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Blocker – One of your opponents outs, out of play because it is in a hand and therefore is not live in the deck.
If you are holding a card or cards that your opponent needs, you are effectively blocking his ability to complete his
hand. When you hold these cards in your hand they are called “blockers.” The term is most commonly used in Omaha and
Lowball games, where each player takes
cards out of play that they will not use in to complete their hand. If you have made the nut low in a High-Low Omaha game
with Ah 2h 2s 2d, the two extra deuces are blockers to another nut low hand. If, on the other hand, you were playing
California Lowball, and you were dealt 4h 3c 2d As Ac, The extra
ace would be a blocker, because your opponent most likely
needs it to complete his hand. In Triple Draw Lowball games it is not safe to assume that a card that you have taken out of
play by discarding will stay out of play. Often by the third draw there will not be enough cards left in the deck to complete
the deal. In this case the dealer will shuffle the discards back into the deck in order to complete the deal. This means that
your opponent (or even yourself), may acquire through the draw a card that was previously discarded.
Holding blockers will affect your pot odds.
By decreasing the likelihood your opponent will complete their hand, you increase your chance of winning the pot. But your
opponent will often have several outs in Lowball and Omaha games. Slimming their outs by one or two is helpful, but certainly
does not preclude them from making their hand anyway. Some players will expose a blocker in order to get their opponent to throw
their draw away. This is both unethical and unwise from a game theory standpoint. Good poker players make betting decisions based
upon the information they have available. The better their information, the better able they are to make correct poker decisions.
By exposing a card you are improving the quality of their information. You may increase the probability that they will muck when
you expose a blocker, but you are also letting them off the hook on a low probability draw. In a poker game, if you have
privileged information (information that only you have), like the placement of a blocker, you should keep it to
yourself. Generally, as more people share a piece of
information, it becomes less valuable.
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