Poker World

Defending Your Blind from a Thief

Nobody has a good hand all the time. Anybody who does is probably getting the cards from up their sleeve. So when the player to your right seems to always be stealing the pot when you’re in the big blind, you can either assume he gets the best hand in the world whenever he is in that particular position or he is bluffing most of the time.

If the aforementioned player continues to try to steal the blinds when you’re sitting in the big blind position, this means that they have picked up on something about you that indicates to them that you’re likely to give in when they get aggressive. Continuing to fold until really good hole cards just happen to show up when you’re sitting in the big blind position will do nothing to discourage this behavior. It will just validate that they can push you around with their bets. To stop this behavior, you need to stand up to this player.

We have all been told that to beat a bully you must stand up to them. In the real world this is a good way to get a free ride to the hospital: bullies are usually bullies because they are bigger and stronger than most people in their peer group. At the table a bully is only fueled by your weakness. Because they can’t have the nuts every time you are in the big blind, you can logically conclude they are mostly bluffing. In this case you can feel good about playing with a lower quality hand, because you can bet that the chances are pretty good that they are lying about the strength of their hand. So when they try to steal the pot, match their aggression - bet and raise with impunity. This is the best defense to this situation.