Stealing Blinds As mentioned in the beginning of this article, stealing the blinds should be put to the side when the tournament starts. You can pick some spots from time to time, but your intention should be to get the action started, not to try and really boost up your stack size. Stealing the blinds When playing poker, one of the tricks that most people pick up on early on is stealing the blinds- also known as stealing the pot, stealing the button position advantage, or a blind steal. A blind steal, or steal attempt, is when a poker player raises pre-flop hoping to win the blinds uncontested. If everyone else folds when you raise, you will win the dead money regardless of what.

Stealing the Blinds in Poker

One of the most common agressive tactics in poker is blind-stealing, this involves trying to pick up the blinds cheaply pre-flop by folding every other player out of the pot including the SB and BB. A general guide for blind-stealing is to bet 4xBBs from late position on an un-raised pot. This provides the right type of fold equity with the least amount of money you have to invest – if you bet much more than this you’re risking too much of your stack and if you bet too little and you’ll be giving pot odds for marginal hands to call.

The most important thing when blind-stealing is that you don’t want anyone to call you, this means it’s most profitable on a tight table and specifically with tight/weak players on the blinds. The last thing you want is to be re-raised by defensive players on the SB/BB and have everyone see that you’re bluffing with nothing.

Stealing Blinds in Poker Tournaments

Stealing blinds is definately very important in poker tournaments.In deep stack MTTs when you reach the final table for example, the blinds can end up being worth more than 10% of the average chip stick. In these scenarios stealing the blinds is way a more profitable relative to the risks. An additional reason to steal the blinds more often in multi-table tournaments is the lack of information players have on you as a player, because you’re continually being moved to different tables which limits how well they can read your bluffs.

Stealing Blinds in No Limit Cash Games

If you have a good read on your table and you’re sat in position with a marginal hand like suited connectors or high broadways, you should raise the pot 4xBBs on an un-raise board and steal the blinds. I only ever blind-steal in 10-handed games in late position, however in 6-man tables you can try this from mid-late position – sometimes even the blinds. Never blind-steal from early position in a 10-man game because this isn’t profitable, there are too many players left to act who can re-raise you and force you off your hand.

Although there’s little value in the blinds at cash games compared to the late stages of MTTs or SNGs, there is still a lot of money to be made from blind-stealing against overly tight/weak opponents who over defend or fold the blinds. The reason this earns you so much money is that a) you build large pots that increase your implied odds with marginal hands, b) you have a positional advantage post-flop and c) you’ll make additional money from continuation bets.

Just remember that that the looser your table is, the more disinclined you should be to steal or bluff pots. Another blind-stealing tip is to only do this when your hand has potential “outs”. The biggest mistake is blind stealing with dominated hands like Ax (e.g. A5 is dominated by AQ). It’s important to have enough outs to get paid off when you hit a monster like a straight, rather than just trying to make your opponent fold pre-flop.

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Stealing Blinds In Cash Games

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Stealing Blinds Tournament

As you get deeper and deeper into poker tournaments, the increasing blinds and antes place more and more pressure on your stack. Because of this, you are forced to make aggressive plays to maintain your stack and survive until the later stages. One of the simplest ways to survive is by occasionally stealing the blinds/antes.

Each pot has quite a few chips in it just from the blinds and antes, and most of the time no one has a premium hand. Because of that, aggressive players are able to steal the blinds and antes in the right spots, which helps them pad their stack and survive.

The most important part about successfully stealing blinds is knowing when to do it. This article will explain the best times for stealing blinds, and exactly how to do it:

When to Steal Blinds/Antes

Stealing blinds early on is not essential because the blinds are not significant enough to matter; however, as the game advances, so do the blinds. Stealing blinds in the mid to late stages of a tournament is very crucial. In the early leg of the tournament, you can't go for the blinds aggressively because it is nothing for your opponents to call you. If you are going to steal a blind, you don't want your opponents to call you. You need to win the blind and move on.

When the blinds grow larger in comparison to your chip stack, you should steal the blinds at least once per round. This will pad your stack and allow you to maintain an average stack and not fall behind in the tournament. Winning means increasing your chip stack and preparing your bank roll for the final table. Therefore, your goal from the beginning should be to win, not just to make the final table. You should be in an aggressive frame of mind; poker tournaments are not won by passive players.

Steal Blinds

This aggressiveness should pick up during the mid stage of the tournament because this is the time when players begin to tighten up their play, not defending their blinds as much. Players are less likely to gamble at this point because they want to sustain their chips. This fact is particularly true in no-limit.

In Limit Texas Hold'em, stealing blinds is achievable with any decent hand when playing from late position, including hands such as 8-7 suited, 10-8 suited, Q-8, A-X, any pair, etc. The structured betting in Limit suggests you only attempt to steal blinds if all other players ahead of you have folded, leaving only the blinds and you.

Stealing Blinds Poker

How to Steal in No Limit Hold'em

For No-Limit Texas Hold'em tournaments, you can be more aggressive. Your raise should be typically 3-4 times the amount of the big blind, rather than 2 times the big blind, as in Limit Hold'em. When you do this, it is a good idea to attack middle sized stacks as opposed to big stacks or small stacks. The reason is because big stacks have chips to blow, so they might call your raise just to look you up. Alternatively, small stacks have little to lose, so they might re-raise all in with a mediocre hand just to make a play.

Stealing Blinds

Don't forget your opponents might be utilizing the same strategies to steal the blinds from you with any hand from late position. By being aware of this, you can re-steal their steals. Don't give credit to other players at all for a decent hand if they raise from late position in late stages of the tournament (keywords being late position and late stage in the tournament).

This is especially true if one player is pounding your big blind over and over when the rest of the table folds to him. In this case you have to make a stand, because you're losing a lot of chips to him. Make a re-raise of 3-4x his raise the next time he does it, and he'll reconsider raising your blind in the future.

Stealing The Blinds

The exception to this would be when a tight player only raises with good hands in any position. You should avoid this player unless of course you have a great hand which you believe will beat his, but even in this situation, you should exercise caution.

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