what stage in the tournament to start stealing blinds?

I never really sure when to start stealing blinds. At the beginning of the tournament the stack size are so huge compared to the blinds that it's not worth stealing or is it?

I dont consider the blinds worth stealing until it reaches 25/50, even then I wont do it a huge amout but when it goes up to 50/100 I really start to make some steals.

Be aware of how the players in the blinds are playing before you attempt any steals. If they are very tight then you can attempt a steal quite a lot, if they are loose dont attempt a steal without good cards. Hope this helps.

No its not doing you any good in the beginning. Normal late in the tournament when the big antes start kicking in and you blind levels are high and you start counting how many BBs you have and adjusted BBs you have behind. This is when you want to position yourself to steal blinds. Watch the board and know when to go for the steal because bad timeing and a weak hand can cause a great fall. Now if you are chip leader with a huge stack over the table you can pretty much do this at any point, but do'nt get into a battle with the second largest stack cause you could see a drastic fall in your stack size.

GL

20-30bb is when it's really critical especially when antes are in play, but from the LP you want to be playing a lot of hands when deep anyway as you've got an advantage post flop

From the first hand of the tournament. But i'm usually not classing it as "stealing". More like playing many pots in position vs bad players.

Yeah right!!!, Did you get your business straight?

You allways steal blinds when you can do it with a low risk.
You want / need to steal more of the blinds when that ante kicks in. (that wil be with a higher risk)

( And you especially want to steal blinds from juice561 if he's a you're left side ;-) just for the fun of it. )

When the blinds are 10/20 or 15/30 they are just not worth trying to steal. The BB isn't being asked to pay that much extra to see a flop in the early levels. 25/50 is where I tend to start thinking about it, even if I don't try and steal. Rest assured I'm on a stealing mission when the levels are 50/100. When the antes get involved, I always try my best to steal blinds once per rotation.

1st hand on button

folds to you

raise ATC

SO every time I am the button and if everyone folds to me then I should try to steal everytime by raising ATC. Is that right? Does everyone agree this is correct play at all stage of the tournament?

There's no hard or fast rule in my book - you need to know what the tendencies are of the people to your left which is why its usually a good idea to wait till mid-stages of a tournament. That way you've got good reads on your opponents and can stay away from the calling stations etc...

first hand isn't all stages

I don't understand, English not your first language?

^^This is an unnecessary comment imo, especially given the mistakes you are making yourself (just for the record - English isn't my first language either)

In the OP you asked when should we be starting to steal in LP.

Disclaimer: Baudib meant as soon as it is folded to you on the button you can start stealing - whatever stage that might be.

Surely it's better to steal more against tight blinds with antes in play but as said stealing is always good as you're playing IP all the time.

^^^^

^^^^^^

Good answers.

You cant put a number on it. If you raise from the button after it folded to you with AA, you cant really call it stealing. But if you raise in the same position with 24o, its gonna help if there is a reason you are doing this.

Blinds compared to your stack size and the stack sizes of the blinds (or of the BB if you are BvB), reads on the blinds, risk vs reward and so on. And as you mentioned in your OP, it should be worth it, if it is a pure steal that you will have to fold to a 3 bet or a flop bet, then you should be pretty sure that it will work enough to make it profitable, and if it works should be profitable to make in the first place. If you have a stack of 3000, and the blinds are 10/20, stealing isnt really worth doing.

Some good comments here.
I don t think it is worth stealing early in the tourna when the blinds are small relative to the stack. 20BB might when to at latest to consider it. But seems like most others think about when the ante are in.
I not to keen in stealing when all folds to me at the button cause that generally means that the SB or BB will have a starting hand.I think when the tables get to 6-7 handed then chances are fewer someone as a good starting hand and stealing from UTG , CO or anywhere else is better.
I think constantly trying to steal from the button will cause the BB and SB to defend more later in the tournament

I guess you could test the waters early and try to steal to see how tight the players to the left are, but aren't you just going to

What ? Whether you steal from the button or not has no effect (is this a level ?) on what hands the blinds have.

While true this is one of the things we don't need to fear.

Villains can make a lot of mistakes when defending their blinds AND they will defend against our good hands we're playing exactly as if we were attempting to steal.

Having the button is the most profitable position in poker. Use it.

If the blinds decide to defend wider with more money at stake, that's even more profitable. That means you're playing in position against even weaker positions. If you don't like that situation, stop playing poker.

Read bold above.

You need to read up on your basic strategy (to begin with), look in the strategy section to start.

It's situational. A good case can be made for going for it early as you may not see those guys later on anyway. Get em while you can.

It's also not a bad idea to just let one go now and then lest someone get the idea you literally playing ATC to grab their blinds. Keep them guessing. That includes mixing up your position - do it from the BTN, of course, but mix in the SB, cut off and even deeper if you have a good read on the table.

Whatever you do - try to keep track who you are stealing from. Who is laying them down, who is defending, who is frustrated, who is commenting, who seems unphased (that's the one I worry about).

You really do want to get the guy annoyed - so don't be afraid of doing so. Unhinge him a little bit and all of a sudden he's defending with J5. That's not a bad thing. Just be prepared to shift gears in your play when the dynamics start to change.

