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  1. Texas Holdem Poker Board Game
  2. Texas Holdem Poker Bb Apk
  3. Texas Holdem Poker Blinds
  4. Texas Holdem Poker Blind Clock
  5. Texas Holdem Poker Bbq

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In an effort to speed up the game, poker tournaments are experimenting with a tweaked process for posting antes called the “Big Blind Ante.”

In Big Blind Ante games, instead of each player posting an ante at the beginning of a hand, the BB antes for the entire table.

So far, players overwhelmingly like the big blind ante format. Not only does it speed up the game, it also eliminates the need to keep small denomination chips in play past their usefulness.

But not everything is peachy keen with the new structure.

A debate over what comes first, the ante or the blind bets players are required to post at the start of each hand, has overtaken Poker Twitter.

The debate almost exclusively involves high-stakes poker players and tournament directors, with the two sides arguing player preference vs. fairness.

The two sides of the debate

Poker players are focused on what players would prefer, citing the disappointment an extremely short-stacked player would feel if they were only capable of winning their chips back (the antes) in an all-in situation.

Tournament directors are more interested in changing the long-established norm of antes being posted before the blinds, and whether or not doing the opposite is “fair” to everyone.

The conversation is mainly centered around a situation where a player is extremely short-stacked, and the two radically different outcomes that ante-first or big-blind-first create:

Ante 1st scenario. pic.twitter.com/scZaRLqDnm

— Willie Elliot (@Willie_Hmmm) March 18, 2018

BB 1st scenario. pic.twitter.com/sGpW0ZJHaL

— Willie Elliot (@Willie_Hmmm) March 18, 2018

Texas Holdem Poker Bb

Considering the infrequency and insignificance of the scenario, it may seem trivial. However, there is an important component to this conversation most people are overlooking: game integrity.

Game integrity

In the BB ante format, the big blind is posting the antes for the entire table. That means that each player at the table owes that player a single ante, and the debt is paid when they are in the big blind and pay the antes for the table.

Steve Badger did a good job explaining one scenario where game integrity could be compromised if the ante is considered before the big blind on Twitter:

And it’s not simply a potential issue in unlikely end-of-game scenarios.

Imagine the same all-in situation only it’s the first-hand of a nine-handed single-table-tournament, where each player starts with 100 chips, and there is a two-chip small blind, a four-chip big blind, and a one-chip ante.

On the first hand, each player should have an equal number of chips, but that’s not the case. The big blind is short eight chips that have been “lent” to the other players at the table. In an all-in situation, the big blind is unduly penalized, since they can’t win any other player’s entire stack.

Further, if the BB is eliminated they would never have an opportunity to recoup the chips they are still owed.

If the BB calls an all-in their effective stack is 91 chips (4 chips from the blind and 87 remaining in their stack). On the flip side, the other players are playing a stack of 100 chips. The under-the-gun player can win 102 chips — the 15 chips in the pot plus 87 chips from their opponent — leaving the losing player with nine chips.

Now fast forward a few hands. Suppose the losing player was the small blind and is now the big blind. In an ante-first scenario they would first have to obligate their debts to the other players and would only be able to win the nine chips they ante. In the BB-first scenario they would be eligible to win the blinds, four chips from any player who calls, and the partial five-chip ante they posted.

  • Ante-first with three callers: All-in player wins 9 chips.
  • BB-first with three callers: All-in player wins 23 chips.

Yes, this is great for the short-stack, but how should the original BB feel about this player that should have been eliminated now sitting on 23 chips and only partially paying their antes? In practice this player shorting the antes means they managed to avoid paying antes for four of the ninee hands that were played.

In no other part of the casino would this be allowed to happen. If you can’t cover the main bet on a table game you’re not allowed to put money on the jackpot bet.

Considering the lending component and the possibility of unfairness, I don’t know if big blind before ante would stand up to regulatory scrutiny, and if a gaming commission really wanted to be a stickler, the lending element of the BB ante format could also be disallowed – although I doubt a gaming commission would go that far.

