The Complete Guide to Blind vs Blind Play

Blind vs blind pots are among the most frequent spots in tournament poker and among the most misplayed. When the action folds to the blinds, the decisions that follow shape your win rate more than you might expect.

Most players do not fully appreciate how these spots work and end up making the same mistakes session after session. The margins in blind vs blind play are thin, the ranges are wide, and small errors compound over time. A player who checks back too many hands from the big blind is leaking chips. A small blind who bets too often on the flop is lighting money on fire. And a big blind who does not understand how to calculate fold percentage facing a bet will be folding large fractions of their range they cannot afford to give up.

This guide covers a comprehensive look at blind vs blind strategy in MTT poker. We will start with preflop, covering both the small blind and big blind perspectives, and then move into postflop play on the flop where the real money is made and lost.

Part 1: Small blind strategy when it folds to you

When the action folds to the small blind, we should not be playing passively at most stack depths. The question is not whether to enter the pot but how. The answer changes dramatically as stacks get deeper.

BBZ coach and MTT legend Jon “apestyles” Van Fleet breaks this down in detail across five key stack depths in our guide to small blind vs big blind strategy.

At 10 big blinds, the small blind plays roughly 80% of hands using a polarized structure: limp the strongest and weakest hands, shove the middle. There is no non-all-in raising range at this depth because a standard raise commits too much of your stack to fold afterward. You either put it all in or you limp to see a flop cheaply.

At 15 to 20 big blinds, a non-all-in raise enters the picture. Limping becomes the most common action, the shove range begins to shrink, and the raise is reserved for hands with strong postflop playability or premium value. The range you play expands to around 85% of hands, but the key shift is structural: you now have three distinct actions at different frequencies, and guessing leads to significant errors.

At 30 big blinds, the shove is almost completely gone. Raising and limping dominate, and you are now pure raising with your big pocket pairs. This is different from both shorter stacks (where you shove them) and deeper stacks (where you will start limping them again).

At 60 big blinds, the strategy completes its transformation. Limping accounts for roughly 75% of hands, and premiums return to the limping range. The reason is the limp-raise. When you limp AA or KK and the big blind raises, you get to put in a 3-bet from what looked like a weak position. That is where the big pots come from in deep-stacked blind vs blind play.

The thread connecting all of it: we should not be playing the small blind passively at most depths. Whether you are limping, raising, or shoving, there is almost always an aggressive plan behind the action. For solver charts at all five stack depths, see our preflop charts and trainer.

Part 2: Big blind isolation strategy vs small blind limps

When the small blind limps, the big blind faces a deceptively complex decision. The temptation is to isolate with any reasonable hand, but the small blind limping range includes traps. Strong hands are mixed in specifically to limp-reraise, and that threat reshapes the big blind’s approach significantly.

The correct response from the big blind is a polar isolation range: very strong hands and very weak hands, with fewer medium-strength hands in between. This structure is well suited to counter the limp-reraise. Strong hands welcome the action. Weak hands fold cheaply. Medium hands get stuck in no man’s land, too good to fold but too weak to continue.

The isolation range shifts with stack depth. At 10 big blinds, it is tight and almost exclusively offsuit. Suited hands like 76s or 54s are conspicuously absent because a limp-shove from the small blind forces a call-or-fold decision, and these hands do not want to create this scenario when it can be avoided. We see a strong aversion to isolating with hands that will have to fold to a shove, because raising and then folding wastes both chips and equity.

At 25 big blinds, the BB loses much of its isolation shoving range and is mostly limited to a non-all-in raise. The polar structure remains intact, with suited hands only entering the isolation range when they can profitably call a limp-shove. At 50 big blinds, the dynamic finally shifts. The stacks are deep enough that a limp-reraise is no longer an all-in, and suited hands can call a 3-bet and play postflop in position. This is the first depth where suited connectors and suited one-gappers make up a meaningful portion of the isolation range.

The principle connecting all three depths is the same: polar ranges blunt reraise strategies. When your opponent can trap and reraise, you counter by making your range easy to play against that action. You either have it or you do not care about folding.

