general feel for what type of player he/she is. If the player is more likely to be stealing with a marginal hand or weak hand; you naturaly should be defending more. When defending you need to reraise the stealer. Make him pay dearly for trying to steal your blind. Reraise with any solid hand down to K-T, A-xs, and any pocket pair. If in the SB you want to isolate yourself with the stealer, so the reraise is a must.

To steal blinds you want to raise against tight passive players. So, again some collection of thought and play is required. You don't want to be reraised when going for the steal. If a tight passive player does reraise there's no shame in accepting defeat and folding right there. I like to try to steal with hands from the CO. It makes it a little less obvious. I go for these steals only when folded around to me and there are the right type of players in the blinds. I'll try a steal with nearly anything I would play from the button.

I'm sure others will add to and some will correct parts of this. I don't have it down to an art yet either. So take this only for what it's worth. I have had some success with it. Maybe you will too. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Good luck at the tables.

Above all, INFORMATION is the key to defending and stealing blinds.