I'm losing too many chips in the blinds.

shinedown.45 · Nov 8, 2017

I have noticed that I have been losing too many chips when in the SB and BB.
I'm winning chips in all other positions.
What reasons could be costing me in the blinds?

Boltun · Nov 8, 2017

try to change the strategy of the game in the middle and late stages of the tournament, I think you need to play more loose so as to be in the black at the distance

mbrenneman0 · Nov 8, 2017

Could be either defending too wide or not defending enough. Could be poor OOP play, could be not 3 betting vs steals enough... could be a lot of things. We need more info.

Vlad symrak · Nov 8, 2017

Try to play more easily and freely and trust your instincts and luck!Excessive experience also complicates the game and increases the care too much!Get pleasure from the game!

Douglas Gonzaga · Nov 8, 2017

Try to change your playing style, and be more selective in the hands you play.

shinedown.45 · Nov 8, 2017

mbrenneman0 said:
Could be either defending too wide or not defending enough. Could be poor OOP play, could be not 3 betting vs steals enough... could be a lot of things. We need more info.

I know it could be alot of things, but having people give me their first thoughts is helpful, It gives me an idea where to start looking.

I see I have a problem defending to a 3 or 4-bet.
How many BBs should I feel comfortable with when defending and what range should I be looking at to defend with?

PepeTurtle · Nov 8, 2017

shinedown.45 said:
I know it could be alot of things, but having people give me their first thoughts is helpful, It gives me an idea where to start looking.

I see I have a problem defending to a 3 or 4-bet.
How many BBs should I feel comfortable with when defending and what range should I be looking at to defend with?

I would say with 35BB's+. But even though you've lost more in the BB, what astonishes me is your SB. Because this is, or should be by principle, the easiest position to get away from hands. That may be indicative of some sort of looseness/passiveness, temptation of pricing factor with connectors or small pairs and in the end is just bleeding.

Maybe tighten up your SB correcting what you call/3bet from there and then based on this correction you stretch it a bit for the big blind.

Just a guess, I would really like to see concrete examples of these losses .

Best Regards

MattRyder · Nov 8, 2017

I rarely play the blinds without reasonable cards for the situation. I always make a note of people who do, and in particular those who 3-bet from the SB, cuz these are people that i will be looking to take advantage of later when the opportunity presents itself.

oldolm · Nov 8, 2017

sometimes is good to call min bet from BB when someone steal . you can call sometimes and watch flop

korneel · Nov 8, 2017

oldolm said:
sometimes is good to call min bet from BB when someone steal . you can call sometimes and watch flop

I do that
But I'm having trouble with 'sometimes' I call too wide...

David macdonald · Nov 8, 2017

shinedown.45 said:
I have noticed that I have been losing too many chips when in the SB and BB.
I'm winning chips in all other positions.
What reasons could be costing me in the blinds?

People always steal in position to take the bb, simply if you dont have a hand fold! Wait your time then steal one yourself

playinggameswithu · Nov 8, 2017

You should seriously consider calling to defend the big blind more often. I always look out for players who give up their BB easily in tournaments so I can run them over and steal their blinds antes.

You really want to be a liberal blind defender so in the later stages of tournament you do not get exploited by the whole table as everyone is just trying to survive another orbit by stealing the blinds.

Any pocket pair plays well post flop. 53S,64S,76S,56S, J10S,Q10S

Stay away from reverse implied odds hands like K7o,Q5o,J2o

If a board is not connected or close or flush draw you can check raise bluff or the more preferred check raise semi bluff what you read as a C-bet

mbrenneman0 · Nov 8, 2017

shinedown.45 said:
I know it could be alot of things, but having people give me their first thoughts is helpful, It gives me an idea where to start looking.

I see I have a problem defending to a 3 or 4-bet.
How many BBs should I feel comfortable with when defending and what range should I be looking at to defend with?

That all depends on pot odds. The better the price you get the wider your range should be.

Do you have stats for yourself?

iwont20 · Nov 8, 2017

EV BB/100, not amount of chips is what you should look at. And SB and BB are positions where usually winrate is negative, but that's very nice if it near zero or even positive.

Bozovicdj · Nov 8, 2017

Usually people have a problem in the SB and BB because they tend to call some raises pre flop, based on good pot odds.

For example, early position raises 3BB, 2 players call, and when the decision is on you, its a 10.5 BB flop and you need to call only 2BB to win it all if a flop hits. The range of hands people call with is too vast, even some 84s are in there

I have seen a lot of people losing money that way, especially if some 822 flop comes and they think they are good

Another situation is where only SB and BB are left, SB is tempted to raise and does, BB re-raises but both have bad hands.

Even when a player has good hand and sees the flop, it is hard to play out of position unless you know a trick or two

AlexTheOwl · Nov 8, 2017

Hold on everybody. iwont20 has the right idea.

shinedown's bb/100 is -16 in the SB and -18 in the BB.

It's completely normal for winning players to have negative bb/100 stats in the blinds. If you do some googling you'll see various estimates for what loss rate is acceptable. -16 and -18 look pretty good to me.

As Blackrain79 says:

"
BlackRain79September 19, 2015 at 5:06 PM
Everybody loses from the blinds. As one of the biggest winners ever at NL2 even I lost in the blinds although I came close to break even. At all higher stakes you will lose for sure and it will be a double digit number."

http://www.blackrain79.com/2014/06/good-win-rates-for-micro-and-small_6.html

mbrenneman0 · Nov 8, 2017

Bozovicdj said:
For example, early position raises 3BB, 2 players call, and when the decision is on you, its a 10.5 BB flop and you need to call only 2BB to win it all if a flop hits. The range of hands people call with is too vast, even some 84s are in there
I have seen a lot of people losing money that way, especially if some 822 flop comes and they think they are good

They should be. they will be making a killing if they are calling 84s every time they are getting 1:5, but they must know how to play out of posiiton well and know when to put the pedal to the metal with aggression and when to back off or fold.

