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How do you play from the Small Blind?
Playing from the small blind is something I need to work on. I’ve learned that very little can be gained
There are some common scenarios that I’m hoping you might share your thoughts:
— a player in late position opens, what hands are you 3-betting from the small blind?
— it folds to you in the small blind, what hands are you raising pre-flop?
If you are detail oriented,
— a player from the button opens to 2.5 bb with 20 bb behind, you have 30 bb and the big blind has 21.5 bb behind.
— it folds to you in the small blind. You both have 30 bb.
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2 Replies
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My thoughts here.
SB 3bets
When facing a button open, our flatting vs 3betting range is very stack dependent. The deeper we are, the more flats we can potentially find. A hand like KQs is often a flat at 50+bb, but at <25bb it is probably a 3bet shove. The shallower we get, the less we can ever flat and the more 3bets we need to find. In your given scenario, where we are ~20bb effective and facing a button open, I’m shoving most Ax, most pairs, and most suited broadways down to 109s. I feel the most lost with offsuit broadways and may find some of my few flats with hands like KQo and KJo and mix that in with some of my absolute premiums AA or KK.
SB v BB
Blind vs blind is really complicated. And I can’t say that I have as good a handle on it. I had reverted to an entire limping strategy in this spot, but I feel like the field is making enough adjustments to this that a mixed strategy is better, especially as we get shallower. If we’re going to incorporate a mixed strategy at 20bb effective, I like one that is comprised of limps, 3.5bb opens, and shoves. I think we should shove our offsuit Ax and our low pocket pairs (<44). My limping range would include AA-KK, 55-88, my best offsuit Ax (AK-A10), and most of the marginal hands (rest of the suited and and some of the “straighter” offsuits). I would 3.5 open my pairs QQ-99, most of my Ax suited, and my suited broadways. This is generally how I’m approaching this spot <30-35bb effective, if I’m a lot deeper effective then I revert back to an exclusive limping strategy (but that may not be optimal, it is just easier).
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I have been studying with Floptimal lately. Interesting results:
SB vs BU @ 20BB effective, we playing 18% of hands and we are mostly shoving (this is vs a 2BB raise from button so might need to tighten this range vs 2.5x) @ 25BB effective, we have more raises and calls (still 18%)
At 20BB when it folds to us in SB we are playing 85% of hands – calling 54%, raising (2.7x) 22% and shoving 10%, @ 30BB we are mostly mixing between raises (3x) 33% and calls 50%
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