What to do about blind stealers?

So the guy to the right of me has over 60% blind steal and I have a pretty big sampling of his hands. How do you deal with this? I'm waiting for even a somewhat decent hand to re-raise, problem is, if he calls he'll still have position over me. Any thoughts?

Be less cautious. If your opponent steals with 60% of hands, it follows that you can resteal with any above-average hand and are likely to be ahead. Reraise with any Ace, any King, any Pair, Suited Connectors etc.

You don`t need to wait for a monster in such circumstances. Alter your mindset and look for a good percentage chance, don`t hold off and let the opponent grind you down while you are looking for security or certainty. There is no certainty in poker. Even if you were dealt pocket Aces, you would still only be about 85% to win against your opponent`s ATC.

What Egon said!! Do exactly as he said and dont worry if it doesent work every time. Very aggressively re raise him, and again, and again. If he flips AA-QQ, AK etc, which will also happen somewhere down the line, so be it. Hes mostly stealing with hands you can often dominate. If you turn the aggression back at him, he will cool down. And if he doesnt, well, thats ok too. Pick your spots and go for it.

Egon Towst is right ! If i have such an opponent at my table, i simply reshove (in the turbos) with any "ok" hand, if he stealed the last 2 or 3 hands in a row. I don´t use extra poker software, but i have a brief look into the last hands histories on pokerstars and this helps a lot...

these guys got it right. reraise big or shove. Use this sparingly tho as most likely he will adapt his stragey. Play ace rag, king 10 and up, face cards and suited conn. from 7 up

Stealing blinds isn't a big deal in no limit games. 3bet him in position when you're not in the SB.

danoodle said:

So the guy to the right of me has over 60% blind steal and I have a pretty big sampling of his hands. How do you deal with this? I'm waiting for even a somewhat decent hand to re-raise, problem is, if he calls he'll still have position over me. Any thoughts?

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Steal blinds from the guy on your left. Problem solved.

c9h13no3 said:

Steal blinds from the guy on your left. Problem solved.

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this plus if hes stealing 60% then he wont call the majority of the time to reraises so you wont have to worry about position. I 3 bet the hell out of Button and CO raisers all the time. Also this gives him the slow down sign to not do it much again....

I run into annoying people like that. Then I learned to shove, problem solved.

Then he started limping in. So I shoved. I did that until he learned to fold.

It's a great feeling when you give somone enough of a beat down that he is now YOUR b*tch !!!!!

LizzyJ said:

I run into annoying people like that. Then I learned to shove, problem solved.

Then he started limping in. So I shoved. I did that until he learned to fold.

It's a great feeling when you give somone enough of a beat down that he is now YOUR b*tch !!!!!

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probs. not a good idea.


60% means he's opening a pretty wide range.
Whats his fold to 3-bet? Prolly pretty high.
Start 3betting him lighter.
Problem solved.

I never bother at cash tables with blind stealers. I only need to reraise once at 3 orbits and we are eaven.
But most of us are beginners so we play micros. At micros all i do is to w8 for that hand that can bring down an entire stack. 10-20 cets lost on the way are not a big deal when i win 2 dollars.

At tournaments there's another story when blinds are high.
You cannot fight back without a hand when a bigger stack steals from you.

swingro said:

At tournaments there's another story when blinds are high.
You cannot fight back without a hand when a bigger stack steals from you.

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That`s not necessarily true. You can if your stack is large enough to do some damage to the stealer and if you have a reasonably tight image.

Egon Towst said:

That`s not necessarily true. You can if your stack is large enough to do some damage to the stealer and if you have a reasonably tight image.

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You need a whole lot of experience to do so and a lot of confort with the postflop play. So i would not advise that to a beginner.
If you challenge him with 2 decent cards and you don't hit and he's still agressive you are in trouble.

If he's a decent player he will have it at the time you fight back
I see your point of view as an experienced player but to a beginner fighting back to a bully without having a good hand is the place where he looses his stack.

you gotta keep your stack up so you can raise against him but i feel you because i would love to put bullys out sometimes but then when you get a good hand to do it they end up winning anyways.

So much great advice here. The one thing I focus on here is you say you are gonna re raise with a monster. If this player is any good they are going to pick up on that pretty quickly so you must as others have said be prepared to 3-bet/re-steal with less than monster holding and sometimes even with crap.

How do you all feel about flatting when he 4 bets and then playing the flop aggro?

We're missing a lot of information here like stack sizes and players remaining. Just because the villain has a high steal %, doesn't mean we can 3bet steal with a set range every time, but our re-steal range does open up considerably depending on the stealer. If you want the most accurate advice, you're going to have to post the exact hands. There are times in SNGs where we just have to let smart regs exploit us because simply playing back would ultimately result in -EV.

Blind stealers only occur when people are very tight and they abuse the person if they know they are a very tight player. Once you call/raise them a few times they tend to slow it down.

Three bet 'em all! :biggrin:

Avoid re-stealing with a weak Ax, use small pairs and suited connectors.Shove it all-in, when you have fold equity, around 18-35 blinds.

As long as the guy is not a maniac, he will back off stealing in future, because your raise will be uncallable to a wide range.

okeedokalee said:

Avoid re-stealing with a weak Ax, use small pairs and suited connectors.Shove it all-in, when you have fold equity, around 18-35 blinds.

As long as the guy is not a maniac, he will back off stealing in future, because your raise will be uncallable to a wide range.

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if his range is so wide then why would we avoid re-stealing with with any Ax?