Poker Blinds
Poker blinds are forced bets posted by poker players to the left of the dealer button in flop-style in poker games. The number of poker blinds is usually two, but can be one or three. Without the blinds, everyone would just wait until they had a perfect hand to play, and there would be no action at all. The blind bets introduce a regular cost to partake in the game, thus inducing a player to enter pots in an attempt to compensate for that expense. In Texas Holdem, there's no ante, so the two players to the left of the dealer must post blind bets. A Blind is a forced bet before you receive your initial cards and is posted by the players to the immediate left of the dealer button. This is used to seed the pot with cash. Everyone at the table takes their turn playing the blinds.
If you want to win at poker, you need to take the topic of blind strategy seriously. Blinds increase at regular intervals as the tournament progresses and are termed 'levels'. Unlike cash games, blinds must be posted and cannot be missed. This is done automatically. To make it fair for everyone a dead button is sometimes used to achieve this.
Poker Blinds
- Forced bets in community card games similar to the use of antes, but normally Only required of two players rather than all players at the table
- Small Blind: the smaller of two forced bets, usually 1/2 the minimum opening bet
- Big Blind: the larger of two forced bets, usually equal to the minimum opening bet
- Stealing the Blinds: make a raise on the opening betting round with the goal of winning the blind bets without any further action on the hand
- Betting blind: betting without taking the option to look at the next card(s)
Big Blind In our Hold'em game, the big blind is a bet equal to the minimum bet. (i.e. $5/$10 game, big blind = $5.00) When you first take a seat at an active table you're required to post the equivalent of the big blind. You can do this by waiting until you are in a position to post it. Another way would be to post it out of position. If you decide to post out of the big blind position, you must also post the blind when you are in position if you wish to remain in the game.
If you were to miss the regular rotation of posting the blinds, you will be required to post the big blind in order to re-enter the game. If you were to sit out and miss three big blinds, you would then be removed from the table, forfeiting your seat.
