Hold'Em - Protecting Your Blinds

Blinds are forced bets - without them there would be no game(as no one would bet, unless they had the best hand!) To be successful in poker, you must know when someone is attempting to steal your blinds. Of course, if you are clever you can learn to steal other players blinds too.

Blinds are forced bets made at the start of each hand by the 2 players on the left of the dealer. The player on the left makes the small blind, and the player on the small blind's left makes the big blind. The small blind is usually half the big blind. Please note blinds are different from antes used in some games(an ante is forced bet made by every player).

At the start the blinds are small to have no real effect, but in the latter stages of tournament play blinds become huge in comparison to a player's remaining chips. Also, any time you chips have started to dwindle, you may find the blinds are big in comparison to your remaining chips.

Knowing that 2 player's have been forced to make bets without knowing the strength of their hands, other players in late position may try and steal them with sub-standard hands, by perhaps making big bets indicating they have big hands. The player's on the blinds then have the decision of folding, and losing this forced bet, or calling or raising.

What you do of course, depends on what you know about the other player. If you don't know much about them, it might be worthwhile seeing the hand through(if the price is low), to see if they were on a steal, so you'll know for next time. If you have a goodm but not great hand, again it may be worth playing, on the chance he is on a steal. Your exact decision of course is bases on the implied pot odds, how much you have to lose if you are wrong and what you know about the other player.

Remember with clever player, holding nothing, you too can steal other player's blinds...