What are the blinds and why does holdem have them?
A blind is considered a forced bet preflop (before you get your cards). It is called a “blind” because you don’t have a choice whether you want to put your money in before you see your cards. The reason holdem has this is so that there will be action, or game play. If there wasn’t a forced bet, most likely everyone would just wait for pocket Aces all day. Originally the idea was the game would center around battling for the blind money. Now days, in low limit holdem especially, way more money is in the pot so that feature is kind of lost — the blinds still serve their original purpose as the limits get higher. Another form of forced betting to initiate action is the ante structure. Blinds are usually more popular in today’s structured limit holdem games (such as $2/4 or $3/6 holdem) played online or in casinos then antes though. In this structure there are usually two blinds: the big and the small blind. These are placed directly to the left of the dealer button. So it would go dealer
