Whether or not to defend your big blind is a bigger decision than most people think. When considering blind defense, think about what type of hand you have. Additionally, one must consider the position of the opening raiser, stack sizes and the playing style of the raiser. Remember this; the Poker Star Phil Hellmuth was quoted as saying that he won 11 bracelets in the World Series of Poker by, “Trapping the Big Blind”. Do not let yourself fall into the same trap as the victims of Phil Hellmuth. Here are a few tips on whether or not you should defend your big blind.
Let us assume the raiser is a tight-aggressive player. First, look at the type of hand you have. Generally, you do not want to have a hand that is likely to be dominated. A hand like 10-9 suited is often better than a hand like K-10 because opponents are more likely to be raising hands like AK, KQ, and KJ rather than Q-10, or Q-9. In other words, if you have K-10, you are going to be dominated many more times on average than you will with 10-9 suited.
Imagine you defended with K10 and the flop comes K22. You are going to lose a lot of money if the raiser has AK or KQ. This is exactly how Phil Hellmuth traps his opponents!
Next, you have to identify what kind of player the raiser is. If he is a loose-aggressive player, you can then start to defend with hands like K-10. When a loose player raises your big blind, you generally do not want to defend with a hand that needs to hit the flop. In other words, hands with Aces and Kings go up in value, because they might not need to hit the flop to win. Therefore, hands like 10-9s go down in value.
If raiser is doing so from under-the-gun or middle position, you have to give him credit for having a PokerStar.com big hand. In a situation like this, the best type of hand to have is a small pair. Situations like this can win you a lot of money.
For example, a player under-the-gun raises, and somehow, maybe through a Tell he gives off, you know he has Aces. The best hand you can possibly have is a small pair. You can call his raise, and if you hit your set, you may get his entire stack since he has such a big hand. On the other hand, if the raiser is opening from late position, since there is such a big likelihood that he is stealing, the best play is to re-raise. When you have junk, throw it away, but since many times he will be stealing, a reraise will often take down the pot pre-flop. Try this with hands like K10, K9, Q10s and J10.