Another situation is where only SB and BB are left, SB is tempted to raise and does, BB re-raises but both have bad hands.

ive done the math once, and assuming the SB is capable of playing 100% mistake free postflop, they can open raise 100% of hands in the SB profitably, however some players like to have a SB limping range that can make even more but this is reserved for higher stakes. the problem is, no one is capable of playing mistake free, so the more mistake prone you are and the worse you are at playing out of position, the more you need to narrow you're range. i think most players should be open raising about 60-70% of hands in SB vs BB

but yeah, youre BB/100 in the blinds isnt too bad. I think depending on the stakes, you have a little room to improve though

Bozovicdj · Nov 9, 2017

well, unless we are talking about some stages of the tournament with high BB and ante, there isn't much money to win when raising on the SB (with SB and BB left), or defending from the BB.
When you look at his stats, you can see that he sees 28% of the flops while on SB or BB, meaning he plays almost every 3rd hand out of position which is kinda a lot.

ive done the math once, and assuming the SB is capable of playing 100% mistake free postflop, they can open raise 100% of hands in the SB profitably, however some players like to have a SB limping range that can make even more but this is reserved for higher stakes. the problem is, no one is capable of playing mistake free, so the more mistake prone you are and the worse you are at playing out of position, the more you need to narrow you're range. i think most players should be open raising about 60-70% of hands in SB vs BB

Actually, the math behind this was already done, and it says that 44.2% of the hands should raise from the SB in SB vs BB situations, where 84s is almost at the very bottom of it. However, unless a player is familiar with playing out of position, that range should be narrowed.

AlexTheOwl · Nov 9, 2017

Bozovicdj said:
When you look at his stats, you can see that he sees 28% of the flops while on SB or BB, meaning he plays almost every 3rd hand out of position which is kinda a lot.

What is the math behind this number?

(10,733 BB hands +10,837 SB hands) / 78956 total hands = 27% of all the hands he is dealt are in the SB or BB. He has no control over this, of course, except to avoid short-handed tables.

But I am not sure how to calculate what percentage of the flops that he sees are from the blinds.

I don't see how it can be calculated from the information we have, keeping in mind that:
- checking from the BB leads to seeing a flop, but does not add to VPIP.
- completing from the SB does not always lead to seeing a flop, but adds to VPIP.
- raising from the blinds counts towards VPIP, but does not always lead to seeing a flop.

Bozovicdj said:
Actually, the math behind this was already done, and it says that 44.2% of the hands should raise from the SB in SB vs BB situations, where 84s is almost at the very bottom of it. However, unless a player is familiar with playing out of position, that range should be narrowed.

Where does the 44.2% number come from? Is it Nash? Wouldn't the actual ideal number be highly dependent on player behavior at the stakes he plays, and on ICM considerations in tournaments?

AKbadboyAK · Nov 9, 2017

I think you're giving out a lot of lime with hands that do not play very well after the flop.

redmast · Nov 9, 2017

If you answer a flight, with an average or a bad card, and at the same time use your BB or MB, then naturally there will be losses.You can do this if you have 5-7BB left. Do not feel sorry for your BB and even more MB. Throw it away.

Bozovicdj · Nov 9, 2017

You were right, I messed up the math, The real percentage of the hands he is seeing is round 35.5% based on the stats he showed.

I don't see how it can be calculated from the information we have, keeping in mind that:
- checking from the BB leads to seeing a flop, but does not add to VPIP.
- completing from the SB does not always lead to seeing a flop, but adds to VPIP.
- raising from the blinds counts towards VPIP, but does not always lead to seeing a flop.

Let's say, due to what you stated, my calculation is off by 20% thats still 35.5-7.1=28.4%

As for the range of hands that should raise the SB, and be successful in the long run, I got the table from Upswing Poker. But I have seen the same table from pokerstrategy.com equilab on google images, you can search it as well.

Verfox · Nov 9, 2017

Position bro, all about the position, i play in early with monsters only

AlexTheOwl · Nov 9, 2017

Thanks for the clarifications Bozovicdj.

Bozovicdj said:
Let's say, due to what you stated, my calculation is off by 20% thats still 35.5-7.1=28.4%

I don't think that's necessarily bad. He's defending his blinds. ~27% of his dealt hands are to the blinds, and ~28% of the hands he plays are from the blinds.

It seems backwards that he is only raising 10% of his hands from the button, but defending his BB 23% of the time. But the 23% BB VPIP does not seem like an outrageous number to me, if he is defending effectively.

shinedown.45 said:
I see I have a problem defending to a 3 or 4-bet.
How many BBs should I feel comfortable with when defending and what range should I be looking at to defend with?

If there is a problem, it's that he is defending the blinds by calling. His fold BB to steal is on the low side:

https://www.pokertracker.com/videos/PT4/leaktracker/leaktracker-fold-bb-to-steal

And the gap between his VPIP and PFR on the BB is huge. That's a bad combination. It makes him a pre-flop calling station from the BB.

Maybe he is making up for it with aggressive post-flop play, like 3-betting c-bets and floating flops?

As noted above, his overall bb/100 for the blinds is decent.

Syltan · Nov 9, 2017

The fact that you lose chips in these positions is not surprising since these are the worst poses at the postflop table.

I'm losing too many chips in the blinds.

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