Two Theories on Blind Defense

One of the most hotly debated issues in all of poker is blind defense. Poker players seemingly turn into reporters when talking about blind defense and the different strategies involved: they want to know the when, why and how of blind defense. In the end, blind defense can be reduced to two absolutely conflicting theories on the subject:

• Liberal blind defense: What I refer to as the machine gun approach where you shoot at everything figuring some of your bullets have to hit something
• Conservative blind defense: What I refer to as the sniper approach where you wait for perfect shots

Both schools of thoughts, and their proponents, have their talking points, and numerous poker players have made a solid case for both the machine gun approach and the sniper approach. However, blind defense pretty much boils down to not only your skill level but also your experience. For instance, 99% of poker players would get annihilated if they began their poker careers playing a loose/aggressive style. It’s simply a difficult style of play that takes a combination of skill, experience, and the proper mind-set to implement.

Well the same holds true for blind defense: You’re better off taking the conservative approach until you have enough skill, experience, and mental toughness to attempt a more liberal defense of your blinds. And the best method is to progressively become more liberal as your skill level increases -adding riskier, and more marginal, hands to your repertoire.

It all comes down to this: The more liberal you are defending your blind, the more marginal, and therefore difficult, situations you will find yourself in. And it’s these marginal situations where a lot of mistakes are likely to occur. For the top poker players in the world, these marginal situations are only slightly +EV, in the best-case scenarios: and will lead to numerous mistakes in the worst-case scenarios.

For the typical beginner or intermediate player these situations present you with numerous opportunities to make a serious mistake since blind defense puts you at several strategic disadvantages, the two most notable being:

• Your opponent was the pre-flop aggressor
• You’re out of position throughout the hand

Basically, to liberally defend your blind, taking the machine gun approach, you have to outplay your opponents from out of position against the pre-flop aggressor, and this is something that most players just will not be able to overcome. The best advice I can give a new or intermediate player is this: Let the experienced, winning poker players worry about increasing their long-term profit from the blinds by .06BB/100 and just focus on playing solid poker.

Whichever method you choose you are going to be a long-term loser from the blinds, that’s just the nature of poker, so by taking on the role of a sniper you are for the most part forfeiting your blinds as the price of playing in the game -which they are-in an attempt to avoid difficult situations and drastically reduce your overall variance in the game.

A final point on this topic: Most players will assume that if you don’t defend your blind, you’re likely not a blind stealer. So, by taking a conservative approach to blind defense you also increase the chances of stealing the blinds -which you will be doing in position and as the pre-flop aggressor.