Stealing [Cash Games]

I posted this in the Micros Stakes thread already and got some very good feed back, in the interest of this not getting lost though I am reposting it on its own, hopefully this will generate some additional good discussion.

All right, here are my thoughts on stealing. If there is anything I left out got wrong etc let me know or start debating it.

Stealing

Stealing is open raising from late position with the intention of taking “Stealing” the blinds uncontested. For our purposes I am only proposing stealing the blinds from the Button, the Cutoff and the Hijack seat. For people who have been playing awhile, blind stealing is a very common and necessary strategy for tournaments. Blind stealing does have its place in cash games as well just not exactly the same as for tournament.

The first thing to realize about stealing blinds in cash games is that the blinds usually represent a minuscule portion of a players chip stack. That is to say when playing 5nl, with the blinds of .02/.05 the big blind is only equal to 1/100th of a full stack. This is in stark contrast to Tournaments where the blinds can represent a much larger percentage of the average players stacks depending on the stage of the tournament.

Then why do it you might ask? For a couple of reasons, the first of which is free money. If the blinds are weak tight players they will often surrender them without a fight even if they know you are stealing. Good players know that the blinds are just the cost of playing and won’t go crazy defending their blinds as they will be OOP (out of Position) the entire hand. Bad players will look at their cards and decide well J2o is too weak so I will fold. That is the first reason. Not very lucrative for sure but some players are so weak tight they will NEVER play back at a blind stealer with out a monster hand so if you find these players steal away.

The second reason why a player is going to want to engage in blind stealing is image manipulation. If the blinds know you are a blind stealer and are a somewhat thinking players they know you can’t always have a hand good enough to call a re-raise (3bet) so they will start 3-betting you light. Admittedly at the micro levels there aren’t a lot of thinking players but we all start somewhere and if you are going to be stealing blinds you need to understand how to counter it. Now we have a situation where the blinds think you are just a brazen thief and will steal with ATC, now is the time where with a little luck you can trap them into playing a big pot OOP.

Now you have been stealing the blinds are playing back at you, now is when you need to tighten back up. If you are lucky enough to pick up a big hand AA-JJ etc, and raise, the blinds could very well think you are just stealing again and will be 3betting you with a much wider range than they would typically have, now you can drop the hammer and 4-bet shove on them or smooth call and see a flop. Now because of you earlier thievery you have created a very favorable situation for yourself, playing a big pot in position.

It is important to note that just because the blinds might be playing back as you that don’t think they don’t have a big hand, there is no rule against the blinds being dealt wired Aces. As always with poker it depends is usually the correct answer will need to be paying attention to the your opponents play.

Above are a couple of reasons to steal, there are also reason/situations that you don’t want to steal. Don’t steal as often when the blinds call a lot if you aren’t a great post flop player. Don’t steal if you can make more money off of your opponents because you can outplay them post flop

I don't play or know much about 6-max so I not sure how much or if any of this applies there.

About stealing, one thing i like to do is to alter my raise size on the SB and BTN. While I usually open-raise pot to 4bb, I only raise to 3bb on BTN and minraise to 2bb in SB. This gives me a better price on my steals, i.e. they don't need to work that often to be profitable.

Steveg1976 said:

The first thing to realize about stealing blinds in cash games is that the blinds usually represent a minuscule portion of a players chip stack.

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True, but they have a huge impact on your win rate.

Good players are stakes 25nl and above have win rates around 5BB/100, i.e. 10 big blinds/100 hands. That's less than the amount of blinds you pay over 100 hands. At full ring, you pay 1.5 x 100 / 9 = 16.7 big blinds/100 hands. At 6max, you pay 1.5 x 100 / 6 = 25 big blinds/100 hands. Most of this cost of paying your blinds has to be compensated by stealing the blinds of the people to your left. Failing to do so properly will have a tremendous impact on your win rate.

Like Belgo I also raise slightly smaller from the BTN and SB (3.5x and 3x respectively). Also note that people who defend their blinds too often are generally the most profitable to steal from because they'll call OOP and generally give up to a cbet.

I think it might be interesting to see some people's stealing stats here as well. I'll post mine when I get home and can access my db.

Yeah I sort of expanded in the other thread, but basically the size of your stack only matters when playing against players who will stack off light. If you had a billion big blinds it would still be profitable to steal the blinds because you still win the same amount of money/hand for doing it. Also note that the more you steal the more likely an opponent will stack off postflop. If you only raise premiums preflop, how likely are they to give you their entire stack?

Now when you're playing against calling stations, stack size does matter because you can simply wait for hands and stack the stations then.

WVHillbilly said:

I think it might be interesting to see some people's stealing stats here as well.

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my stealing stats for full ring (filtered for # of players > 6). Note that i play much better now than when i was at 25nl.

BelgoSuisse said:

my stealing stats for full ring (filtered for # of players > 6). Note that i play much better now than when i was at 25nl.

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You think your steals work more at full ring than 6-max? My steal % is about 45%, and I get played back at a ton... might have to do with my image, and how often the button comes around in 6-max with everyone folded to it. While we steal at the same frequency, steal situations occur much much more playing 6-max, so possibly the blinds get angsty sooner.

c9h13no3 said:

You think your steals work more at full ring than 6-max?

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yes.

i don't really like my 6max game so i won't post stats that may not be relevant, but overall at 6max i steal less and yet it works less often too.

Do you think stealing the blinds in cash games is a good way to combat a site's rake? Or is that irrelavent?

Metrogn0me said:

Do you think stealing the blinds in cash games is a good way to combat a site's rake? Or is that irrelavent?

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no, you steal because there are blinds. you would still steal with blinds and no rake. You would not with rake and no blinds.

BelgoSuisse said:

About stealing, one thing i like to do is to alter my raise size on the SB and BTN. While I usually open-raise pot to 4bb, I only raise to 3bb on BTN and minraise to 2bb in SB. This gives me a better price on my steals, i.e. they don't need to work that often to be profitable.

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Is this consistent or vary depending on the hand, would you still minraise aces if its folded to you in the SB.
Also would you 3x Kings folded to you in the cut off ?

Or standard 4x when you have these hands?

EDIT: Also When you are isolating limpers from the button are you making it 4x + 1 or 3x + 1

BelgoSuisse said:

You would not with rake and no blinds.

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With rake and no blinds I would play 0 hands. With no rake and no blinds I would play exactly 1 hand and still expect to be breakeven .

Jurn8 said:

Is this consistent or vary depending on the hand, would you still minraise aces if its folded to you in the SB.
Also would you 3x Kings folded to you in the cut off ?

Or standard 4x when you have these hands?

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I don't change preflop bet sizing depending on my hand value.

EDIT: Also When you are isolating limpers from the button are you making it 4x + 1 or 3x + 1

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Actually, 3.5bb+1.5bb per limper ...

Well, not always exactly, but with several limpers i will often bet really more than pot-sized because i don't want a first caller to give tempting odds to the others.

ok so its standard raising if limpers in, iv been using the 3x btn + 3x SB and seems to be working nicely