Poker Strategy - The Catalyst of Poker

Online Poker Strategy

The Catalyst of Poker.

Or, in other words the fight for the blinds. That's right, the battle for the blinds is one of those aspects of an online poker game, where the difference between lousy and good poker players becomes more apparent then ever.

In different articles of mine I often mentioned the importance of "strong play" from the blinds positions. Just to set things straight: by strong play I never meant you should chase your blinds all the way no matter what. That is just about the stupidest thing you can do. Strong blinds play stands for the following: you need to lose as little as you can in the blinds position, and the way to achieve that is to act strong on EV+ situations and chase as little as possible when the EV is negative. Pretty much everybody loses on the blinds, the difference is that good players lose less than poor players.

Another reason why the blinds are the catalyst of poker is that a good player always takes advantage of the aforementioned situation - namely, that everyone loses on the blinds. You need to attack the blinds effectively as often as you can, because, you see, the blinds take the edge out of the rake, and if you attack them successfully, they can even mean the difference between winning and losing.

The task to recognize whether you should be more aggressive from the blinds or play them less, befalls to you, the player. There are tables that call for the former, and tables that call for the latter.

In limit poker, it's safe to state the whole game revolves around the blinds equities. Even in no limit play, if you carefully analyze the situation, you'll see that the key is in the blinds.

Just to make things clear let's consider the following situation: you play at a table ( whether it's no limit or limit, it isn't relevant) and you get called away every single time you are in the big blind position. Assuming that the big blind will pass over you about four times/hour you'll lose the equivalent of about three big bets. Considering that a reasonable winning rate for a poker player who knows what he's doing is approximately one big bet/hour, you'll see that it's really not profitable at all to surrender your big blinds without putting up a fight.

The above example also shows that if you do not develop solid blinds-skills you'll never stand a chance of becoming a winning player.

Another interesting example to illustrate the importance of solid blinds play would be the following: I was playing in the opening stages of a MTT freeroll. ( it doesn't really matter which room it all happened in)

I was playing extremely tight, much like the way the experts recommend it, but I might've taken this whole tightness thing a little bit too far. I felt kind of bored and I was doing something else while playing poker so my game was definitely not what I'd call "reasonable" play. Heck, why not just call it what it really was: weak-tight.

I barely acted on anything when not in the blinds, but for some reason, whenever the button came around and I found myself in one of the blinds, a good starting hand popped up I just had to take action on. This kept happening pretty much right up to the break. Soon I found I had one of the biggest stacks in the tourney, and I eventually ended up ITM.

Mind you, this is not something I recommend, as a matter of fact I admit it was a really lousy play on my part. It so happened though, that - because of the luck factor - I managed an extremely strong play from the blinds. Even as I didn't really play anything when out of the blinds, I still managed an ITM placing solely by virtue of good ( and extremely lucky) blinds play.

This is what most good poker players manage to achieve constantly ( and relying much less on the luck factor) they lose just a little bit less than other players do in the same position. These guys know, that even though they're forced to pay up in advance, their opponents will find it extremely difficult to play against someone in the big blind. One of the most intimidating actions - from the point of view of the attacker - is when the big blind calls a preflop raise and then calls again after the flop comes a low rainbow.

Remember, by playing well from the blinds you need to thrive to extract a little more positive value from marginal situations than your opponents are able to do.

- by James West