For more on how the preflop isolation dynamic works across stack depths, see our article on blind vs blind isolation strategy from the big blind.

Part 3: Postflop play on the flop in blind vs blind pots

Preflop sets the table. The flop is where the money changes hands.

In blind vs blind pots, postflop play is fundamentally different from any other scenario in tournament poker. Both players have wide ranges. The small blind is out of position with a mixed strategy that includes limps and raises. The big blind has position, a range that includes both checked-back hands and isolation raises, and the positional advantage that comes with acting last.

The mistakes players make on the flop in these spots are significant, and they happen at most stake levels. Understanding the correct frequencies and the logic behind them is a major factor in what separates players who bleed chips in blind vs blind from players who print them.

The small blind should check most flops

Across most flops and stack depths, we should be checking between 55% and 75% of the time from the small blind after limping preflop. Many boards require checking at 100% frequency.

This is one of the most common leaks in blind vs blind play. Players in the small blind see a favorable-looking flop, decide they have connected, and fire a bet. The problem is that the math does not support this level of aggression.

There are two structural reasons why the small blind must check so frequently.

The first is the folding component. Preflop, the small blind had a folding range and the big blind did not. The big blind checks for free and arrives at the flop with nearly every hand that was dealt to them, minus the hands they would have raised preflop. The small blind’s range has already been filtered by the hands that folded.

The second is the isolation component. When the big blind isolates, they remove their strongest hands from the checking range. The hands that checked back tend to be the middle or lower portion of their range. This creates density, especially on low boards.

Why the small blind should overbet low boards

In practice, the small blind frequently overestimates the strength of its range on low boards and how it wants to proceed. A flop like 7-4-2 looks like it should favor the small blind because it is a dry, somewhat disconnected flop.

But the big blind’s range on a checked-back flop includes most low cards because few of them were strong enough to isolate with. The combination of the SB missing its folded hands and the BB retaining much of its low card range (minus the hands allocated to isolation) creates situations where the small blind has less of an advantage on low boards than it appears. The SB accounts for this by checking at very high frequencies.

The advantage the SB does have is concentrated around overpairs like 88 and 99 that the BB is missing because of their allocation to the preflop isolation strategy. As a result, checking frequently and using very large bets like overbets is a strong betting strategy for the SB, in contrast to the high frequency stabbing we see in most metagames.

How the big blind defends vs a 1bb stab

When the small blind does bet, the most common sizing in blind vs blind pots is 1 big blind into a pot of roughly 2.5 big blinds. This is the bread-and-butter stab that players face frequently in any session, and getting the defense frequency right is critical.

The math here is straightforward. The maximum fold percentage the big blind can have before the small blind’s bluffs become automatically profitable is determined by the bet size relative to the pot.

Facing a 1bb stab into a 2.5bb pot, the maximum fold percentage is 1 / 3.5 = 28.6%. That means the big blind must defend at least 71.4% of the time to prevent the small blind from profiting with indiscriminate bluffs.

In practice, we should be folding even less than 25% across most boards to make the SB equity indifferent. The MDF calculation is just that, a math calculation, and it ignores the actual equity the SB has when they bluff. On low boards like 7-4-2, this bluffing equity is quite significant because most hands have overcards to hands as strong as top pair. The big blind is defending the vast majority of its range against this sizing.

This means the exercise is not about figuring out how to call. We mostly call. The exercise is solving for how to fold. The folding decisions are the smaller fraction and the more strategically interesting ones. Get the folds right and the calls take care of themselves.

The overcard and undercard framework for blind vs blind defense

So how do we decide which hands to fold? The answer is a framework built around overcards and undercards relative to the cards on the board. This is one of the fastest and most reliable ways to construct large defending strategies across a wide range of flop textures.

The core insight is that not all board cards are created equal when it comes to determining which hands in your range have strategic value. Some cards on the board are almost irrelevant for the folding decision, while others drive the majority of it.

Ignore the extremes, focus on the middle

When we look at a flop and try to figure out which hands to fold, we want to pay attention to the cards that create strategically relevant equity distinctions. That means ignoring the two extremes.

