Defending Your Blinds During Tournament Play
April 23, 2009
Tournaments are a tough nut to crack. Unlike ring games where you just need to accumulate a certain amount of chips to be profitable, tournament players need to collect all the chips at a given tournament. And unlike ring games where you can rebuy if you get a bad beat; in tournaments, the same scenario can be disastrous.
So one needs to accumulate and keep chips at all costs. Not doing so will mean the end of your tournament life. Unfortunately, thanks to what we call the blinds, even if you don’t play a single hand, you will end up donating chips to the pot. And as the blinds increase, you will end up donating a substantial amount of your stack to the pile of chips in front of you.
Unlike ring games where you are more able to give up your blinds easily, tournament poker is different. Defending your blinds becomes crucial. Keep in mind that you can’t wait for a good hand during tournaments. There is a time factor and the blinds are steadily increasing. You can’t afford to allow people to keep stealing your blinds. Not only will doing so substantially decrease your chip stack, you are also advertising yourself as an easy mark. Keep allowing others to steal your blinds and your opponents will do it more often.
By defending your blinds, you are signifying that your opponents will need to fight for your chips. At the very least, this will stop poker players from attempting to steal your blinds with very mediocre hands as they know there is a possibility that they will get called.
But don’t go too far by defending your blinds way too often as well. Like other things in poker, do this too much and you may very well end up sabotaging yourself. Why defend your blinds if you’re holding 7-2? Calling a raise with very bad cards will almost always mean less money in your stack.
Like anything else in poker, it is all a question of seeking a balance. Know when to defend your blinds and keep in mind that this is important and you need to do this during tournaments. At the same time, don’t go overboard by defending your blinds every single time. This is one aspect of tournament play that can help you get in the money, and maybe even win the big one.
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