These things are standard to tournament play.

sorry.. I couldn't resist lol

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:rofl

There was a similar thread to this where I posted a similar question, but I think it may be more pertinent here: How does the onset of antes affect your blind stealing strategy? Do you do it more/less frequently? Do you resize your bets? Do you still more liberally/conservatively? From earlier positions?

As always, whether or not you steal will depend on your read of the table, and how high you believe your steal success % to be combined with your equity against your opponents calling range.

A standard answer is not possible since "it depends" but, yea, antes do make stealing more profitable, so I guess the answer is Yes, steal more when antes kick in.

Let's say no ante and there is $600 in the pot preflop ($400 BB and $200 SB).
Add just a $50 ante and the preflop pot can be $1050.
It now MUCH more worthwhile to go after the dead money. Also, since this is going to happen in the later stages of the tourney you are going to see more shoves to acquire this dead money since for some a 3x or 4x bet will be over 1/3 of their stack anyway. To avoid getting eaten up by the blinds you need to be more aggressive all the way around and incorporate earlier positions.
You still have to consider the other players and what they are doing as a major element. On some tables you might even be able to consider and accomplish a steal attempt UTG while others even the CO might be a trickier situation.
As usual the bottom line answer is "it depends".

if u do this every time people will know you are steeling andu will get caught by the blinds

Easy: when ante go

And if guys at the left are nits, you certainly have raise1st almost in 100% from CO and BU (+EV)

After studying tournament play, I have come up with the conclusion that there is three define stages in the tournament poker

Stage 1 here is early in the tournament. Everyone is deep stacked and almost all the time all five community cards are dealt. You can play your own game
Stage 2 blinds are increasing. There is variation stack size. When most players are 10-30BB I see a lot of pre flop raise-call then push/fold or push/shove or shove/fold or shove/reshove on the flop or turn .
Stage 3 this would be single table when it becomes short handed at around 6 players. The blinds are significant and may reach the critical less than 10BB. There is all pre flop play shove/fold or shove/reshove

ive always pride into not stealing pots since day 1 but havent made it far into tourneys,but now since ive attempted to start stealing pots in the middle of tourney's ive been much more succcesful and am making it further into to tourneys so i quess in order to be succesful you do have to steal pots at sometimes in the game more or less when blinds increase with antes

i attempt to steal when i have decent position and the amount is about 1/20th of my stack, and when the blinds are starting to threaten my tournament life overall. Plus my nit image helps too.

There's no pride in that at all.
But if you take a pride in being blinded out, then I guess it's "okay".
There are pretty much 3 phases for me, quite similar than what Dlam described.
1. 10/20 - 25/50 - playing tight, just play premium hands.
50/100 - 100/200 - depends on stack, default 3bb raises or shoves, depending on situation and stacks.
100/200 + ante - and so on - now when the fun begins. You rarely have 25 - 30bb at this point, more like 5-10, it's just shove or fold.
Rather play a complete rag, than get blinded out!

the logic in this thread is ridiculous. We should always be attempting to make the correct play and whether "stealing the blinds are worth it" shouldn't enter our mind. If stealing nets us an ev of 0.8bb (just an example) even if it's only 1% of our stack it's still a net positive and we should do it rather than fold. We should always be attempting to make the most profitable play. A lot of people in this thread are trying to create a cookie cutter approach rather than actually using their brains and approaching each situation with logic. So yeah I'm going to say I don't like to steal blinds until I've registered to the tourney and have a seat at the table. From then on if I see a profitable steal spot I'm going to take it.

When to start to steal blinds really depends on my tournament strategy but if you are in position and first to act I will try with ATC.

First i describe stealing the blinds as playing ATC that i would not want to play even with position.

I like to go after the blinds early if its a tournament with better players.

I have several reason for doing this.

1)The blinds are small but it doesn't cost me much.
2)You will appear to be active which always helps when you wake up with a hand.
3)People are still trying to figure out the table.
4)You get to know the sb and bb faster
5)I can try to set the opening raise for the table.

I can tell you last night i stole from the CO and than again from the button. The bb decided to play and i flopped a monster and stacked him. I had K9o and he had Aks. flop kk9. He told me later he didn't raise because he wanted to trap me. He felt i was playing ATC.

I am really only pushing this for the first couple rounds.


Once ante's are introduced blind stealing becomes a must unless you are at a very aggressive table.

A bit contradictory, your post. To call the logic ITT "ridiculous" then state "attempt to make the correct play", you seem to miss the point that a poster is trying to get advice so he can do exactly this, make the correct play. You, however, seem to know exactly when and why your do what you do. You also mention making the most profitable play, but seem to assume that it will be obvious what play is the most profitable. Is a steal attempt the most profitable, or could there be some tight/loose tendencies of the players still to come that need to be considered, as one example, which may make a re raise very probable, which will narrow down the cards one will "steal" with. And so on.

While I understand that there is no recipe to when stealing is wrong or right, that is exactly the purpose of this thread, to help people get a grasp on SOME situations that they may not be already familiar with.

And while some answers may be not what many people think are logical, not all players have 1000's, or even 100's, of tourneys under their belt, and it does them good to get involved in discussion, to perhaps say something kind of silly. A logical explanation of WHY what they say is not perhaps the most logical approach is much more beneficial than an arrogant "ridiculous" comment.