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This time, we'll examine the last position that allows you to become a preflop aggressor: the Small Blind.
The Small Blind is a very peculiar position in both Pot Limit Omaha and No Limit Hold'em. Whenever you're in the Small Blind, everyone else has folded, and you consider playing your hand, there are a few things to have in mind. Firstly, the pot will always be a heads-up, and your opponent will likely continue with a wide range of holdings. Secondly, you'll be out of position during the whole hand and the first one to act on every street preflop.
While the pot being heads-up undoubtedly makes crafting a postflop plan more straightforward (since it is easier to picture a game tree of all the possible actions for only two players), being out of position definitely does not.
The first assumption we'll advise you to adopt is to refrain from limping at low stakes since taking down the pot preflop and avoiding the rake is a very desired outcome. Unlike other positions, the optimal strategy for the Small Blind depends on how high the rake is.
If we compare the "Low stakes" settings from the PLO Genius (which reflects the rake for SH cash for PLO 50) with "High stakes" (which is equal to SH PLO 5000), we'll receive vastly different strategies. While playing low stakes, you should adopt a raise/fold only strategy (with a 37.4% to 62.6% ratio); in the high stakes games, you should limp 24.3% of your range, raise 28.5% and fold 47.2%.
If your games' rake structure is more similar to the "Mid Stakes" structure (in our case, PLO ZOOM 500 on Pokerstars), you should also abandon limping and raise 38.9%.
For the rest of the article, we'll assume that most of our readers are making their way up the stakes, so we'll use low-stakes adjusted simulations for the reference.
One more thing that differentiates raising in the Small Blind from raising in other positions is the fact that you've put money into the pot before the cards were dealt.
Whenever you're in an Early, Middle or Late position, you should raise hands that you believe to be profitable (or, to be exact, more profitable than folding) since there's no cost to folding.
The expected value of folding in these positions is 0 since you're not losing any chips whenever you fold. Therefore, even if opening a hand is marginal, if its EV is bigger than 0, you should probably VPIP it (by opening). This concept changes on the Small Blind since whenever you fold, you lose the 0.5 BB that you've posted as the Small Blind.
A side note: due to the game's pot limit, the maximum raise size you can use preflop is 3 BB.
As a result, the optimal strategy (GTO-wise) in the Small Blind includes raising some weak hands (like QT86 single-suited), which have negative expected values. These negative EVs, however, are still outperforming the EV of folding (opening QT86ss loses 0.41 BB, while open folding it loses 0.5 BB)
Of course, the most significant chunk of the expected value of your small blind strategy does not come from opening marginal holdings but the most profitable and value-oriented hands. However, if you wish to climb the stakes, you should know the thresholds of playability for certain hand classes in the Small Blind.
In our last article about opening ranges, we've highlighted that you should adjust your opening strategy to how players in later positions react to what you do. Naturally, the more players there are to act after you, the less accurate you'll be, but whenever you're in the Small Blind, finding the proper adjustments is easier since you have to factor in the tendencies of only one player - Big Blind.
Is your opponent an aggressive 3-bettor? You should refrain from opening the marginal holdings (since you'll often face a 3-bet and will have to fold). Does your opponent 3-bet less than they, in theory, should (which, according to our simulations, would be around 13%)? You'll realize more equity with your opens than you should, so you can be a little looser!
Does your opponent fold a lot to opens (that's when the BB fold to steal from the SB stat comes in handy - you'll find it in Holdem Manager or other tracking software)? If they fold more than ~63% versus your open, you can profitably open any hand (the average profit increases with the folding frequency, but remember this assumption is valid if you don't misplay the postflop)!
There are a few more things to consider (like folding to c-bets or stabbing versus missed c-bet), but the tendencies mentioned above are the first to consider when you analyze your opponent's game plan whenever you're on the Small Blind.
Lastly, let's take a closer look at the overall raising strategy of the Small Blind
As you can see in the screen above, the best combos to open are straightforward: you should raise all of the AA, KK, and the vast majority of Queens and double-paired hands.
More tricky decisions start with hands falling into the following categories: connected, connected pair, and double-suited. A good rule of thumb is to avoid opening trips (except for Aces) and be very careful with hands containing 2, 3, 4, and - to some degree - 5. Very often, deuces and trays harm the playability of your hand a lot, and only the best side card combinations, like AQ53ds or JJ53ds, result in the hand to open with.
Some of the combinations will be unintuitive to play in the Small Blind and can lead to mistakes on your part, which you won't even be aware of. Luckily, where there is a space for improvement, there is also a chance to boost your win rate.
Studying with PLO Genius will help you learn the thresholds between opening or folding a hand. An effective way to memorize which combo to open and which to fold is to use our GTO trainer, which will help you shape your intuition quickly.
Mastering the small blind strategy is easier than you think
Despite the unfavourable circumstances, crafting a solid small blind strategy is not that hard, as long as you think about the dynamics of the game you're in. Remember, achieving a positive win rate is nearly impossible in this position, but losing less than your opponents would in the same situation is key.
And, with the help of PLO Genius, you'll outpace the other players' SB performance in no time!