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Blind Play In NL MTT: A Strategic Overview

One of the trickier aspects of tournament play is how you approach play from the blinds. You have money already invested in the pot, yet you’re out of position for the entire hand postflop. The ability to play good poker out of the blinds is crucial for becoming a good overall poker player, and this section will give you a good basis of understanding for playing hands in the small and big blind.

There are many misconceptions amongst rookies about the similarity of being in the small blind and being in the big blind. The only difference, to them, is the small blind only having half a blind forced in the pot. Since they’ve already made an investment into the pot, they’re obviously putting the other half in cheaply to see the flop. This logic, while common, is also flawed. There will be a fair amount of times when, even with half a blind invested in the pot, you would be wise to give up your investment without contest.

A perfect example of this is in the middle stages of a tournament, when blinds are getting high, but antes haven’t kicked in. A tight, solid player limps from 1st position for $150. Everyone folds to you in the small blind, and you look down at 8c2h. You have a $1275 stack, $75 invested, and $375 in the pot, and it costs you $75 to call. In this situation, a fold should be automatic. Look at your pot odds; you’re paying $75 to attempt to win a pot of $450, giving you 5:1 direct odds to win the pot. The problems in this calculation, however, are less obvious. One thing to consider is the big blind, who has yet to act on his hand. If he raises, even if he just doubles the blind, are you willing to invest another $150 to see the flop? If you answered no, congrats, at least you’re getting out with some chips intact.

But, if you say, “Wait, I put $150 chips in the pot already, how can I fold for $150 more? It’s that pot odds thing, right?” Your pot odds to call $150 more actually remain the same; (5:1 @ $150 to win $900) two problems arise from making this call, though. The first one stems from your implied odds, “If I hit my hand, how much can I expect to profit, knowing sometimes I may lose when I hit?” By investing more money in as an obvious underdog in the hand, you naturally detract from the amount of money you can extract later in the hand. And with something as weak as 82o, you’re going to have to flop something powerful; two pair or trips; to feel like you have an extracting type of hand. Those flops come very infrequently, though, something in the neighborhood of 30:1. Your pot odds (5:1) and your implied odds (with $975 chips left, you could only extract $1,950 chips from the remaining two players, giving you just 2:1 against the size of the pot) are your guideline for making this an easy fold.

The second, and more important reason, is the utilization of those chips in more profitable situations. Instead of limping in the small blind for $75 with 82o, leaving yourself $1,200, why not just muck, keep your $75, and look for a better opportunity to wield your chips against the blinds? The extra $75, seemingly insignificant, can be the difference between your stack being able to steal blinds and the big blind being pot committed to call your shove. Especially in later levels, where stack sizes are tiny compared to the blinds, half a big blind can make all the difference in how a hand plays out.

With this in mind, it’s good to have a guideline of sorts for limping/raising standards when playing out of the blinds. Notice that the guideline changes as the tournament progresses; middle-late and late stage tournament play will be discussed in a later article.

Based on PokerStars Blind Structures ($1,500 starting chips, assuming your stack is roughly average)

Early Stages ($10/$20-$75/$150)

Unraised Pots

Raise- QQ+, AKs (NOTE: Be sure the raise here is stout; add roughly one big blind to your normal raise for every limper in the pot, so if, for example, 4 players limp in the $10/$20 level and you’re dealt AKs, instead of making it $60, you’d make it $120.This way, you’re negating your positional disadvantage by charging players incorrectly to see the flop.)

Call- 22+, Ax+, Kx+, Q5+, J7+, 107+, any connected suited or one gap connected suited cards (NOTE: This is as loose as you’ll see requirements here, as the stages increase, the bottom level of calling hands drop out and the upper tier of calling hands start to raise.)

Raised Pots

Reraise- QQ+, AKs (NOTE: With all of these hands except AA, my reraise is also going to be on the big side, somewhere between 3.5x-4.5x the original raise. So, if a middle position player makes it $100, my reraise is going to be between $350-$450 instead of the typical $300. I prefer to end the hand now rather than take a flop, especially with QQ.)

Call-66+, A10s+, AJo+, KQs (NOTE: This area can be a bit tricky; if there are two or more callers, I stretch out to all pocket pairs and most suited aces, but if it’s been folded to you, I drop sixes, sevens, A10s, KQs and AJo out of my range.)

