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WPT GTO Trainer Hands of the Week: Big Blind Defense with Shallow Stacks

Related Topics: World Poker Tour, Blind, Pontiac GTO

Today you’ll be playing in a multi-table tournament where you must defend your big blind with less than 20BBs in the effective stack. In many tournaments, especially in the mid to late stages, this spot will be one of the most commonly played in all of poker.

Your range to defend the big blind against a min-raise will be quite wide at this stack depth. However, certain hands like most pocket pairs and a variety of hands containing an Ace will not be in your range, since you would reshove with those hands preflop.

Postflop, you’ll want to keep in mind that due to the shallow stacks you can simply check-call with many of your strong hands, since standard betting on all streets will allow you to be all-in by the river.