Blind Stealing?

Good evening fellow cardschatters,

I am looking for some opinions on blind stealing in cash games...is it worth it? Often, I see players on the button or cutoff aggressively playing hands that they obviously should not be...my only assumption is that they are trying to steal the blinds. Maybe they are just aggressive players?

To me, it's not worth it. Why play bad hands, even if you are on the button? I can understand that if the table is fairly tight, you might want to loosen up your starting hand requirements...but, 83o? 94o? That seems a bit too loose.

Opinions? Any possible tells from this behavior, other than the obvious "fish" or "donk?"

Others will explain this better than me, but in super summary format:

1) You'll win 1.5bb when you successfully steal, which is about 70% of the time.
Even if you lose every unsuccessful steal (some1 calls/ 3 bets); your EV is
0.7*1.5 - 0.3*3 = 0.15bb.

That's 7.5 ptBB/100 at the worst case!

2) When you're not successful, you're in position post-flop, which is huge. Even with rubbish hands, you can often win the hand with a c-bet; and sometimes you flop an extremely well-disguised monster.

And you don't need to steal with ATC, but if you widen your range to

Ax, Kxs, QT, K8+, 22+, any connectors and suited one-gappers,

that's 43% of your range --a good stealing percentage-- and you have hands that can usually play ok postflop in position.

I see your points loop, but I believe other things must be taken into consideration, too...for example, if you have maniacs sitting to your left that will call down anything, I think it is a waste of a raise, especially if you miss, which will be more often than not.

Thank you, though, for showing me the math. Never looked at it in that light, before...

Stealing can have a huge impact on your winrate. If you have aggressive, 3 bettors sitting in the two seats to your left either tighten up on that 43% range or even better move to a different seat/table.

what loop said, and we dont wanna be sitting with maniac loose players to our left, we like nits to our left exactly for this purpose.

Timmah120 said:

for example, if you have maniacs sitting to your left that will call down anything, I think you want to move a few seats to the left instead of raising

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FYP

For sure it depends on people on the table, but in general loopmeister explained it very well.

loopmeister said:

And you don't need to steal with ATC, but if you widen your range to

Ax, Kxs, QT, K8+, 22+, any connectors and suited one-gappers,

that's 43% of your range --a good stealing percentage-- and you have hands that can usually play ok postflop in position.

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This is true, and if you go to a showdown with these cards, then, it can also come in handy later, because your opponent can assume that you will play a wide range of hands.
I have also used what is called a set-up play from this position or the C/O ... This is strategic move, where ill re-raise a previous raiser, with bad cards like 7/8 offsuit, and then take the hand to a showdown, so that the table thinks im an idiot. (this really only works when you first sit down and if you havent played against them before), as they say there is a time and a place for everything.

newbie...my 1st stupid Q

stupid Q #1...what is ATC... from above post...
As well ive just recently started doin the stealing thing, cause i didnt believe it was profitable either...however i'm up $ according to my mgr...

ATC - definition

ATC is Any Two Cards

Do you use PT or HEM? I can post some links that I found extremely helpful to do with Blind Stealing, the red line on your graph and isolating limpers.

I like to open raise 2.5BB here.
It keeps my cost down and min re-raise is just 1.5BB more.
SB has to put in 50% of the pot to call and BB should fold 70% of possible hands.

Blind stealing is the way of life in poker. Hitting the flop is just the backup plan for getting called.

billdogg said:

Blind stealing is the way of life in poker. Hitting the flop is just the backup plan for getting called.

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Exactly, then if you don't connect with the pot there is c-betting, remember you will be in position. Blind stealing from CO can also be profitable too.

I almost like blind stealing from CO more than button. Everybody knows when button open raises, it's a good chance it's a steal, so it gets no respect.

marvingubba said:

I like to open raise 2.5BB here.
It keeps my cost down and min re-raise is just 1.5BB more.
SB has to put in 50% of the pot to call and BB should fold 70% of possible hands.

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Interesting point, but this would open you up to blind defense more, people would see it as a "weak" attempt to steal and react accordingly.

"most" of the higher limit regs at one point,some still do raised 2.5bb to steal from HJ,CO,button.No one likes to play OOP so most 3bet vs steal att.or fold.After mass amounts of hands .5bb will add up.

JOEBOB69 said:

"most" of the higher limit regs at one point,some still do raised 2.5bb to steal from HJ,CO,button.No one likes to play OOP so most 3bet vs steal att.or fold.After mass amounts of hands .5bb will add up.

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I take your point, I was talking about low limit, I should have made that clear.

It would be interesting to explore the PT/HEM stats filtered for success/resteal/call of 2.5BB steal attempts from someone that does it.

ukphoenix said:

Interesting point, but this would open you up to blind defense more, people would see it as a "weak" attempt to steal and react accordingly.

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True, so to reduce this, I generally open raise the same 2.5BB regardless of position or the strength of my hole cards.

Open raising 2.5x is weak imo. Filter your pt3/hem to hands where you are the original raiser. You should be very + BB/100. Try open raising 3.5x everytime, and that trend will continue at a better rate.

billdogg said:

Open raising 2.5x is weak imo. Filter your pt3/hem to hands where you are the original raiser. You should be very + BB/100. Try open raising 3.5x everytime, and that trend will continue at a better rate.

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I noticed you do that bill.I disagree.
Edit:If you only raise 3.5 for vaule only and there to stupid to pick up on it

billdogg said:

Open raising 2.5x is weak imo. Filter your pt3/hem to hands where you are the original raiser. You should be very + BB/100. Try open raising 3.5x everytime, and that trend will continue at a better rate.

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Although I don't necessarily disagree with you, that logic is very, very flawed. By the same logic, why not just raise to 10x, or open shove every hand that you are going to play?

billdogg said:

I almost like blind stealing from CO more than button. Everybody knows when button open raises, it's a good chance it's a steal, so it gets no respect.

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I completely agree with this.
I tracked a couple hundred hands (Rush Poker NLHE $0.05/$0.10, open-raise 2.5BB) from both positions and stealing from CO was more successful.

Couple hundred hands is lol to little of a sample.