Whose blind is it anyway?

Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 09 December 2008 / Leave a Comment

Although the fundamental reason that anyone successfully plays poker is to win the forced bets, lots of careful considerations have to be made about quite how you go about it.

This is particularly pronounced late in tournaments, when not only are the blinds and antes extremely high relative to stack sizes, but player's characters seem to become more pronounced as the pressure builds. Here it is extremely important to carefully look at how each player is acting when in the blinds, as it has massive implications on your correct strategy.

You nearly always want to go out of your way to attack the players that are extremely passive, as you can basically raise anything against players that are consistently giving up their blind - by identifying these players you give yourself a whole extra way to accumulate chips. Conversely, if you spot a player that seems to be frequently re raising from the blinds, you need to adjust your strategy accordingly.

Only the very best players fully understand the frequency with which you should be re raising from the blinds, and most players you will see doing it (particularly at the lower stakes) will be doing it far too much. Not only this, but they will often be doing it in situations which had they been paying close attention they would never re raise light. Bad players will often re raise solely on the basis that their blind is being raised, thinking little of the fact that the person doing it has not raised a hand for three orbits and is probably sitting on a monster. Although these players can be extremely annoying short term, over the long run their ill timed aggression busts them just as quickly as if they were folding too much.

These are the two player types which dominate low stakes games, the overly passive player who believes in waiting for big hands while the blinds eat them up, and the overly loose aggressive player, who probably has someone like Phil Ivey as their role model, without actually understanding the advanced concepts necessary to be able to execute such a style.

Mixed in with these are a group of solid players who balance their game adequately and are much tougher opponents. By identifying the player type sitting in the blinds, you can start to move your thinking away from just your cards, and onto spotting every little situation where you can steal or save yourself some chips.

Related Readings

The M Factor - WSOP
A look at Annette's blind win tourney - Poker Web Watch
Blinds - How to play Texas Hold 'Em
Adjusting to the antes - Marcus Bateman
How the ante affects the game - Betfair Poker