Building Your Image by Defending Your Blinds

It's no secret that I advocate a loose, but aggressive approach to poker. The first reason I believe it is a great style to play is because, well, it's often mathematically correct to bet at a pot rather than check, call, or fold. But the second reason I advise people to add aggression, mixed in with the right amount of loose play, to their arsenal is because of the image you develop as you toss money into the pot, and the rewards you can reap from that image later.

Let me warn you though, this style isn't for the weak-hearted. Your variance swings will become wider and, unless you have the proper bankroll (20 maximum buy-ins for the stakes), you won't be able to withstand it anyways. However, there is a cheap way to build this wild/loose image, and although it will initially cost you a little money, you probably will put yourself into position for a bigger pot later on that session. I'll now just get to the point... DEFEND YOUR BLINDS!

By defending those blinds (and by that, I mean calling a standard preflop raise), you will be tricking your opponents into thinking you are some reckless player destined to lose your money. And you know what, to a point they are correct in thinking those who regularly defend their blinds and play these pots OOP are consistent losers. Little do they know that all you're doing is giving away some money now to win a lot back more later on.

Let me now show you exactly why it can be profitable to defend your blinds:

1. It doesn't cost much to defend a preflop raise here and there.
2. You're building your loose/wild image at a cheap rate.
3. Down the road, if you get a good hand, by having that loose/wild image, you are MUCH more likely to win a bigger pot than if you didn't.

3betting & 4betting preflop

I've been easing myself back into the thick of all things poker-blogging-related, and two days ago I realized it had been a year since I'd logged into my bloglines account. Turns out that the poker-blogging world was able to survive without me, as thousands of posts were published since I left. In an attempt to catch up, I picked 20 sites from which I would read the last year's posts, and from all the posts on those 20 sites, a few in particular caught my attention. Today I want to discuss a section of one post made by the Surly Poker Gnome:

In general, I like the idea of rarely four-betting (except against donks when you have a premium hand, or in multiway pots that you want to get heads-up). It allows you to get pretty good odds relative to the pot size when holding speculative hands like low pocket pairs, and it also disguises the strength of your hand when you hold Aces or Kings. The whole point of the game is to get paid off, and the way to do that is to win big pots when your speculative hands hit and not to go bust with overpairs.

I believe the most important concept of preflop betting (and all betting, for that matter) is that it shouldn't be automatic. Everything depends on your opponents, your table image, your position, your cards, stack sizes and the previous betting action. If you don't feel like you can call a four-bet, then maybe cold calling is the best option. If you have a hand like 76s, you should probably fold against a short stack raiser because you're not getting good enough implied odds. If you know someone sees most flops, don't hesitate to make your raises very expensive with your premium hands.

The part I'd like to draw your attention to is where she says "In general, I like the idea of rarely four-betting (except against donks when you have a premium hand, or in multiway pots that you want to get heads-up). It allows you to get pretty good odds relative to the pot size when holding speculative hands like low pocket pairs, and it also disguises the strength of your hand when you hold Aces or Kings. The whole point of the game is to get paid off, and the way to do that is to win big pots when your speculative hands hit and not to go bust with overpairs."

If you rarely 4-bet like the Surly Poker Gnome says, and just call opponents' 3-bets with premium hands like AA and KK, you are giving up a rather large edge preflop and losing out on quite a bit of value. Granted, you may disguise your big hands extremely well PF, but if your opponent is going to 3bet you PF, he's more than likely to continue putting money in the pot either way (unless you are at a table where 3-betting is commonplace - which is a rarity). You may as well give him a chance to make his mistake PF as opposed to post-flop, where he won't have the chance to escape from "scary" boards.

Also, if your opponents know you are going to be 4-betting most of the time with strong hands such as AA or KK, that opens up the opportunity for the rare, but effective-in-the-right-spot 4-bet bluff. Let's say you find yourself in a situation where you're the table bully, and your image is that of a maniac (and if you're playing low-stakes NLHE and you don't have that image, you're not playing the right way) . You can almost take it to the bank that somebody is soon going to 3bet one of your PF raises with a weak hand that cannot call a 4bet bluff. If you and your opponent had the right amount of chips, and you were cognizant of the situation, this would be an example of a right spot to 4bet bluff PF.

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What's up Japan, Spain, Florida, Belgium, Bahrain, Ireland, Maine, Korea, and Connecticut!