This poker article is about the tricky question of starting hand strategy. In poker your starting position is determined by where the button is and this can make a huge difference to the way the game starts and develops. To stack the odds as best as humanly possible, to coin the phrase “make your own luck” you need to know how to approach hand play from the different starting positions. In this article I am going to cover the Big Blind.

The Big Blind is very similar to the Small Blind but instead of putting half a BB (Big Bet) you put in a whole one before the cards are even dealt out. The hands that we discussed playing in the Small Blind are the same hands were going to want to play from the Big Blind. The hands you want to be raising with are premium hands A-A, K-K, Q-Q, J-J, A-Ks, and A-Ko. I would reraise a raise only with A-A, K-K, and A-Ks from this position. The rest of the hands I want to just call somebody’s raise.

The other hands I would call a raise with include the following; 10-10, 9-9, 8-8, 7-7, 6-6, 5-5, 4-4, 3-3, 2-2. Now with these low pocket pairs we are looking for a set so we don’t want to be calling huge raises with them. 5xbb max with these hands from this position. Say there is a raise and then a reraise then its on you just get out of the pot, no matter how tempting those tens are you are most likely dominated and we want to go into a hand the favorite 90% of the time, we want and need every edge.

Now some people play the A-Qs, A-Js in this particular situation, and I’m not saying its wrong or right but I will say this; if you have absolutely no idea what your opponent is raising with from early position then fold it until you have the correct information. If you see him show down a hand like Q-Js from early position even once I would defend my blind in a heads up pot with this guy every time I had an A-Q, A-Js. I would still be cautious about it though because even a bad player can pick up an A-K, but I would feel way more comfortable with it against a guy who opens with Q-Js, I’d rather wait for a much stronger hand.

This situation also comes up; the guy in the cut off raises every time when everyone else has folded, you’re in the blind and you pick up the A-Qs. Again I would say try to get some information about the guy before you go making this call. Whenever you check to an aggressive player they are going to take a bite at the pot. So if you miss the flop he’s going to bet, when you hit the flop he’s going to bet. The key in this situation is being comfortable enough with your hand to take it to the river no matter what when you hit an Ace or you hit a Queen without a King on the board, because he is going to keep on biting if he has position. That’s with a LAG (Loose-Aggressive) type of player.

All other hands you just want to check to see a flop. You really want two pair or better with any hands that you check with to see a flop. Don’t go nuts with an open ended straight draw when you have an 8-5s and the flop is a rainbow 6-7-8. Remember it’s only a draw that you have approximately a 30% chance of winning. He could already have the straight with a 9-10s. So if that 9 does come your smashed and the same with a 4.

Four to a flush draws should be played with caution as well especially if it’s not the nut flush draw. With the nut flush draw meaning A-Xs or if the flop comes spade, spade, spade and you have the Ace of spades you want to make sure your opponent does not have an Ace as well because if he does not then you can add 3 more outs to your hand. So a semi-bluff isn’t a bad play here. Say you have the nut flush draw (9 outs) with A-9s. The flop was 2h-5h-7s. Now you think an Ace or even a 9 will give you the best hand then you add 3 outs for the Ace and 3 outs for the 9. 3+3+9=15 total outs.

So now you multiply that by 4 to give you the percentage of hitting your hand. 4×15=60%. So now you know how much to semi-bluff. How much you ask? 60% of the pot should be your flop semi-bluff bet. The turn bet should be cut in half if you miss the turn because you only have a single card to come. So only bet 30% of the pot on the turn if you wish to continue with semi-bluffing or you can check and hope he does as well. If he does not check and bets 3/4ths the pot or more I would fold.

Now say you think the only thing that’s going to save you is the flush in a hand like this. Then you only have 9 outs. 9×4=36 so you have a 36% chance of winning the hand then you only want to bet 40% of the pot (round it up or down). This is a good semi-bluff move because you want to try to keep control of the betting. I know these bets seem kind of low but believe me when I say that’s ok. They might be thinking why is he betting so low?

Weakness usually means strength so your projecting weakness so they might think your strong even when your not. The point of this semi-bluff is to take control of the betting while giving yourself correct odds to stay in the hand. The point of this semi-bluff is not to win the pot on the spot (although it would be nice and it does happen). This semi-bluff strategy works very well against calling stations. You may be asking what does this have to do with the Big Blind. Well you don’t know how many times your going to run into situations just like this from the Blinds and also late position and I’d rather touch on it now then have you go sit down and run into a situation like this with absolutely no clue on how to play your hand.

Tags : Big Blind, Poker Tips, Strategy