Mailbag: Defending the Big Blind

Thinking Poker Mailbag

This post is inspired by a question from the Tournament Poker Edge forums. I’m just going to paraphrase it here.

Q: In your videos, you very frequently call raises from the big blind with weak hands. You say that with antes in play you are getting odds, and that you need to call when you when your equity is better than the odds you are getting, but doesn’t your equity assume that you see five cards/showdown? Doesn’t the fact that you’ll have to play a weak hand out of position after the flop make these calls unprofitable?

A: You are correct that you can’t just compare your immediate pot odds to your hot-and-cold equity (meaning your equity assuming you saw five cards with no more betting). Given that you are out of position, the post-flop betting should prevent you from realizing 100% of your equity.

The thing is that when you are getting extremely good odds, you don’t have to realize much of your equity to show a profit.

Let’s say blinds are 350/700 with an 85 ante. The button opens to 1400 and you are in BB with Q6s. There’s 2900 in the pot and you have to call 700, so you need 24% equity to show a profit on a call. Against a button opening 50% of the deck, you have 43% equity. You only need to realize 56% (24/43) of your equity to show a profit.

Your ability to realize equity is influenced by a few factors:

1. Stack depth is far and away the most important. With less money to bet, there is less room for your opponent to use his position to push you off the winning hand or to valuetown you when he is ahead. Immediate pot odds matter more the less money there is remaining to bet.

2. Your post-flop edge or lack thereof. It’s easier to realize equity against predictable players, whether they are predictably passive (you usually win when you have the best hand, even if it’s pretty weak, because they don’t put pressure on you) or predictably aggressive (you get profitable semi-bluffs and have high implied odds when you do make a good pair, as long as you are willing to call down). Balanced players are the toughest ones to realize equity against.

3. The playability of your hand. A6o is a hand that is often a favorite against an opening range, but so much of its equity is wrapped up in spots where you have marginal hands like Ace-high, top pair with a bad kicker, or third pair that it’s tough to play postflop. Q9s, on the other hand, usually makes a big pair with a decent kicker when it makes a pair, and it also has the potential to make straight and flush draws that you can play aggressively. Thus, even though A6o may have higher hot-and-cold equity, Q9s usually realizes more equity.

Do you have a question for the Thinking Poker Mailbag? Please leave it as a comment below!

1 thought on “Mailbag: Defending the Big Blind”

  1. Especially 2. is true, because I experienced that it pays more off to be a good post-flop player than a good pre-flop one. Because you can realize more equity there of course, especially when enough predictably aggressive player are still in. But it´s totally another thing with high rollers – there you think about defending yout big twice and you should because post flop prediction will become very hard!

Comments are closed.