Blind Defence: Calling Preflop

Poker Strategy / Matthew Pitt / 15 August 2011 / Leave a Comment

In a previous article we covered defending our blinds by becoming the aggressor preflop and three-betting them in an attempt to take the pot down before the flop for the most part. Three-betting is the most common form of blind defence and against habitual blind stealers who like to fold prelfop it is becomes profitable rather quickly but against certain opponent types it is best to simply call, take a flop and play some poker!

There are some players who think they are loose-aggressive (LAG) players but in truth the only time they are a LAG is preflop but as soon as the first three community cards are dealt they either completely shut up shop unless they have a big hand or they take a solitary stab at the pot before giving up. These opponents are great for seeing a flop with and either taking the pot away on the flop or floating the flop and helping yourself to the money on the turn.

An example of this would be being sat in the big blind and facing a raise from the button, a player who frequently three-bets and has been known to four-bet but post flop his aggression drops off a little. We decide to call with a hand such as Ts9s and the flop comes down 2h-6c-7s, which completely misses us but we can still easily take this pot by using our opponent's tendencies against them and also representing a big hand. This is where you have to think about how you would play different hands in accordance with the board texture.

On a board like this and against this villain we should probably never lead out or donk bet as it is known because what are we representing by doing so? If we held an overpair to this board we would most likely three-bet preflop, especially with tens or better, and even if we only held eights or nines would would probably not lead most of the time either. Likewise with sets or two pair, unless we knew villain always had an overpair and was likely to get it in. So in my opinion the bets move would be to check with the intention of raising this villain's inevitable continuation bet. By check-raising this flop you can quite easily represent a number of strong hands including two pairs, medium pairs and sets of deuces, sixes or sevens and are likely to pick up the pot there and then against most villains of this type.

However, taking this route is much higher variance than the standard three-betting preflop line, and it becomes much more costly when villain does have a legitimate hand. You also need to factor in that if you do go for a check-raise on the flop and are called you will be left playing a large pot out of position with literally air (in this case) so it is not a play you would want to employ on a regular basis but it is a move that should be in your arsenal should the right circumstances lean towards using it.

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