| Stealing Blinds
It can be a tricky thing to steal blinds. Do it too much and you’ll find a lot of players fighting back by re-raising. Do it too little and you’ll find yourself blinded off when you run out of chips because you haven’t been aggressive enough.
If you’re going to survive and thrive in no limit hold’em tournament play, you’ll need to master blind stealing. The term stealing is used because players often raise the blinds with mediocre hands in hope of winning the chips in the blinds uncontested when those players fold. If you’re raising with a big hand like Q-Q or A-K, you’re certainly not “stealing.”
Here are some tips on blind thievery in tournament play.
Steal a lot late, not so much early. You don’t want to aggressively go after blinds in the early levels of tournaments because the blinds are small relative to everyone’s stack sizes. For example, in many tournaments you might start with 1,500 in chips and the blinds begin at 25-25. You can win 50 in chips in the blinds, which represents 3 percent of your starting stack. I’d rather limp in with a mediocre hand and hope to flop a big hand that I might be able to double up with rather than try to steal very little in blind money. In the latter stages of a tournament, the blinds represent a much larger percentage of the average stack and must be fought for at all costs. If you’re not in there fighting for the blinds then you will slowly lose your chips by attrition.
Be careful stealing from early position. Don’t try to steal much with weak or medium hands from a position close to the left of the blinds. If I’m attempting to steal the blinds I usually don’t want to try it from anymore than two spots to the right of the button. There are too many players to your left who could wake up with a big hand and re-raise you otherwise.
Pick on the weak. Sit and observe your table for an hour. You’ll see which players are aggressive and which are timid. Most importantly, you’ll be able to determine who to target as your victim. Go after the blinds of the weak players -- even with weak hands -- if you think they will fold and you are reasonably close to the button. Be careful, though, because other aggressive players may catch on to your tactic and re-raise you if they think you are just raising to pick on the weak.
Don’t risk too much for too little. I generally prefer to raise about 2.5 to 3 times the big blind anytime I raise, whether it is with A-A or a blind stealing hand like 7-8. The risk just isn’t worth the reward if you bet 5 or 6 times the big blind and someone calls or re-raises and you ultimately have to fold your unsuccessful steal attempt. You’ll have to steal the blinds 3 or 4 more times just to make up for what you lost after your big raise.
By Johnny Kampis |