Smart Posting of Blinds in Ring Games- When to Post and When to Leave

A common mistake beginner players make is using an unprofitable strategy in sitting and leaving ring game tables. While it may appear immaterial in the short run, entering and exiting tables improperly will result incurring unnecessary costs and reduce your poker profitability.

The Blinds are a Cost of Doing Business
When playing poker, the blinds regularly force you to place bets on cards that you would not ordinarily play. These blinds quickly begin to add up, as they represent roughly 1.5% of the maximum buy-in at most No Limit Holdem Tables for each round of the button. Your poker is already hampered by the rake, there is no need to compound the costs of playing by posting blinds improperly and leaving tables prematurely. Note that these costs increase dramatically and become quite significant if you begin to multi-table, playing up to the 10 tables simultaneously as I have described.

How to Sit – Post Blind
Ideally, you would like to enter the table and immediately be seated at the big blind, but that rarely occurs. Therefore, my rule of thumb is that if the blinds are within 3 hands, I will sit out until the blind reaches me. This precludes me from paying a big blind, and then paying a full round of blinds again with only a few hands in between. Since I am generally seating myself at 10 tables, then the slight pause before playing allows me to get seated at all the tables without much commotion.

How to Leave a Table
When you decide that your session is over, simply uncheck the auto-post blind button. Often, I see players get up and leave in the middle of a round, or just after paying the blinds. Since you have already paid for the round, why not see all of the free pocket cards that you can. By not auto-posting the blinds, I see all the hands up to the point when I am the big blind, at which point I refuse to post and get up and leave.

The Moral of the Story
Every extra blind that you post is an added cost, increasing your cost per hand of playing poker. Additionally, if you don’t take advantage of seeing all cards you have paid for, you are potentially missing great opportunities and further damaging your cost per hand. Profitable poker is a game of realizing long-term success, and you want every advantage possible. Paying blinds in a smart way is a component, albeit a small one, of being a successful poker player.

The Greedy Gecko