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Multi-way pots represent some of the potentially most profitable scenarios in poker, primarily because people don’t spend enough time studying them.
Thus, by improving your play in these situations, there is a lot of EV to be gained.
Today, we’ll be looking at the big blind play in multi-way scenarios, analyzing some preflop adjustments, working on sizing and MDF, and then looking at a few hand examples to bring the topic home.
The Fundamentals
When deciding how to proceed from the big blind in a multi-way pot, the first important aspect to consider is the position of the caller. Are they in the small blind, meaning they’ll be out of position to you after the flop, or will the caller be in position to you?
This is really a big point of differentiation. When the SB is the caller, playing becomes easier, as you are out of position to just one player, and you get to see what small blind does after the original raiser bets on the flop.
This information is immensely helpful in realizing your EV.
Likewise, when you are out of position to two players and don’t get the benefit of seeing how the other player reacts, you are at a big disadvantage. Realizing your equity becomes much more challenging.
Big Blind Preflop Adjustments in Multi-Way Pots
With this fundamental idea in mind, let’s now look at a couple of typical scenarios and the types of adjustments you should be making in the big blind (when playing 40 big blinds deep).
When it is a small blind calling, this is a fairly typical spot, in which you can discount almost all of the strongest hands from the caller’s range. They will be 3-betting these almost always.
With their range capped, there aren’t huge adjustments necessary. Our flatting range shrinks a bit in the off-suit section. The main difference is that we want to play our stronger hands more aggressively, as there is more dead money in the pot.
What happens when the caller is in position, though? So, for example, the cutoff opens and the button makes the call?
We are not just facing a situation where we’ll be out of position to two players, but we’re also up against much tighter ranges. This leads to folding about 40% of our range, which is 10% more than when we are facing just a cutoff open.
This may seem counterintuitive with better pot odds, but a lot of hands from the off-suit region are not worth getting involved with here. There is also more shoving instead of non all-in 3-betting, as there are about six big blinds in the pot to pick up.
As positions move and we are facing earlier position raiser and callers, our calling ranges become tighter and tighter. So, facing a UTG open and UTG+1 call, the off-suit section is completely demolished.
Most suited hands, off-suit tens and one-gappers are still fine at 40 big blinds, but as we get deeper, some of these hands are removed from our big blind calling range in multi-way pots as well.
Of course, if there are even more callers, you need to be more careful, as realizing your equity against multiple opponents becomes increasingly difficult.
Figuring Out Your MDF
To determine your MDF in heads-up pots, you should use the formula of Bet / (Bet + Pot). In multi-way scenarios, you should use the square root to find how often you should fold.
How does this work exactly?
If there is a bet of 100 into a 100 pot, the MDF in HU pot is 50%. Multi-way, you take that same frequency, and then find the closest square root number.
For 50%, that’s 7 (7×7 = 49), so you should be folding around 70% of the time. This is an easy way to do it in your head on the spot without using a calculator.
This is provided that both players call or fold equally. In practice, the player closing the action will be doing a bit more calling, while the sandwiched player will have more folds and they get to play more straight forward poker.
Hand Examples
Let’s now look at a few actual examples of hands where I was in the big blind, facing a raise and a call, with everything discussed up to this point in mind.
Hand 1
I have A♥10♥ in the big blind with 40bb, the UTG opens (90bb) and the button calls (60bb). What is the best play here?
We mostly want to call, because the button can still have a lot of strong hands like pocket Jacks or even Queens, AKo, etc. The solver uses this hand to 3-bet squeeze sometimes, but this is done primarily to reduce the SPR.
The flop comes K♦8♥5♦. The UTG c-bets and the button folds. This is an easy fold, as UTG’s range here will be stronger than in a heads-up pot, which means we have way less equity.
Hand 2
In this hand, I have A♠Q♥, facing a min open from the UTG and a flat from SB, playing 100 big blinds deep. I decided to flat here, although the solver prefers it as a pure 3-bet against a min-raise to reduce the SPR and make the hand easier to play.
The flop comes K♠6♦3♣, and the UTG continues for 1.5bb. We get to play pretty straightforward here against a small bet, but I ended up making a bit off a too tight fold, as the poker solver prefers calling with AQ. Certain suit combinations are better than others to continue with.
What’s more interesting is that the small blind has a pretty big leading range of around 20% on this flop texture. This happens a lot more in 3-way pots, and most players don’t really find these spots.
The main reason is that the UTG will check back more often, so the small blind starts to develop more of a leading range. This can really punish us in the big blind, though, as we are forced to give up with many hands, including weak pairs and hands like A♦9♦.
Hand 3
The final hand we’ll look into is the most interesting one. We have 8♠8♥ in the big blind, the UTG+1 min-raises, the small blind calls, and we flat playing 100 big blinds effective.
The flop comes Flop is 8♦7♥6♦.
In this spot, both small and big blind have leads, and the big blind has a big leading range. We have a lot of combos of straights, two pair, and all the sets.
In this particular instance, it checks to the raiser, who c-bets for 2.3bb and the small blind 3-bets to 10.3bb. Facing this action, what is the strongest hand we fold?
We definitely want to fold some two-pair combos like 6-7, a hand like 9♣7♣, and similar holdings.
As for the small blind, the fact is that they shouldn’t have much of a raising range here. We are still to act behind them and we have an uncapped range, so they can’t afford to raise with mid-strength poker hands, which means they shouldn’t be doing it with the top of the range, either.
With the top set, I decide to call, and the UTG player calls as well. There is an argument to be made for raising with the set of 8s, but I think we’ll want to play the other two sets as pure calls, as this line from the small blind represents a very strong hand, and they certainly can have all the straights.
Turn is Q♣, they bet again, we jam, and they call with pocket sixes for the bottom set. Although this feels like a cooler, and it is to some extent, the small blind also ended up investing too many chips in this pot.
