Poker Blinds
Blinds are forced bets that spin around the table and get the action started. Without the blinds, everyone would just wait until they had a perfect hand to play, and there would be no real action at all. There are two blinds: a small (little) blind and a big blind.The big blind is in general set as the amount of the preflop bet and the small blind is usually half of the big blind. For instance, in a $10-20 limit poker game, the big blind is $10 and the small blind is $5. If half of the big blind ever requires change, like a $15/$30 game, the small blind is generally set at 2/3 of the big blind instead of 1/2. So in a $15/$30 game, the blinds are by and large $10 and $15.
The Significance of Blinds
Blind strategy is focal to winning in Poker. Every round you're forced to play either a big blind and a small blind. In online poker, you would receive between 60 and 70 hands per hour. This increases if you are multi-tabling. At a full table, this indicates you'll be posting blinds 6 or 7 times per hour. In a $10/$20 game, that's between $90 and $105 each hour.
To figure out how much money you put in the pot for blinds each hour in your particular game, utilize this simple poker blind formula- (Rounds per hour x big blind post amount) + (Rounds per hour x small blind post amount) = Total dollars placed in the pot from blinds.
Strategy for How to Play in the Blinds There are two angles to consider when thinking about the blinds- Defensive - You wish to protect your blinds when you are in the blinds. Offensive - You want to steal the other players' blinds when you can.
If you can monitor the blind situation so that you lose $24 dollars but steal $28, then you're either playing tough offense or defense or hopefully both.
Being able to steal blinds is necessary to be a winning player in a strong game. Tough games are usually tighter, so stealing blinds becomes more central. But stealing blinds isn't that hard in such a situation. You just got to play aggressively, raising preflop. If you succeed, and the blinds fold, you win a free round of poker.
Position is important while deciding when to steal blinds. If you're in late position and no one else has come in, you can steal the blinds with small pairs and ace rag. And, certainly you can steal blinds from any position if you have a first-rate starting hand.
Good poker players are selective about which hands they play. But if you let your blinds get stolen every round by raise, you're losing a major chunk of money. The baseine is that dealing with the blinds is something you'll have to learn fast before becoming a successful player.