Brian Hastings is a professional poker player with 20 years of experience across a variety of formats — cash games and tournaments, no-limit hold’em and mixed games. He has won six WSOP bracelets and is a no-limit hold’em and mixed-game coach at Run it Once and Octopi Poker.
Let’s talk about defending the big blind when you're playing tournaments.
You play more hands from the big blind than any other position. There are two key reasons for this. First, when you call a raise from the big blind, you close the action unless there's a three-bet in front of you. There's no possibility of someone else three-betting behind you if you call an open, unlike when you call a raise from any other position.
The second reason is that you’re getting a good price to continue. One very common example: if you're playing a live tournament with a big blind ante and an opponent from outside the blinds min-raises, you're getting 4.5 to 1 to defend your big blind.
In order to make defending the big blind wide a good strategy, you don't need to do anything unusually fancy. That’s a common misconception You can just play poker and develop balanced continuing ranges on various flops.
If your opponent continuation bets the flop, you get to check-raise with some value and some bluffs (and some merges), but you don't really need to reach and check-raise hands with no interaction to the board to make defending a marginal hand a good play. You just take your great price to defend and attempt to realize as much equity as you can with your range.
You can use ICM trainers to get acclimated to big blind defense strategies. You can get some good practice playing these kinds of spots by putting in time with the trainers.
Three-betting from the big blind
The other form of big blind defense is three-betting from the big blind. You will be three-betting a more polar range in the big blind than you are from any other position. Again, this comes down to the fact that you are closing the action. Because of that, calling becomes a more attractive option from the big blind than from any other position against a raise. For that reason, a lot of hands prefer calling. Additionally, three-betting from other positions forces the players yet to act out of the pot most of the time; from the big blind this is not a factor.
This means your three-betting range will be mostly a mix of really strong value hands and bottom-of-your-calling-range type bluff hands. This is going to vary depending on stacks, positions, and the stage of the tournament.
Your three-bet for value will often be hands like JJ+, AK, and AQs. Your bluffy hands are often the offsuit hands near the bottom of your defense range, such as A2o, K4o, and T-7o.
Playing the big blind in multiway pots
Another thing I wanted to touch on is multi-way pots. A common misconception is that the more players who call in front of you, the more you want to call because you're getting better pot odds.
This is actually the opposite of how it should work. The reason for this is your equity realization is worse. It is much worse when playing multiway, particularly if you are out of position to everyone.
It's a bit better in situations where an in-position player raises, the small blind calls, and then it's on you in the big blind. Because then, post-flop, you're acting second instead of first.
Either way, the effect of how much your realization goes down in those situations will outweigh the better pot odds you're getting.
You want to play tighter, especially with offsuit hands and hands that struggle to make strong hands. Suited hands still usually defend because they fare a bit better multi-way. After all, a flush is a good hand, and you can still make a flush often enough.
Connected hands, like 7-6o are still okay in many spots, but if you take a hand like Q7o multiway, you're often going to need to make two pair or better to win at showdown. Those are the types of hands that are going to fold more often multiway than heads-up.
Playing from the big blind in tournament late stages
There is another major factor in playing from the big blind in tournament poker: defending the big blind as you progress in the tournament becomes much tighter because of risk premiums (incentive to play tighter and ladder up in a tournament payout structure).
The effect is much bigger when you are covered by the opener, but it exists to an extent even when covering. Another factor that drives tighter defense is that your opponents are often opening tighter later in tournaments due to their own risk premiums, and you should respond accordingly.
You make the largest adjustments when at a final table or other large direct pay-jump situations like the bubble, especially when you are a medium stack and a covering stack opens into your big blind.
Defending the big blind in tournaments — summary
Big blind defense is a very important aspect of tournament poker. You play more hands from the big blind than from any other position. Some of the big blind strategies are also less intuitive, and learning them is a good way to gain an edge on the player population. To practice, I suggest using GTO trainers: I’m fond of the Octopi Poker trainer, but there are plenty of options.
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