Introduction to blinds

Beginner Tips / Dave Allan / 12 March 2010 / Leave a Comment

This lovely set of Venetian blinds has nothing to do with poker.

In a hold'em game with no blinds, you would only ever play aces. With no blinds being put in, you have no reason not to just sit back and wait for the very best hand every time.

Although when you first sit down at a poker table you may very well think that the opponent's stack of chips is what you are after, in reality what you are really looking to win is the blinds. The only reason poker works as a game is these forced bets, and understanding why and how they are so important is fundamental to becoming a winning player.

In a hold'em game with no blinds, you would only ever play aces. With no blinds being put in, you have no reason not to just sit back and wait for the very best hand every time. It is blinds that force individuals to play hands other than aces, and it is in this resulting battle between hands of different strengths where the money is won or lost.

In games with a very low blind relative to the stacks and a lot of players, you can play much tighter, as the drain on you each orbit is quite small. This means there is no need to start playing more marginal hands unless you have a very clear reason to do so (such as a tilting player spewing off chips), as you have no need to steal the blinds to stay afloat.

Compare this to a heads up game or a very short handed one. Here you have to be playing nearly every pot just to stop the blinds draining your stack. If you fold most of your hands playing heads up you will never be able to win - simply because you will never be able to make a return on your big hands large enough to compensate for your endless losses when folding pre flop and losing the blinds.

Interestingly enough, good players win much more and much faster the more hands people are forced to play. In the case of the low blinds and large number of players, you can simply fold a lot and only play big hands - something that requires little skill. However, if you have to play nearly every hand like you do in heads up matches, you have to make constant complex decisions with very marginal hands - something that requires a huge amount of skill.

As a result, if you are new to the game you should try and stick to games where you can play tighter (such as full ring games) and avoid short handed and heads up games until you develop the necessary skill set to be able to handle constant marginal situations. Poker is a world where many factors change how a game works, and blinds are one of the most important factors to analyse when looking at games.

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