To Defend or Give Up? Playing Junky Hands from the Big Blind

Jonathan LittleToday I want to share a hand I recently played in a tournament at the Borgata in Atlantic City, this one presenting a situation where I was short-stacked and in the big blind and had to make a decision about defending my BB against a raise despite being dealt a marginal starting hand.

I had a little less than 40,000 to start the hand, meaning that with the blinds at 2,000/4,000 with a 400 ante I had about a 10BB stack. A younger, loose-aggressive player raised to 8,000 from middle position and it folded to me in the big blind with .

The question here is whether or not we can profitably defend with a call with such a hand. In the video below I talk about my reasoning why I…