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B — Blinds: Defending the forced bets

Defend the forced bets by the math — then play them humbly, because you're first the rest of the way.

When you're in the big blind, you've already been forced to put money in — which changes the arithmetic of continuing. Say the blind is $2, and someone raises to $6. Everyone else needs $6 to see a flop; you need only $4 more, into a pot that's already holding your money. Run the gate ♠A narration: pot's about $11 with my blind and his raise... four more to call... I'm paying roughly a quarter of the total... that's a small-bet price — need about 20%. Nearly any chart hand, and some just below it, clears that bar. So against small raises, defend your big blind liberally — folding a decent hand there is donating your forced bet without a fight.

But here's the ceiling on that generosity: the blinds act first on every round after the flop. You get the discount going in, then you play the entire hand from the mud — first to act, information-blind, against a raiser who's already announced strength. So the posture is: defend cheap, then proceed humbly. Hit the flop well? Play it by the gates like anyone else. Miss — which is most of the time — and check-fold without ceremony. The discount bought you a look, not an obligation.

And the small blind is the trap seat — worst of both worlds: only a partial discount, and the worst position at the table after the flop, first to act with even the big blind behind you. Fold there freely. It's half-price entry to the worst seat in the theater.

DIAL — ♣B by table size. This is where the dial bites hardest, because blind cost triples at a short table (DIAL §1) while the raiser's range gets weaker. 4-handed: you are in the blinds half of all hands, and the player raising at you is opening a wide, weak range because he has to. Defend your big blind very liberally — folding it away here is how short-handed players lose without ever making a visible mistake. 8-handed: as written — defend cheap, proceed humbly. 12-handed: defend tighter than the raw price suggests. A raise from an early seat at a crowded table is a genuinely strong hand, and you may still have several players behind you who haven't acted. The discount is real; the hand you're defending with usually isn't.