In limit poker, for a pot involving three or more players who are not all-in, these limits on raises apply: A game with three or more betting rounds allows a maximum of a bet and three raises. A game with two betting rounds (such as lowball or draw) allows a maximum of a bet and four raises.
- Blind Raise - 1. Raising the hand before looking at your cards. Raising a blind bet before subsequent action occurs. In order to create action, most poker games include a method of seeding the pot before the cards are dealt. In stud games this is done with antes, in flop games it is accomplished with blinds.
- A game of no-limit poker with blinds of $1/$2. Alice is in the small blind, Dianne is in the big blind, Carol is next to act, followed by Joane, with Ellen on the button. Straddle: Alice posts $1, Dianne posts $2, Carol posts a straddle of $4. The hole cards are dealt.
What’s the point of blinds in poker?
Have you ever wondered why there are blinds in poker? Why doesn’t everyone just play for free, and join or leave as they please?
The ‘blinds’ are so called because players have to pay them before they see their cards. They are not optional if you want to join a poker game, and not to be confused with antes. Antes are also a compulsory bet paid by players before their cards are dealt in a tournament, but an ante is usually taken from everyone in every hand. A blind is positional, taken from specific players.
For reference, we should state the purpose of the dealer button, which dictates the position of the blinds in a community card game like Texas Hold’em and Omaha. The dealer button represents the player who, in the “good old days,” used to actually distribute the cards to the other players.
The dealer button is allocated at the start of each hand, and initially two forced blinds are collected:
- The small blind from the first player to receive cards to the left of the dealer.
- The big blind from the second player to receive cards to the left of the dealer.
- If only two players are to be dealt in, the button takes the small blind and the other player pays the big blind.
- Further blinds may be collected from other new players wanting their first hand, or players returning from sitting out.
As their name suggests, the big blind is more expensive than the small blind — usually double. In ring games the blinds are constant, but in tournaments they increase at a predetermined rate. Tournament blind levels are usually scheduled for a set period of time, but may be for a number of hands.
The reason that blinds are collected, particularly in tournaments, is so there is a starting pot for the players to compete for. In tournaments, the blinds increase in size in order to force players to keep up with the average stack as players are eliminated. If there were no blinds in poker games, the best strategy would be to fold everything except premium hands because it would be free to wait. The game simply would not be at all interesting or competitive.
It is important to note that the players who are paying blinds are at a distinct disadvantage for that hand.
- They’re betting without seeing their cards, whereas everyone else is playing for free.
- They must act first in every round of betting in the hand, except for pre-flop.
In order for the blinds to affect everyone equally, there are specific rules which most poker games follow to make things fair for everyone. A well-known and highly respected resource of poker rules and etiquette, Robert’s Rules of Poker, authored by Bob Ciaffone, has this to say about the button and blind obligations:
Poker Blinds Definition
“A new player cannot be dealt in between the big blind and the button. Blinds may not be made up between the big blind and the button. You must wait until the button passes.”
The reason for this is that having a player pay a small blind in that seat might mean a player has had to pay the big blind in two consecutive hands. That would be a severe penalty. You may be moved to an empty seat between the dealer button and the big blind, but you’ll have to wait until the button has moved to your left before you can take a hand. This applies even in tournaments when you move tables.
Also from Robert’s Rules:
“A player who misses any or all blinds can resume play by either posting all the blinds missed or waiting for the big blind. If you choose to post the total amount of the blinds, an amount up to the size of the minimum opening bet is live. The remainder is taken by the dealer to the center of the pot and is not part of your bet. When it is your next turn to act, you have the option to raise.”
This method is used to prevent players from declining to pay their blinds when in the big blind position and then trying to return in a different, more advantageous position for free. They have to pay their dues of a big blind plus a small blind, which they have also skipped. Even if they do come back in the cut off, immediately to the right of the dealer button and in a highly advantageous position, the penalty of paying a small blind as well as a big blind compensates for that.
One of the game dynamics which paying blinds introduces is that players in short-handed games and the final stages of a tournament have to fight to stay alive. Everybody has the same cost each time the blinds get to them. Stronger players will have the ability to cope with the disadvantages forced on them and exploit the forced bets made by others. The better players will try to capitalize on positional play and not waste chips by limping or calling passively.
DECISION POINT: You're playing a tournament, and after posting the big blind (400) you're down to 5,850. Preflop action folds around to the player in the hijack seat who raises. The cutoff folds and the button calls, then the small blind folds. You're in the big blind holding .
PRO ANSWER: After the hijack raises and the button calls, action is on us in the big blind with ace-jack. With just over 15 big blinds, we have an excellent stack size for a reshove. Stack sizes between 10 and 20 big blinds allow us to reshove preflop very effectively, since we have enough chips to create fold equity but not so many chips that we are giving ourselves a poor risk-to-reward ratio.
In this hand, we are risking about 6,000 chips to win just over 3,000 chips, so we can potentially increase our stack size by 50 percent without a showdown. This is an excellent risk-to-reward ratio for us. In addition, our hand has value against a hijack open and a button call.
When To Raise Blinds In Poker
Had the initial raise come from early position, the best play would have been to fold. However, with the raise and call coming from late position, we should move all in. We can win this pot uncontested a fair portion of the time and still have reasonable equity when our all-in push is called.
Moving all in is the best play.
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When To Raise In Holdem
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tournament strategyno-limit hold’emstack sizespreflop strategypositionblind defense