How to Improve Your Results from the Blinds

Playing from the blinds is one of the most challenging aspects of poker. These positions are where players lose the most money since you must invest in the pot regardless of your hand strength.

Improving your strategy in these positions can significantly increase your overall win rate. In this article, we’ll look at key strategies to help you improve your results from the blinds.

Table of Contents:

- Narrow Your Defense Range Against Early Positions

- Increase Your 3-Betting Frequency Against Late Positions

- Widen Your Defense Range in Blind Battles

- Play Aggressively Postflop

Narrow Your Defense Range Against Early Positions

When defending the blinds against players opening from early positions, you need to be particularly cautious with your hand selection. Early position players usually have a narrow and strong range, mostly consisting of pocket pairs, strong aces, and high cards.

If you defend with marginal hands, you risk often being dominated. Even if you hit the flop, you will mostly have a medium-strength hand, leading to tough decisions.

Playing out of position against the preflop aggressor makes it hard to determine if they are value betting or bluffing. Therefore, it’s sensible to narrow your defense range, preferring hands that can flop well against a strong range.

These might include pocket pairs, strong suited and offsuit high cards, suited aces, and suited connectors like 87s, T9s, etc.

Your Big Blind calling range against an early position open raise might look something like this:

You should 3-bet hands stronger than those in the matrix and fold weaker hands. This is a solid calling range with which you will feel confident playing postflop.

In Hand2Note 4 reports, I filtered scenarios where I defended my big blind by calling with hands from the preflop matrix above facing an open raise from early positions:

My expected win rate in this scenario is -39bb/100. This indicates that calling with these hands is significantly better than folding, minimizing losses on the Big Blind.

As your postflop skills improve, you’ll be able to profitably defend a wider range of hands in this scenario. However, for beginner players, I recommend sticking to this range.

Increase Your 3-Betting Frequency Against Late Positions

You should 3-bet more often against open raises from late positions. In this situation, opponents are raising preflop with a wide range that includes many marginal hands. You can exploit this by applying 3-bets with hands that perform well against their opening range.

In the Small Blind in micro stakes, you should generally avoid calling preflop and opt for either a fold or a 3-bet. Due to high rake, calling on this position is rarely profitable.

In Hand2Note 4 preflop matrix, I set the following range of hands:

Then, using filters, I selected situations where preflop, while in the Small Blind, I called an open raise from the Button with these hands:

According to the report, the expected win rate in this scenario is -3.2bb/100.

Now let’s change the filter to indicate that instead of calling, I made a 3-bet with these same hands:

The difference is enormous, showing that 3-betting with the same range not only minimizes losses but also turns this situation into a very profitable one.

Many players at micro stakes are not aggressive enough and don’t use bluff 3-bets, making them predictable and losing potential profit.

It’s important to learn to identify moments when opponents are opening with a wide range and to apply an aggressive 3-betting strategy to put pressure on them and force them into making mistakes.

Widen Your Defense Range in Blind Battles

When you’re in the Big Blind and facing an open raise from the Small Blind, you should defend with a lot of hands.

In this situation, you’re playing against quite a wide range and have a positional advantage, making it profitable to defend many even weak hands.

Since you’ve already invested 1 blind in the pot as a mandatory bet, you’ll often have a good price to call, justifying the defense with a wide range.

In the preflop matrix, I selected some weak hands that many players would usually fold in the Big Blind when facing a raise from the Small Blind:

Then, I filtered situations where I defended the big blind by calling with this range:

An expected win rate of -57bb/100 indicates that even with such weak hands, defending the big blind is still more profitable than folding, with a significant margin.

By expanding your defense range, you force the Small Blind to play more tightly and less aggressively preflop.

Play Aggressively Postflop

Choosing hands to defend the blinds is crucial for improving your win rate, but it is not sufficient on its own. Many players play strong ranges from the blinds but are too passive postflop, adhering to a “hit or miss” strategy. This is a losing approach.

Postflop aggression is the key to strong poker play and effective blind defense. Instead of consistently check-folding and check-calling, with some of your hands, you should consider donk-betting and check-raising, employing a semi-bluff and applying pressure on your opponents.

This is especially effective against weak, tight players who do not reach showdown without strong hands and often fold to aggression.

For example, if you have a flush draw or a straight draw on the flop, you can play aggressively by betting or check-raising to potentially win the pot immediately or improve your hand on later streets.

In Hand2Note 4 reports, I selected situations where I called an open raise preflop while out of position (i.e., playing from the blinds). I also indicated that I hit a flush draw or straight draw on the flop:

In the “Next Actions report”, comparing the Action Profit metrics for betting and checking, we can see that aggressive play through a donk-bet, on average, brings me more profit than a standard check in each such situation.

Aggressive postflop play allows you to win pots without getting to showdown, which is especially important when playing wide ranges from the blinds. The more pressure you apply on your opponents, the more mistakes they will make, and the higher your win rate will be.

Defending the blinds is an art that requires constant study and practice. Proper play from these positions significantly impacts your overall results and success at the poker table.

Using Hand2Note 4 will help you analyze opponents’ statistics, identify and exploit their weaknesses, and thoroughly review your own play. With Hand2Note 4 reports, you can eliminate mistakes, improve your strategy, and enhance your results from the blinds.