Defending from the big blind is an essential part of preflop strategy. When you are facing an open and you are in the big blind, you have to decide what hands to release and what poker hands to play on with, be it as a call or a 3-bet.
When it comes to the big blind defense strategy of playing 100 big blinds deep, things differ quite a bit between cash games and tournaments.
The main reason for this discrepancy is the fact that tournaments also feature the ante, which is an extra big blind added to the pot. This automatically means you are getting better direct pot odds, and there is more money (chips) in the middle to fight for.
In this article, we’ll break it down position by position for the most popular 8-max game, with a special emphasis on differences in ranges between the two formats.
| vs Position | BB defence in Cash Games | BB defence in MTTs |
| UTG | 17% | 40% |
| UTG + 1 | 18% | 48% |
| UTG +2 | 20% | 53% |
| Hijack | 25% | 59% |
| Cutoff | 30% | 65% |
| Button | 40% | 75% |
| Small Blind | 70% | 73% |
It is worth mentioning that when you stack shrinks in MTTs, you need to increase your BB defense range even further. With a smaller stack, you will have an easier time realizing your equity even out of position.
Against UTG Open – Defending 17% in Cash Games vs 40% in MTTs
In cash games, you want to be very careful when facing a UTG open. Assuming the raiser has solid fundamentals, they are opening a very tight range from this position, which results in a correct defense range of just 17%.
As shown in the picture above, we’re 3-betting only with slightly over 3%, almost exclusively with our premium holdings, mixing in a few suited connectors for balance.
With no ante, the pot is significantly smaller, so there is simply no incentive to get involved out of position against a very strong range.
Against UTG Open in Tournaments: Defending Close to 40%
Facing an Under the Gun (UTG) open in a tournament, we’ll be defending with close to 40% of our entire range. We’ll be calling for the most part, 3-betting only around 5%, mostly with our strongest hands.
Even though we know the UTG’s opening range is very strong, with an ante in the pot, our pot odds are too good, so we can’t afford to fold too much.
As you can see, the portion of the range that we give up on consists mostly of really poor holdings: not suited and not connected small cards, off-suit broadways with poor kickers, and, importantly, low small off-suit aces (A7o and below).
Against UTG+1 – Defending 18% in Cash Games vs 48% in MTTs
If the raise comes from the UTG+1 position, not much changes as far as our defense strategy is concerned. In fact, the difference is negligible as it is less than 1%.
We are not adding any new hands to our range. We are just calling a bit more frequently with the same range that we use against a UTG open and increasing our 3-betting frequency by 0.2%.
Against UTG+1 Open in Tournaments: Defending With Half the Hands
In tournaments, even with the raise moving just one position, our defense range increases significantly, going to almost 52%.
The default play is still to mostly call as we 3-bet only 6% of our entire defense range. However, we now start to include off-suit aces down to A5o at some frequency, almost all suited cards (except for a few weakest ones), and even some off-suit broadways with weaker kickers.
Against UTG+2 – Defending 20% in Cash Games vs 53% in MTTs
Our big blind defense range against a UTG+2 open in cash games is just a tad over 20%, with 4.5% of the overall range played as a 3-bet.
Although the difference from two previous positions is not big, this is where we can start adding some semi-strong suited aces to our GTO 3-betting range (like AJs and ATs) and call more with weaker suited connectors like 75s, 64s, and even 43s at a low frequency.
Against UTG+2 Open in Tournaments: Defending Well Over 50%
Not surprisingly, our defense range against a UTG+2 raise in tournaments is quite big. From the big blind, you should be continuing with over 53% of your entire range, 3-betting over 7%.
At this point, we are pretty much calling with all of our suited hands and almost all off-suit aces (with the exception of A3o and A2o). The only hands we are always folding are completely disjointed holdings like 94o and T3o and off-suit combos with a picture card and a really weak kicker (like Q7o and K5o).
Our 3-betting range is pretty sizeable, too. In addition to our strongest holdings, we are now also 3-betting hands like A5s, QTs, JTs, J9s, T9s, and even 87s at a fairly high frequency (over 50%).