The problem with fixing problems

What was implemented as a way to speed up the ante process has somehow turned into a debate over what’s more friendly for recreational players.

The big blind before antes side isn’t making the case from a game mechanic standpoint, in fact, the only logic for it is that it makes the short-stacked player feel better, hence it’s believed to be player-friendly and good for the game.

That may be true, and this issue may be inconsequential enough to not matter from a game integrity standpoint (although I’m not convinced it is), but that doesn’t make the “we don’t want a player to feel bad” argument a good one.

It seems to me they shouldn’t be given any extra advantage just because they can’t afford to pay what they are due to the pot.

— Willie Elliot (@Willie_Hmmm) March 18, 2018

Key takeaway #1

Even if “big blind first” is the best practice for players, it might not pass muster with gaming commissions, and we need to consider all of the different scenarios where a player may be able to game the system in some way.

Eliminating the requirement that new players post a blind or wait for the blind would also be “player-friendly,” but that rule is in place for a reason – people have found ways to take advantage of it and/or it’s simply unfair to the other players.

Key takeaway #2

In the grand scheme of things, none of this will likely matter. It looks like the BB ante structure is here to stay, and tournament directors and players will eventually hash out the chicken or the egg part of it with consideration given to player-friendliness and game fairness.

But to pretend this is just a matter of preference is wrong. There is a legitimate game integrity and fairness concern.



The big blind is unique and different from any other position at the table. There are certain things we would do in the big-blind that we would almost never do in any other position.
Even good players will nearly always lose money in the big-blind. Being forced to invest 1bb before even seeing our hole cards is a huge disadvantage, especially when you consider that we will spend much of our BB time playing out of position.
The name of the game in the BB is hence not to make money, but to lose the least amount possible.
If we imagine for a minute that we folded every single BB, we’d be losing at a rate of -100bb/100-hands. If we can make our overall BB winrate around -30bb/100-hands, then we are essentially doing a very good job of offsetting our losses!

Texas Holdem Poker Board Game

Loosen Up!


Seeing as we have already invested some money into the pot (albeit involuntarily), we should typically do our best to defend this money. Remember thatwe get a better price on any cold-call since 1bb has already been invested.
The most common mistake that many players have been making for years is defending their big-blind too tightly. Even good players were not aware of this for a long time – the common advice was “always play tight from the blinds, we will be out-of-position postflop”.
Let’s have a look at some typical ranges and see how we can be a little tougher when defending our big-blind.

BB Ranges

BB vs BTN 2.5x

As we can see the recommended defending range from the big-blind against a BTN open is quite wide.
There are 3 colours here
  • Light Red – Value 3bet
  • Dark Red – Bluff 3bet
  • Dark Blue – Cold-Call
It is important to remember that the size that the open-raisers use will change our defending frequency quite considerably. So if someone opens for a min-raise we should defend many more hands, while if someone opens for 3bb we should defend considerably less hands.

BB vs CO 3x


It makes sense to consider defending ranges vs a CO 3bb open rather than a 2.5bb seeing as it’s potentially going to be more common. Assuming our opponent open-raises to 2.5bb we should widen this defending range.

BB vs MP 3x


Same kind of stuff here, just tighter. Notice that the bluffing range consists entirely of speculative hands (more on this later).
The general idea here is that playability is a little more important when out-of-position, whereas our pot-equity is not necessarily that much of a factor. We won’t get to realise our equity as much when OOP by seeing a showdown, so it’s better that we have a non-dominated high-playability hand in our 3betting range such as a suited-connector.
We will see that assuming we are in position then equity is more important while playability becomes a little less important. This will be reflected in the BB vs SB ranges.

