Playing in the Small Blind
The small blind is one of the trickiest spots to play from in all of poker. One thing that makes it so tricky is the fact that people rarely discuss play from this position when talking about strategy. Another thing which makes the small blind a tough spot to play from is the fact that it is all too tempting to make a call just based on the fact that you’re only throwing out half a bet.
Because of this, many players are tempted to call just about anything from the small blind. Hands like Jc-5c and 10-7 (non-suited) are suddenly cool to call with even though there is virtually no shot of flopping anything good with these. Compounding the problem is the fact that you will be playing out of position the entire hand after making this call.
Luckily, there are some things you can do to improve your play from the small blind. The first thing you’ll want to do is only play weaker hands in multi-way pots with fellow limpers. The reason being is that a hand like 7-6 isn’t such a good call when you have to lay down a full bet, but it’s worth a half bet to see the flop with this in case you hit something big later.
Another important thing to do in the small blind is open up the range of hands you’re willing to play from this position. You can obviously play a wider range of cards in the small blind if everyone has limped in since you’re only throwing out a half bet. However, keep in mind that you don’t want the range to be too wide since you could fall into the aforementioned trap of calling with everything.