Against Hijack – Defending 25% in Cash Games vs 59% in MTTs
Facing a hijack open in a cash game, we should be defending with a quarter of our entire range, 3-betting with about 7% of that range.
Our 3-betting range is still pretty conservative and value-heavy but also includes a few relatively weaker hands, like QJs, JTs, KTs, and QTs (at around 20%).
It is interesting to note that our weaker off-suite aces, i.e., everything from A9o and below, are still pure folds, as these hands have pretty bad reverse implied odds when you have to play them out of position.
Against Hijack Open in Tournaments: Only Folding 40%
In tournaments, facing a hijack open, you should be defending your big blind with 59% of your range, which is really more than most people realize, as you can see in the picture below.
At this point, the only suited hand we are not playing is 72s. All other suited hands in our range are played 100%, with some of them 3-betting about half the time (54s, 65s, and 87s).
The only ace-high hand we’re not defending with is A2o.
Our 3-betting range is 9%, so we are now 3-betting even more with medium-suited aces and hands like JTs, J9s, and T9s becoming mandatory 3-bets.
Against Cutoff – Defending 30% in Cash Games vs 65% in MTTs
The CO is the first position from which players start to steal more, which is why our defense range in cash games increases to 30%.
It is important to note that we’re 3-betting almost a third of the time, exactly because we know our opponent’s range will be fairly wide from this position. So, adopting a more aggressive strategy and trying to take pots down before the flop makes a lot of sense.
We are still calling with about 22% of the hands, now adding A9o to our calling range. Still, all off-suit aces below that remain pure folds, and you have no reason to get involved with them.
Against Cutoff Open in Tournaments: Defending 65%
Looking at the trends so far, it should come as no surprise that our big blind defense range in tournaments facing a cutoff open is a massive 65%.
In this spot, we are giving up only on hands that have very little playability and poor equity. Everything else is worth at least a call.
The 3-betting range is over 11% and now includes hands like K8s, K6s, J8s, T8s, and pocket pairs down to 88.
Against Button – Defending 40% in Cash Games vs 75% in MTTs
Even with no antes involved, our big blind defense strategy in cash games when facing a button open includes 40% of our entire range.
We should still be folding our weakest suited holdings (which is not the case in tournaments, as you can see in all examples thus far), but we are now getting involved with all reasonable suited connectors, one-gappers, and even some two-gappers.
We are also 3-betting close to 13% against a button open with all of our strong pairs, best ace-highs, solid suited connectors, and hands like A5s (100%), A7s, and A4s.
Against Button Open in Tournaments: Defending 75%
In tournaments, we will be defending with three-quarters of our entire range facing a button open. The defense strategy includes about 16% of 3-bets.
Since the button is opening really wide and we are getting excellent pot odds, this is a situation where we are only folding hands that are completely unplayable, such as J4o, 93o, and 82o.
As for our 3-betting range, it includes pocket pairs down to 66 (with at least some frequency), suited aces down to ATs (plus A5s, A4s, and A3s), off-suit aces down to AJ, and a solid chunk of middling suited connectors like 98s, 86s, 76s, 65s, and 54s.
Against Small Blind – Defending 70% in Cash Games vs 73% in MTTs
One position against which you have to defend really wide in cash games is the small blind. You know they’ll be attacking your big blind fairly wide and also that you’ll always have position on them after the flop, which gives you more incentive to get involved.
As you can see, in these situations, we are defending 70%, with a 3-bet percentage of 13%. It is interesting that most ace-high hands, with the exception of the strongest ones, are still best played as calls in this situation.
The same goes for pocket pairs. You should be playing as a call with all pairs under TT and taking to the flop, playing the hand in position and controlling the size of the pot as necessary.
Against Small Blind Open in Tournaments Defending 73%
It is interesting that our big blind defense range facing a small blind open in tournaments is actually slightly lower than the range facing a button open.
We are now defending with 73% of the hands and 3-betting around 14%. This is because the small blind’s opening range won’t be as wide as the button’s since they know they won’t have the advantage of the position after the flop.
The difference between the two ranges is very subtle, but we are now 3-betting more with some weaker hands containing high card blockers and calling more with some strong hands like AQo and KQo to get more value out of them.
