Why You Should Always Play Out Your Blind

How many times have you put in 500 hands online and decided enough was enough, you’re done? Well, if you are like many players you usually come to this decision somewhere other than when you will be the Big Blind. And if you do what many players do, and stand up, you are losing money! You lose money because poker success is measured in the long-term; every hand you are dealt is worth the same as any other hand.

Here’s how it works: Suppose your win-rate is $25/100 hands -or $.25/hand. Now, suppose you play an average of 200 sessions of poker each year, and on average leave the game three hands before you will be the Big Blind. That means you have missed 600 hands of FREE poker, which could have been an extra $150 in your pocket!

If you were to play out all your blinds you could literally hand another player a $100 bill, and still come out $50 richer than if you continued to leave the game before the blinds come back to you!

You see, most people just assume that a couple of hands won’t matter in the grand scheme of things -especially if they play 500, or 1,000 hand sessions-but it does, poker gives players such a small advantage that every miniscule edge is important. And the higher your win-rate the more money you are losing: The more often you quit the game early the more money you are losing.

Imagine a player who makes $50/100 hands, and plays eight tables at a time, 300 times a year: If this player were to leave each table two hands early he would be losing $2,400 a year! All because he doesn’t have the patience to play cards for a few minutes longer!

Every time you put in your blinds what you are doing is paying in advance to see the entire round. If you are playing in a 10-handed game you are paying to see 10 hands of cards (you are just making that payment up-front) not seven or eight. It’s sort of like putting a deposit on an item so it will not be sold to someone else: In essence your blinds are simply “holding” your seat at the table for the next 10 hands.

Too many people view it as the blinds cost $15 and the rest of the hands are free, when a better way to look at it is each hand costs $1.50 which I pay on my Big and Small Blind.