A Guide to Increasing Your Profits From the Blinds

Positional disadvantage. Any time you choose to play a hand from the blinds, you will almost always be playing the entire hand out of position. Only if you’re in the big blind during a blind versus blind hand will you have any sort of position on anyone. Because of this, it helps to play in a way that the positional disadvantage is negated. Drawing hands are harder to play out of position, and the blinds guarantee you will always be stuck in that throughout the hand. You'll see players at smaller rooms losing tons of money via this leak - download pkr poker and you'll see people happily cold-calling from the blinds all day long. If you can take that disadvantage away by three betting, it may be to your benefit to do so, especially if it allows you to go all-in and negate this disadvantage altogether.

Playing preflop from the small blind. This is the worst position on the table, but many players will still take flops from the blind against a raise, citing the money already put into pot as their primary means for playing. Remember; you may get a very light discount for seeing the flop, but two big factors hurt you in making this call; you don’t close the action and you play the entire hand out of position. We’ve already discussed the positional disadvantage, but not closing the action is a big concern, as well. If the big blind is short, he may consider putting a squeeze play in and shove. Be cautious when electing to flat call an opener from the small blind; you’re usually better off folding or reraising yourself than simply calling.

Playing preflop from the big blind. This position, while still not optimal, enjoys a few advantages over the small blind. You have a bigger percentage of chips in the pot, making a call easier than from the small blind. You also enjoy the luxury of closing the action, a majority of the time. This means that you know the exact price it will cost to see the flop, which is a major asset. You also have the ability to see every player act before you preflop, which may not seem like a big help, but is a big help when looking for spots to squeeze or steal from. If a wild player opens in mid position and gets two callers, you may try a squeeze with 77, with all the dead money in the pot, that you wouldn’t if you were next to act to the wild player.

Hand selection. Treat your hand selection in the small blind like you would in middle position facing an opening raise. It doesn't matter if you're playing on your own money or from a free poker bankroll - drawing hands and weak big card hands like A10, KJ, and so on play much worse out of position, so avoid playing them whenever possible. Try to stick to hands that play well post flop, like pocket pairs and big broadway. (AK, AQ) Also, be more inclined to just fold weaker drawing hands like 56h and J10o, even if a few players have called a raiser; the positional disadvantage is too much to overcome. From the big blind, the enhanced pot odds and closure of action make it easier to call with the connected suited hands and lesser hands; but don’t allow the added chips to entice you into calling with utter trash. K4o is still K4o, even if it only costs $200 to see a pot of $650. You may be getting pot odds, but you don’t have a playable hand.