Navigating the Small Blind Preflop in Pot Limit Omaha

Our recent blog entry looked at the opening ranges and factors to consider when in Early Position, Middle Position, Cutoff, or Button.

This time, we'll examine the last position where you can be a preflop aggressor: the Small Blind. It's the next step in our PLO strategy series on preflop positions.

Playing from the Small Blind is a very peculiar scenario in both Pot Limit Omaha and No Limit Hold'em. Whenever everyone else has folded, and you consider entering the pot while in the Small Blind, there are a few things to have in mind. Firstly, the pot will be played heads-up, and your opponent will likely play with a wide range of holdings. Secondly, you'll be out of position during the whole hand and first to act on every street preflop.

Out of Position by Default

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), 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 the possibility of taking down the pot preflop and avoiding the rake is beneficial. In a Small Blind position, the optimal strategy changes significantly according to how big the rake is.

If we compare the "Low stakes" settings from the PLO Genius (which reflects the rake for 6-max cash for PLO 50) with "High stakes" (which is equal to 6-max 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 highest 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, the Mid stakes structure in PLO Genius), you should also abandon limping and raise 38.9%.

For the rest of the article, we'll assume that most of our readers play low-stakes games, so we'll use low-stakes adjusted simulations for the reference.

There is one more key factor that distinguishes the Small Blind from other positions. When playing from early, middle, or late position, you typically raise hands you expect to be profitable. In the Small Blind, however, the logic is slightly different.

When you're not in the blinds, the expected value of folding is 0, since you don't lose any chips by giving up your hand. As a result, even marginal hands can be opened if their EV is above zero.

This changes in the Small Blind. Since you've already posted 0.5 BB, folding results in an immediate loss — which shifts the threshold for continuing in the hand.

As a result, the optimal strategy (GTO-wise) in the Small Blind includes raising some bad hands (like QT86 single suited), which have negative expected values. These negative EVs in those cases, however, are still outperforming the EV of folding (opening QT86ss loses 0.41 BB, while open folding loses 0.5 BB).

Of course, the most significant chunk of the expected value of your small blind strategy does not come from opening the marginal holdings but the most profitable and value-oriented hands. However, if you want to play this position well, you should know the thresholds of playability for certain hand classes in the Small Blind.

Small Blind vs Big Blind: A Unique Dynamic

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 frequently to opens? The BB fold to steal vs SB stat (available in Holdem Manager and other tracking software) can help you answer that.

If they fold more than ~63% of the time, you can profitably open any hand. The higher their folding frequency, the greater your average profit — assuming you don't make significant mistakes 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 in the Small Blind.

Additionally, due to the pot limit nature of the game, the maximum raise size you can use preflop is 3BB, so you won't be able to go any bigger than that.

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 avoiding opening trips (except for Aces) and being 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 from the Small Blind and can lead to mistakes on your part, which you won't even be aware of. Luckily, when there is a space for improvement, there is also a chance to reduce your EV loss.

When deciding where the cutoff for opening or folding a hand is, studying with PLO Genius will help you immensely. 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.

Understanding Small Blind Strategy Doesn't Have to Be Difficult

Despite the unfavorable 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 lose less from the small blind than the rest of the table. The free Starter plan covers 100bb preflop for heads-up and 6-max, in four-card and five-card PLO, with the trainer and no time limit.

Next in the series: cold calling in PLO.