A Guide to The Small and Big Blind in Poker

The blinds are an important part of poker gameplay. They ensure chips are always in the pot so that players have a reason to enter and compete. Without the blinds, there would be no point entering pots unless you had the very top starting hands.

Being in the small and big blind is generally a disadvantage in poker and this makes it tough to play well from these positions.

This guide will teach you more about what blinds are, why they are so important, and how to improve your strategy.

What are the blinds?

In poker, the dealer button moves around the table so that each player spends one turn in each position per orbit. Some positions are more advantageous than others, such as being on or near the button.

The small and big blinds are positions at the table. The small blind sits one to the left of the dealer and the big blind sits one to the left of the small blind.

When it is your turn in the blinds, you’ll pay a compulsory bet into the pot before you have even looked at your cards.

Small blind – The small blind is usually half of the amount of the big blind. So, if the big blind is $1 then the small blind will pay $0.50 into the pot.

Big blind – The big blind is the full amount of the blind level and so is the costliest position at the table.

A word on antes

Antes are an additional blind bet that adds extra money into the pot. The ante is paid by every player at the table and usually adds around one more big blind’s worth of chips. This makes each pot more enticing, encourages aggression, and makes the game more exciting.

The antes usually come into play in the mid-stages of live and online poker tournaments. In online poker, antes can be automatically added to the pot every hand, so the antes don’t slow the action down.

In live tournaments, it’s become common practice to have what is known as a big blind ante. Instead of getting every player to put in tiny amounts each turn, a full orbit’s worth of antes is paid as an extra big blind bet.

In any case, when antes come into play it changes strategy. Stealing blinds and winning pots preflop becomes much more profitable.

Blinds in cash games vs tournaments

In both tournaments and cash games, the blinds are a compulsory bet that must be paid by the players who sit in the blind positions. This is paid before the cards are dealt.

Still, there’s a big difference between how blinds work in cash games versus tournaments. In cash games, blind levels always stays the same and are predetermined before the game starts. So, if a cash game table has $0.50/$1 blinds, then they will remain this way for the entire game.

In cash games, the blinds effectively determine the stakes of the game and the buy-in required. Players can scale up and down the available blind levels to change stakes.

From a strategy perspective, blinds are even more important in live and online poker tournaments. In tournament poker, blinds increase at set intervals. Tournament poker, therefore, is essentially a race against the blinds.

Each time the blinds increase, players have less chips relative to the blinds, which also means the pots created by the blind bets are worth more as the game progresses. In tournaments, the blinds make preflop aggression increasingly valuable and crucial to survival.

Poker strategy from the blinds

One of the first lessons of poker strategy is the importance of position. If you have position by being on the button or close to it, then you will have the advantage by acting last in the pot. You get more information on what everyone does and can take the final actions in the hand.

Being in either the small or big blind is a disadvantage, as you’ll be out of position in the pot and forced to act first on each street.

You wouldn’t usually play weak hands from out of position. Yet when you’re in the blinds, you’ll already have some chips in the pot and you’ve paid the bet with what could be any two cards.

The top poker players in the world know how to navigate these tough situations to minimize losses and maximize their chances of winning the pot. So, how do you navigate this situation?

Small blind

From the small blind, you will always be in the worst position postflop. You’ve only paid half a big blind to see your hand, which means you’re not heavily invested in the pot. Unless you have a decent hand and are getting a good price to call, it’s usually best to fold your hand from the small blind.

If you do have a strong hand, you’ll usually want to reraise preflop to negate your positional disadvantage.

Big blind

From the big blind, you’re still not in a great situation if you call to play the hand, as you’ll usually be out of position postflop. The difference here is that you’ve already paid a full big blind bet, which means you’re more heavily invested in the pot.

You’ll often be a getting a good price to call when players make a small raise preflop. This makes it worthwhile calling to defend your chips with more hands than you would do in the small blind. However, you still have to proceed with caution postflop.