Defending your big blind against the small blind limp

The small blind limp is the most common heads-up opening in Spin & Go, and the least punished. Many players check everything, out of comfort: a free flop, and half the value of the spot goes with it.

The reasoning is two observations long. You already have one big blind in, and your opponent has just shown a hand he did not want to raise. So you attack, but not in any old way.

At 9 BB, a third of hands attack

At 9 big blinds, the reference range checks 67.3 % of hands. The rest attacks, in two ways: 18.7 % go all in straight away, 14 % raise to a normal size and plan to call the shove behind.

The point is not to win the pot right now. It is to deny the small blind the cheap flop she came for with a mediocre hand, and to make her play for her stack with the worse half of her range.

The deeper you get, the less you attack

At 18 BB the same spot is played far more quietly: 80.5 % checks, and only 4.5 % shoves. Risking eighteen blinds to win two no longer makes sense, and the raise takes the shove’s place.

It is the mirror image of push/fold: short, you attack wide because the shove is cheap; deep, you check and play the flop, knowing you will act first there.