Playing the blinds in six-max

Generally in the blinds we will be facing a raise from a variety of positions. Your response to each of these opens will be based on the specific villain and his position. If a loose aggressive player opens the button, you can three-bet 2-2 from the small blind. However, if a good tight aggressive player opens from under the gun and it is folded round to you in the big blind folding small pocket pairs is fine. In general, I like to play relatively tight from the blinds, balancing a three-betting and calling strategy.

For example, if a tight player opens in early position and the pot will be heads-up, I would advocate flat-calling any pocket pair above sevens, and K-Q suited and above. If the player was super tight then all pocket pairs and some suited connectors would be fine as you have true implied odds as he will often have a big pocket pair.

Big Blind Considerations

If you were in the small blind and the big blind was a huge loose fish then you would call with the pairs also, knowing that the pot will be three-way a lot of the time. The presence of the fish forces the pre-flop opener to play more honest and gives you better-implied odds.

In the big blind, if the small blind completes and no one else has entered the pot, you effectively have the button with less players in the pot, so you can play a similarly wide range (obviously with a raise).

If there are multiple limpers, raising from the blinds is obviously an option. Generally, I like to have a very tight range for these spots. Players that limp-call pre-flop often put you in marginal situations. I would advocate a very tight range like pocket eights and above and suited cards of A-J and higher for a raising range. Also crank up your opening bet size to something like four big blinds, plus one big blind per limper in an effort to narrow the field or take the dead money pre-flop.

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