Poker Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
Defending from the Big Blind vs Button Steals
Defending from the Big Blind vs Button Steals Now obviously we know, and we know that our opponent knows we know, that their opening range on the button is going to be wide. How we play each situation is primarily a matter of several things: How often is our opponent opening? Are they on the very loose side (over 52%), on the tight side (less than 35%), or somewhere in between?
When they are opening wide:
When they are opening wide: In the example to the right, it should expand your flatting and 3-betting ranges. This opponent is opening 58.4% of their range from the button. Assume effective stacks of around 100 BBs, a reasonable flatting range would be something like the following: 77+, A2s+, A9o+, K9s+, KTo+, QTs+, J9s+, QTo+, T9s, JTo. This would be roughly 20% of our total range. Now obviously hands like TT+, AQ+ you'd want to 3-bet a majority of the time. Occasionally, when your opponent is not good post flop, flatting with a lot of these hands can be quite profitable, since they'll flop second best hands so often.