Early-Middle Stages ($100/$200-$300/$600 [$50])

Unraised Pots

Raise- 77+, A10s+, AJo+, KQs (NOTE: We added a few hands here to take advantage of the antes that have now kicked in, along with the additional knowledge that no one in this pot has shown a great interest in it. Be wary of early position limpers, but, for the most part, go ahead and attack the blinds and antes with this range.)

Call- 22-66, Axs, K10s+, KJo, KQo, QJs, Q10s, J10s (NOTE: Your hand range to call with has dropped dramatically, here, but the escalating blinds force your hand, here. Also, if the table has folded to your small blind or you’re in the big blind and only the small blind has called, all the hands in this list become fine raising hands. You only have one player to beat, so aggression is key. If there is more than one caller, however, it’s best to just stick to the guideline.)

Raised Pots

Raise-JJ+,AQs, AKo/AKs (NOTE: We can add a few new hands to our reraising range here, as the escalating blinds will make stealing more prevalent. The size of the reraise here becomes more important, though. Against a single raiser, if their stack remaining behind them is fairly short, M=8 or less, I prefer to shove rather than make a 3x reraise with JJ/AQo. Example; a player with $4,600 opens for $600 on the button, and you have AQo in the $200 BB. If you make it $1,800, he can flat for $1,200 and leave you in an awkward position on flops with overs (JJ) or medium cards (AQ) given your position in the hand. In order to negate that positional disadvantage, a shove here works wonders. With the stronger hands, the 2.5x-3x reraise can be more effective at extracting chips.)

Call-77+, A10s+, AJo+, KQ (NOTE: The blinds aren’t high enough here to justify getting reckless with these hands, if you have a good sized stack of M>8 or so. If you suspect a button raiser of being a bit light, any of these hands can justify a reraise, but against EP and MP players, a flat call seems more prudent.)

Middle Stages-Late Stages ($400/$800-Final Table)

Unraised Pots

Raise- 77+, A9s+, A10o+, KQs/o, KJs (NOTE: We widen our range as the other players in the tournament widen their ranges to attack the blinds, which now account for crucial chunks of their stack. Given that information, we can widen our reraise range to take full advantage; a lot of advanced tournament players have much wider ranges for raising than ours. We’re keeping ours at a slightly more conservative range in order to make things simpler on our end. We have some weaker hands in there, like KJs and 77, to throw off people who expect us to be playing tight somewhat. But, in general, we’re continuing with a solid, tight aggressive game with this range, which should be wide enough to pick off bluffers and get paid off when they have a hand they can put their stack in with.)

Call- In this stage of the tournament, given our relative skill level, I think choosing to never flat call, as a beginning player, is actually an acceptable strategy. By only reraising or folding, you take flop play out of the equation from your blind play, meaning position is rarely a factor in your decision making processes. As you become a more advanced player, you can start to do a few more advanced maneuvers, like the stop and go, or taking a flop to float a hyper-aggressive player in order to take it from him on the turn. Until you’re comfortable with that, however, advocating a strict raise/fold policy from the blinds later in a tournament is perfectly acceptable.

Raised Pots

Raise- 1010+, AJs+, AQo+ (Again, some fluctuation here is needed to elaborate our ranges a bit better. If the raiser is early position and has at least a medium stack, I think 1010 and AJs are OK to just muck. If the raiser is late position, I’m fully capable of 3-betting with 55 or A8s if I feel like the raiser is weak and I can take the pot most of the time.)

Call- I’m still inclined to go with the raise/fold philosophy of playing the blinds here, especially if you’re a rookie, with one glaring exception. AA/KK can work as a flat calling hand if your opponent is hyper-aggro. Your opponent opens on the Co to 2.5x, and you’re in the BB with AA. The best way to extract chips from a hyper-aggro player is to flat, then check/raise-shove any flop. A 3-bet, especially from you, given the tight guidelines this primer has laid out, will induce a fold from all but the top tier hands if the opponent is observant. The flat-check play, though, can cause your opponent to c-bet most flops with air against you.

Blind play in NLH tournaments can be one of the most tricky aspects of your game to develop. By starting with these rigid, tight guidelines, and learning how to adapt them to your game and expand from them, you’ll find it easier than most players to elevate your game in blind play to another level. We’ll talk about the float and the stop and go in a later article, but for now, start utilizing the ranges listed in your game and get more profitable immediately.

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