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What to do with medium strenght hands in the Small blind?
Xomia
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May 10, 2020 - 2:11 pm
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There are some situations in my play where I just do not know what the right play is. One example are medium strength hands in the small blind that seem to be too good to fold, not playable or good enough to 3bet and calling in the small blind is just always uncomfortable. Take that example: You are in the small blind with QJo. Button raises to 2x. Everybody is relatively deep stacked. Or: You are in the small blind with KQo and MP2 raises to 2.3x. 

What should I do here? Calling seems horrible as does folding as does 3betting or I just have not found the right reason for any play here. 

Any advice how to think about such borderline examples?

thedylan186

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May 10, 2020 - 11:51 pm
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Small blind has always been a tricky position

I would look to flat opens with those hands that can dominate a lot of your opponents opening range. We can also start mixing flats and 3 bets with the broadway/suited ace combos vs certain players. We should be setmining quite a bit from sb.

Stack sizes should dictate a lot of your decisions. I think most important is keeping an eye on your opponents tendencies and adjust from there. 

3for3
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May 11, 2020 - 10:40 am
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There was a time where it was fashionable to have no flatting range in the SB.  I think that has been fairly well debunked.  There were good reasons for it, however, which suggest you should have a fairly narrow (but balanced) flatting range in the SB.

Acevedo’s 3 bet defend vs BN at 60BB is almost an even split between Calling and 3!.  Many hands are a mix, but the hands that mostly call are small pairs, and some suited Kx, Qx. A8o and A7o are also pure calls, but A6o is a mix, suggesting these hands have close to 0 ev as a call.  There are no big hands that are traps, even as a mix.  AQo and KQs and 88 are the best flats.

I think in the SB, we can definitely look to play exploitative poker.  We know who the raiser is.  Perhaps as importantly, we know who the BB is.  If the BB is very squeeze happy, we can look to trap some of our bigger hands (I’d use KK as the best example here since it unblocks Ax, and doesn’t lose value as quickly multiway as QQ for example).  If the BB is a bad player, we can look to flat more hands and invite him into the pot.  If the BB is a good player, we can lean towards more 3!/Fold.  

Your exact hand, QJo is a mix vs button open (at 60BB).  KQo is a pure call.  

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