How does Blind Structure affect your Play

[BKAZ]

I started playing NL regularly about a month ago ($25 buy in at Party) and have done well but the only place I play is party.

I am fairly tight: VP$IP ~ 12%, went to show down ~30%, won at show down ~55%.

A few Questions:

What difference does the reduced blind structure make?

What adjustments if any should I look at?

At first glance it looks like a few more people are limping and seeing the flop, I assume that is good?

Appreciate your comments / feedback.

BK

[Rhound50]

BK

To tell you the truth Im not sure how the blind structure will change play. I think that the bad players are going to play the same way. People are still going to call big raises with weak hands. Deeper stacks compared to the blinds, definatly helps the better tight players. You can see twice as many hands now for the same price. This should allow tight players to play more patiently and wait for monsters. It will be really interesting to see if the play changes after a little while, if the change really does hurt the bad players enough that they quit playing at party or learn to play tigher,

[APerfect10]

You can see twice as many hands now for the same price.

You can see twice as many hands now for one buy-in; however, you are still paying twice the price

Deeper stacks allows you to bet properly where as before you or the opposition would run out of the $25 stack. So things such as check-raising, re-raising etc are now more valuable IMHO. I also think the changed blind structure increases the value of the all-in.

[kennyg]

Fodling becomes a much more powerful option because you are not pot commited nearly as often.

[APerfect10]

2 additional things...

1. Low pocket pairs increase in value as you can now extract more when you flop that set.
2. In general, post flop play is now enhanced and reads on opponents are more important. It will be much more difficult to auto pilot IMHO. Therefore 6-8 tabling may be impossible...

[iceman5]

Im not so sure that small pairs go up in value. Back when I was playing Party, I got a guy all in with a set in a raised pot almost every time. Thats because once he raised preflop and then bet the flop, he was pot committed and wasnt folding.

With deeper stacks, people can get away from overpairs easier. Well, the good players can anyway. Its much tougher to get a guy all in with a 100BB stack even if he does have AA. Of course you can still do it, but its not going to happen EVERY time you call a raise with 44 and hit a set like it would if ther stack were shallower.

The lower blinds shouldnt change your play much at all. You still dont want to limp UTG with QJ just because its cheaper to do it.

Stack sizes have more to do with adjusting your play than the actual smaller blinds. Of coure with smaller blinds there will be definition be a higher avg stack in the game, but there will still be plenty of people buying in for $50 in the .50/$1 blind NL game just like they did before.