Texas Holdem Poker Bb Apk

BB vs UTG 3x

BB vs SB 2.5x

BB vs SB is a very important situation in BB defense. Why so? It’s essentially going to be the most profitable BB situation we face. In today’s games SB can potentially open very wide and we are guaranteed to always have position postflop if we decide to defend.
So there is no reason why we shouldn’t be defending very aggressively with a wide range. Against a 2.5x open we should be defending roughly 50% of the time. 15% of the time by 3betting and 35% of the time by cold-calling.
A common mistake is not realising how wide we can go with our 3bet bluffs. It’s not necessarily intuitive that something like K5o is a good bluffing hand BB vs SB because at first glance it seems overly weak.
Assuming we face a min-raise in this situation we should be defending over 70% of hands. In fact there is a pretty reasonable argument for defending any two cards in the BB vs a SB min-raise.
Notice also that the types of hands that we 3bet have changed. Instead of 3betting speculative hands like suited-connectors, our raw pot-equity is a little bit more valuable than our playability. The idea is we get to realise this equity more fully when we have position and can control the action a little better.
So the hands that are selected as part of our 3bet bluff range are all high-equity hands such as Ax, Kx, and Qx holdings.

The Unique BB Spot

We mentioned earlier that there was a unique feature that the big-blind possesses. Imagine for a minute that we are in the CO facing a UTG open. We know that our opponent folds 75% of the time to 3bets. This is actually enough folds for us to generate automatic profit with a 3bet. So can we 3bet any 2 cards?
Actually no, we can’t. We can potentially expand our 3betting range but we need to be aware of the fact that there are still 3 players to act behind us. So 3betting something like 32o for automatic profit would be a mistake. We’d start to lose a ton of money when one of the remaining opponents wakes up with something or decides to make a play!
In the BB however, we can literally 3bet anything because we are closing the action. So if BTN who has 80% fold-to-3bet decides to open-raise and SB folds, it’s correct for us to 3bet 32o regardless of how terrible the hand is.

Overcalling/Squeezing


There is another situation we can face when in the BB. A player open-raises and he gets a cold-caller. In the BB we now have the option to overcall or squeeze.
A rough idea of what our ranges should look like in this spot can be found below. But first, the meaning of the colours:
  • Light Red – Value Squeeze
  • Green – Squeeze OR Overcall
  • Dark Blue – Overcall
  • Red – Bluff Squeeze assuming both players aren’t calling stations

Texas Holdem Poker Blinds


Firstly notice how wide the overcalling range can become. Almost any 2 suited cards can be fine for an overcall.
On the other hand, notice how there are no offsuit hands in our overcalling range whatsoever. This is because they do not play well multi-way.
In a multi-way situation we’d prefer to make a straight or a flush as opposed to a weak 1 pair holding which offsuit hands typically make.

Texas Holdem Poker Blind Clock

Also notice how we have hands in green that we should play a “mix” strategy with. In other words we can sometimes call and sometimes squeeze.
This is just a rough guide however. The exact squeezing range we should use depends on the position of the opener, the position of the caller, and the sizings used. We should also take into consideration whether we are out-of-position against just one opponent or both of them.

Iso-Raising or Checking


The final situation we can face is when we have the opportunity to either raise or to check-back when facing either limpers or a SB complete.
Remember that we shouldn’t feel any huge pressure to raise in this spot with marginal hands since we are already guaranteed to see a free flop by just checking back. In other words we should mainly just raise decent hands and check back the rest.
What qualifies as a “decent” hand will depend largely on whether we have position (in the case of facing a SB complete), or find ourselves out-of-position (facing a limp from any other position).Texas Holdem Poker Bb
Assuming we are out-of-position we should typically raise a tight range of hands for pure value, such as the following...

Assuming that we are in position facing a SB complete, the number of hands we can profitably raise increases dramatically.

Putting it Together

If there is one thing we should take away from this article it’s that we shouldn’t be scared to defend our BB aggressively. The offshoot of this is that we are going to be finding ourselves postflop with weaker hands than we are used to. In order to deal with this we should also invest time in learning how to play postflop when OOP.

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Texas Holdem Poker Bbq

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