In my last article, I mentioned a hand I played that ended up being the most talked about and debated hand of the Irish Poker Tour stop in Dublin at the Green Isle Hotel.
With just over two big blinds, I limp folded under the gun, to the surprise and consternation of apparently everyone at the table. In doing so, I appeared to break the oft repeated but poorly understood adage about pot commitment (that if you put over one third of your stack in, the rest is implicitly commuted to follow).
The key to understanding this play is to realise the implications of the big blind ante. Before I put half my stack in under the gun, I verified with the floor that this was a big blind first tournament (the more common but not universal scenario: some tournaments insist that if you can’t satisfy both big blind and ante, the ante takes precedence, so if you win the pot, you just get a refund). This means that when you have two big blinds when the blinds hit, the second of those is not worthless, but is heavily discounted. Because you can only win it back, it’s worth only whatever your chances of winning the pot with the random hand you are dealt (usually about 15% to 20%, so 0.15 to 0.2 of a big blind).
you are generally much better investing that big blind as a limp under the gun with anything but the worst few hands
It follows that you are generally much better investing that big blind as a limp under the gun with anything but the worst few hands. A lot of good things can happen. A bunch of people can put money in, then somebody raises to isolate, and you can put the rest in getting 5 to 1 or better on your money (also make to win the blinds and ante). Or nobody raises and you get to see a flop before deciding whether to put the other big blind in. Or everybody folds, the big blinds misses, and check folds.
On this occasion, pretty much the worst thing possible happened: the player with the strongest raising range on the table (to my immediate left) raised and I decided I didn’t have the equity to call. However, it’s important to remember that the practical cost of limp folding isn’t one big blind, but 15% to 20% of that.
Other plays that exploit this near worthlessness of your second big blind when you have between 1 and 2 big blinds are the “leave one big blind behind preflop” play and the “bluff all in minus one big blind with the nut low on the river” lines that I have written about previously.
