Battle of the Blinds – Tips to Win

Battle of the Blinds Introduction

People don’t talk about blind battles much and I don’t know why? Every round you have a decision to play from these positions and a reasonable amount of the time it’s just the two of you.

How many times does it fold to the small blind and you pray he will give you a walk? Or you’re in the small blind and dreading raising but do it anyway?

Let’s start with some reasonable assumptions about how our most players play in battle of the blinds.

1. People always assume you are stealing in blind battles.
2. Players generally try to bluff more in the blinds both pre and post flop.
3. Your opponents don’t like to fold a pair heads up in blind battles.

Now we have some basic facts and assumptions, we can adjust our strategy accordingly.

Playing From The Small Blind

As people often think we will be stealing; we need to be more straightforward, especially on sites like GG Poker ( get a GGpoker promo code before playing). Our strategy for playing in the small blind is obviously to win the pot…But what is the best way to accomplish this?

I suggest playing the strong hands for value by raising and betting. We should be more cautious and try to show down our weak showdown hands like Ace or King high by checking and bluff catching.

As weak as it sounds, with weak hands, we should only complete the big blind. We can then make probe bets after the flop; hoping our opponent has missed. This is a realistic way of winning the pot. The big blind will respect the fact we have not just tried to steal pre flop and often just fold post flop.

It is not in our interest to raise and inflate the pot from the small blind with junk hands. The only time this is profitable is if the opponent is very tight or disinterested and likely to fold. The majority of players will defend wide from the big blind. Therefore, we need to be more careful as they suspect we are stealing the blinds.

Playing From The Big Blind

We will be in position throughout the hand so we should defend wide either by calling pre-flop raises or putting in a 3 bet pre-flop ourselves. Both strategies work very well as we have 2 things working for us before the flop is even dealt. We are the pre-flop aggressor and we have position. When we have strong hands, we also have the mathematical edge on our side too.

In the big blind, you should intend on playing as many hands against the small blind as possible. They will often be raising pre-flop just to steal with no consideration on how they will play post flop. In fact, many of these pre-flop raisers will give up on the flop and an even greater give up when called with a continuation bet. This is an effective strategy to countering both strong and weak players.

I hope this article has made you think about the battle of the blinds more. If you use the tips in this post, you should fare better in the future.

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Narciso Baldo

Narciso Baldo is the Director and Head Coach of Texas Hold'em Questions. He has been playing poker for over 16 years. After spending many years as a professional, he now runs UK poker training site Texas Hold'em Questions. Narciso regularly writes poker articles sharing tips, strategy, news and experience with gambling enthusiasts. Narciso also writes for reputable gambling portal Casino City Times, (bio here). Contact: [email protected]