Do you defend your big blind too much when you're short?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nesehorn156
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Nesehorn156

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When I'm around 10 to 15BB, I sometimes find myself wanting to defend the big blind because I'm getting a decent price.


But then I end up playing a lot of awkward postflop hands with very little room to maneuver.


Do you become noticeably tighter from the BB once your stack gets short?
 
When I have 10 big blinds, I just go all-in; I play purely aggressively.
 
I try not to defend my Big Blind just because I’ve already invested the blind.


When I'm short, every chip becomes more valuable, so I look at the effective stack, position, raise size, and opponent's range before defending.
With around 10–15BB, I'm often more inclined to look for a good reshove spot rather than call and play a difficult postflop hand.
I definitely don't want to bleed away chips with marginal hands just because the price looks cheap.

Sometimes folding the Big Blind feels painful, but protecting your remaining stack and preserving fold equity is more important than defending every blind.
 
I become tighter from the BB when I get short. With 15BB I can still defend some hands, but with 10BB I don't like calling with marginal hands and getting stuck postflop. I’d rather keep enough chips to make a strong move when I get a good spot.
 
Nesehorn156 said:
When I'm around 10 to 15BB, I sometimes find myself wanting to defend the big blind because I'm getting a decent price.


But then I end up playing a lot of awkward postflop hands with very little room to maneuver.


Do you become noticeably tighter from the BB once your stack gets short?
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It depends on the situation—on the tournament format, its structure, and how many opponents are at the table. Generally, 10–15 big blinds isn't much, so in most cases, I simply wait for a strong hand and try to double up.
 
With that short of a stack the only decision is all-in or fold. There's no defending the big blind cause you don't have enough chips to make anyone fold especially if it's a bounty or KO tourney.

Cheers!!!
 
When I’m short, I try not to defend my big blind just because I’m getting a good price. Every chip matters, so I’d rather pick my spots and avoid getting dragged into marginal hands.
 
How short? The shorter we are, the less defending we can afford. Our fold equity starts becoming a better weapon than our post-flop playability so we should be folding or attacking from the blinds depending on our hand strength and the weakness of the action to us.
 
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