We pay very little attention to an ace on the board because nearly every hand in our range is strategically similar against an ace. We have very little equity and two undercards. Whether we hold K5o or 74o, neither hand has an overcard to an ace, so the ace does not help us distinguish between the two. It is a leveling card that makes everything equally bad.

Similarly, we pay very little attention to the lowest card on the board, such as a 2, because all of our hands have two overcards to it. Whether we hold Q9o or J7o, both hands have two cards above a 2. The deuce does not help us separate the range either. All of our hands are equally above it.

Instead, we pay attention to the cards in between. These are the cards that create meaningful splits in our range, where some hands have overcards to them and others do not.

How the framework works in practice

Consider a flop of Q-8-6. The queen is the high card, the six is the low card, and the eight is the middle card.

If we have one overcard to the queen, that is extremely valuable. Only aces and kings qualify as overcards to a queen, which makes those hand types rare and therefore worth holding onto. A hand like K5o mostly calls because the king is so difficult to have on this board.

If we have two undercards to the six, those hands are pure folds when they lack a straight draw or backdoor flush draw. Hands like 5-3 offsuit, 4-3 offsuit, and similar holdings have no overcards to any meaningful card on the board and no draw to compensate. They fold without hesitation.

If we have one undercard to the six and one undercard to the queen without a backdoor flush draw, those hands are also pure folds. For example, J5o and T5o have one card below the six and one card that does not clear the queen, creating a situation where neither card in our hand provides enough strategic equity to justify continuing.

The pattern is clear. Overcards to difficult-to-beat board cards are valuable because they are rare. Undercards to easy-to-beat board cards are worthless because everyone has them. The hands that fold are the ones that fail both tests: they have no overcard to the relevant high card and no draw to compensate.

Scaling across boards

This framework scales to most board textures. On a K-7-3 flop, the first relevant questions are whether you have an overcard to the king (only aces qualify) and whether you have an undercard to the three (only deuces qualify). Once we have folded the 2x block and made a rough estimate that we have not folded enough to bring us close to the previously calculated fold percentage of 28% (less a buffer to account for the SB’s bluffing equity, or roughly 17% total fold on this board), we move on to the seven.

Double undercards to the seven are all straight draws and cannot fold. So we move further to the undercard-to-a-king, undercard-to-a-seven block, which includes hands like J6, J5, T6, T5, and similar holdings. We continue this process until we believe we have folded enough of our range.

A helpful guide to the additional buffer for making an out-of-position bettor indifferent with their bluffing equity is to reduce the fold percentage by 5% to 10%. There is no exact science for knowing precisely how much to reduce the fold percentage by. It will vary by board texture, stack depth, and how much potential the bluffs have in the betting range.

The role of draws and backdoor equity

Overcards and undercards handle the majority of the folding decision, but draws and backdoor flush draws act as tiebreakers. A hand that would otherwise fold because it has no overcard to the relevant card on the board can be saved by a gutshot, an open-ended straight draw, or a backdoor flush draw. This is why you will see hands like 54o call on a Q-8-6 flop despite having two undercards to the six. The gutshot to a seven provides enough supplemental equity to justify continuing.

The framework does not require you to memorize individual combinations. It requires you to look at the board, identify which cards create the relevant splits, and begin the process of organizing your range. It takes some skill and practice but it is completely attainable with effort.

Putting it all together

Blind vs blind strategy in tournaments is a three-layer problem. The small blind has to choose how to enter the pot. The big blind has to decide whether to isolate. And on the flop, both players have to navigate wide ranges with thin equity margins.

The through-line across all three layers is the same: understand the structure, and the decisions follow. The small blind’s limping range is wide because the odds are too good to fold, but it includes traps. The big blind isolates polar because polar ranges blunt reraise strategies. The small blind checks most flops because it is out of position and ranges are wide. The big blind defends against stabs by focusing on overcards and undercards rather than trying to memorize individual hand decisions.

If you want to learn more about how to systemize your play and simplify your decision making, check out my course Simple Poker Systems.

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• Small Blind vs Big Blind Strategy: Ranges by Stack Depth
• Blind vs Blind Strategy: How to Isolate Limps From the Big Blind
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