As far as blind defense goes you should look up some articles by Rolf Slotboom on Poker Pages. He has some very good insights into this topic. My own blind defense follows pretty much his philosophy as well. I would much rather call a raise in the BB with a hand like 57s than KJ because many times those types of cards are tied up in your opponents hand with better kickers which lead to extra losses. I routinely muck A rags against steals as well for the same reason but give me 46s and I am seeing a flop against the thief. I play alot of 36 limit with 1.00 Small Blind so there are not too many times I will be seeing a flop from that position and more often than not when I do it is with a raise or reraise against a late position limper or stealer.
I play 4 to 5 tables at all times and if you are planning on doing this or at least playing up to 3 tables I HIGHLY recommend getting PokerTracker. The Game Time + tool is just a remarkable asset to help you keep up with who is doing what at all the tables. It is often very easy to see who the maniacs are even when 5 tabling but you don't as quickly pick up on who hasn't seen a flop in the last year and then they raise, now your AJ on the button has lost alot of value and many times should be heading in the muck preflop. Case in point today, I raise UTG with AQs and get three bet by huge FISH which doesn't worry me a whole lot, but then the Rock of Ages caps it and it's back to me. The old AQs goes in the muck and I might not have folded this hand if I had not been aware of the Rock's stats. FISH ends up winning with AA:) and Rock had QQ. Not a particularly nice spot for AQs.
Play extremely tight in EP and don't go overboard in loosening up in MP and don't be afraid to fold when you know you are beat. Good luck.
PS. When John_Galt raises from the blinds at PokerStars you can safely muck your AK:)Statistics: Posted by piersmajestyk — Fri Jan 07, 2005 10:40 pm
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