Episode #120: Playing from the blinds

MAIN TOPIC

Few things in poker are harder than playing from the blinds. You'll have to act first on all future streets, and you already have some coin invested. We debate some strategies on maximizing your profits and reducing your losses this week. Click here to listen to the episode. Highlights:

• Be wary of staunchly defending your blinds, especially in no-limit cash games. Since you'll have to act first the rest of the hand, opponents can put you in difficult spots.
• However, don't let yourself get an image as someone who never defends your blinds, either.
• Calling a raise from the small blind, of course, will cost you more money than calling from the big blind, so be more willing to let your small blinds go with all but the best hands.
• In limit, you can bluff a lot from the blinds. For example, let's say it folds to the button, who raises. The SB folds, and you have Q-7 in the BB. You call, and the flop comes 10-7-4. If you check, your opponent may continuation bet, and your check-raise might win the pot or a follow-up bet on the turn will. Or, if the flop comes 10-3-3, you can check-raise with any cards in the BB and will likely get credit for hitting.
• Check out these resources for many more good tips: Miami John Cernuto's FullTilt Pro Tips and the FullTilt Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition.

OTHER TOPICS

AIPS: Congrats again to ErsatzSantiag0 for winning Event #9, and how about a round of applause for your two lovable hosts also making the final table?

CHIMPS: A player-fueled tournament series begins next week. Get all the details on our forum.

Survivor: Jean-Robert survives - barely. He thinks he's trapping ... but is he trapping himself?

Can you jog, juggle AND handle Scott's high-pitched tangents?: This listener can (well, the last one can trip him up).

Bloch hacked!: Someone cracked Andy Bloch's AOL AIM account, and then tried to solicit money from Andy's buddies.

This lottery will outlive you: The Massachusetts Lottery has been offering a $10 million Hold'em Poker game for so long that, well, folks who have bought tickets have died. It needs to sell 27 million more of the 80.6 million tickets before a winner can be determined.

Hotline: A Vancouverenite wonders what exactly there is to do in Columbus since the city's traffic lights make enough sense that fewer people get into accidents. Hmmmm... maybe these folks can help.

Tampa Bay Poker Replay: Chris' shining moment is just a few days away as he takes to the felt (with Don Baruch) in Derby Lane's $500 tournament. Railbird him if you're in town and free. (Me? Are you kidding? The Packers are 3-0. Tell Chris I said "good luck.") Also, the state has released revenue reports for August on the pari-mutuel card rooms. The higher limits and longer hours have made a big difference. Last August, when Derby Lane was the only room allowed to deal, it earned $645,492 from poker. This year, the four rooms (Derby Lane, Tampa Bay Downs, Tampa Greyhound Track and Sarasota Kennel Club) earned $1,612,056 in August. WOW.

One Minute Mystery: Columbo folds his 10-10, which is a good thing since he would have lost to a set of 4s had he called. But it was a tough call.

HAND OF THE WEEK

Chicago Jason (J_Chitown) sends us a perplexing puzzle to put together. In a $1/$2 no-limit live ring game, he's dealt QQ UTG+2 with a $5 live straddle. Knowing he has aggressive players behind him, he calls. The straddler bumps it to $40, and Jason pops it $47 more and gets an unexpected call from a tight player in the BB. That player then bets out $100 into a dry side pot on a rainbow flop of 2-4-5. Perplexed, Jason talks himself into thinking he has the best hand (how could he not?), pushes all-in and loses to pocket Kings. Ouch. His opponent was crafty indeed.

- SCOTT 

Comments

[Godard]

Re: Columbo

I'm gonna guess that someone got Peter Falk to do original voicework. Did I solve the mystery?

[Yzerman]

Chris and Scott,

Are you guys playing in the chimps?

[Chris Cosenza]

My answer is NO to both posters above.

[Gambit]

Hey Chris -
Good luck tomorrow! Take it down for The Nation! Call me when you get close to the money bubble.

[Scott Long]

If my sked allows, I'll play in the FT CHIMPS events.

[Chris Cosenza]

Thanks Gambit, will do.

[Darryl]

I got confused about the flashing green light call, since I'm also in Canada and it doesn't mean anything to pedestrians.
Then I realized that it means different things depending on where you are in Canada. In Ontario a flashing green light is an "advance green" means that cars in only one direction have the right of way. The caller was from Vancouver, and evidently it works differently there.

[SkysFall]

This comment is directed at Scott's comments towards the end of the show about the tight player's play with the Pocket Kings pre-flop.

I agree, the play by the tight player used his read of the table to make his decision to limp with Kings easier. I often play in a cash game back home where I sometimes limp with big hands like Aces or Kings because I know the person in the straddle or the blinds habitually raises, so I am occasionally willing to take the chance that the pot will go unraised to disguise my hand after a raise.

I will also smooth call after a raise and re-raise, at points, taking a risk that an Ace may come, or even a Queen/Jack if that's what I'm putting my opponent on, just to further disguise it.

Generally, I play my hand straight forward, but if I'm sitting at a table where I'm pretty dialed in, you can take a chance every once in a while, especially in situations like there was in the Hand of the Week where, if I'm right, the pot will be massive.

Thanks,
Sky

[Joe-Unimpressed]

OMM: I think I know what the surprise is. Someone who does impressions of columbo has agreed to work with Columbo to do any bits he was columbo to say.