Using PokerTracker statistics to attack the small blind

In six max limit Texas Hold’em online games you will need to attack the blinds with a wide percentage of your range when folded to. This will be especially the case from the button and cut-off. One of the key areas of blind stealing is in how frequently the small blind defends to a steal. In poker, novice and intermediate players look to play hands against hands or a series of individual hands against hands. To reach expert level in online poker these days then you can no longer look at hands in a vacuum in this way.

You simply have to look at your hand versus your opponents range and even ranges against ranges. Basically if you are going up against a sophisticated player then before long they will understand your ranges in specific situations. If they have data mined you using the excellent PokerTracker then they may already know this. So what this means is that in key specific situations they will be winning equity from you even though they may not win that specific hand or series of hands.

They will surely take your money over time. In this article I want to look at how critical PokerTracker is when it comes to attacking the blinds because knowing how many players you will be facing or potentially facing post flop has a huge impact on whether or not you should steal with certain hands. One of these key areas is the fold percentages of the small blind to a steal raise.

Some players in the small blind will play very tightly and be folding a very high percentage of their range. Folding a high percentage of your range should be the proper way to play anyway and more than 70% is considered normal for most six max limit hold’em games. But once you start to reach 85% or more then you are playing too tightly for your position and players will start opening up lighter and exploiting you.

Using PokerTracker then you can see patterns of folding in the big blind that reveal mindset and philosophy very quickly and 150 hands could be enough to tell you what you need to know. Some players will call raises or the LAG’s may three bet more and have fold percentages at 50% or less which is far too loose. If the button and cut-off are stealing equally then you would in effect be taking your hand and pitching it against not one expanded range but two contracted ranges and you simply cannot treat a “steal raise” as a target to attack if that “steal” is coming from different seats.

At the advanced levels of online poker these days then you simply must understand how much equity there is in certain situations and this means understanding your own ranges and also those of your opponents and also what you believe that they know about your ranges. This is why PokerTracker and the use of it is simply essential if you are thinking about playing at the middle limits in online poker and it is also a very good tool to practice with even if you play low limits because it is giving you the right grounding in preparing for correct modern online poker.

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