How to Defend Your Big Blind

Your big blind strategy will make a huge difference in how much money you win or lose at the poker table. To avoid bleeding cash, you need to defend your big blind with profitable hands, fold unprofitable hands, and implement an iron-clad 3-bet strategy. This short episode of the Upswing Poker Level-Up Podcast will help you do all three of those things and more. You're about to learn:

• How to adjust your big blind defense strategy versus different positions, raise sizes, and stack sizes
• A winning big blind 3-bet strategy
• Crucial multiway adjustments

 If you really want to take your poker skills to the next level, head over to UpswingPoker.com. Upswing has hundreds of free articles, free quizzes, affordable crash courses, and advanced training courses that will help you get better at poker. 

Written Version of this Episode

00:00 Introduction

01:13 Adjusting Big Blind Defense to Raise Sizes

02:00 Position Impact on Big Blind Defense

03:33 The Role of Rake in Big Blind Defense

05:13 Specific Situations: Button vs. Hijack Raises

07:51 Stack Size Considerations in Big Blind Defense

08:58 Three Betting from the Big Blind

11:44 Multi-Way Big Blind Defense

14:15 Tournament-Specific Big Blind Defense Adjustments

In this episode of our poker strategy podcast, hosts Mike Brady and Gary Blackwood dive deep into the nuances of defending your big blind, a critical aspect often mishandled by poker players. They kick off by emphasizing how pivotal it is to adjust your big blind defense strategy based on the raise size, position, and the effective stack size of your opponents. By fine-tuning these elements, you can plug common leaks in your game, such as playing too tight, too loose, or too passively.

The duo explores how different factors like raise sizes and the position of the raiser can drastically alter your defense range. For instance, defending against a small raise from the button should be wider than defending against a larger raise from early position. They also touch on how rake, particularly in live games and micro stakes online, should tighten your defending range due to the decreased pot odds after the rake is taken.

Mike and Gary offer practical examples and discuss how your range should adjust when playing deeper stacks versus shallow stacks. Surprisingly, they suggest that deeper stacks don’t necessarily mean a wider defense range due to increased reverse implied odds. They also delve into three-betting from the big blind, advocating for a strategic mix of suited and offsuit hands to exploit opponents effectively, especially when facing raises from the small blind.

In multi-way pots, the podcast emphasizes the need for a much tighter defense range, focusing on hands that can easily make strong post-flop hands. They caution against calling with marginal hands that may seem profitable due to good pot odds but fail to realize equity effectively.

As the episode wraps up, they offer insights specifically for tournament players, noting how the presence of an ante and smaller stack sizes can justify a looser defense strategy. This poker strategy podcast provides listeners with actionable advice to improve their big blind defense, crucial for maximizing profitability in both cash games and tournaments. Tune in to refine your skills and stay ahead of the competition!