Stealing blinds, how it leads to my downfall.

Stealing blinds in tournament play is a technique that in most of the poker books/articles out there, and all of the poker books/articles I have read, is undoubtedly necessary to succeed in the tournament poker world.

I am typically a player who abides by this rule of succeeding in tournament poker and therefore, when I feel the time is right, I make a move on the blinds. But, in there lies the problem, as maybe I don't know when the time is right.

Often times I have gotten myself involved in blind stealing/re-stealing hands where I look back and say how did that become such a big pot and why am I on the losing end?

For example.. I will not use hand history here due to me being a little lazy. Yesterday I was in the $4 rush tournament and had a smaller than medium sized stack with the blinds being high enough that a steal would plump me up a bit. I held 9 6 suited on the button and my HUD told me there were two very tight players in the blinds, with medium stacks! BINGO! Right?

Well, not so much. After some time deliberating whether I should raise it 2.5x the BB, or 3x the BB, I decide the best move here might be to simply push all-in. The reasoning being that I really don't want to raise 3x the BB and end up getting called just to be forced to check down and be left with a small stack, so I put the pressure on these nits. AGGRESSION.

The small blind quickly folds and the clock is on the BB, who as the time ticks down can either be surfing the net and forgot he had a game running, or deliberating whether or not this moment is really worth it.

My thoughts at the time; there is no way he can call me here because he himself does not want to risk his tournament life on a silly blind battle, especially not a nitty man as himself. BUT NOT I! I AM A MAN OF RISK! And with risk comes great reward.

He calls.

Flips over something like A7-A10, or something of that sort, and my hand does not get any better as the community cards come.

My blind steal fails and I finish the tournament out of the money.

So really, when should I steal?

Should I steal with the 9 6 suited, but with a raise of 3x the BB?

Should I steal with J10 suited, how about J10 unsuited?

Should I steal with any ace? Should I ever steal from the cut-off? Should I still steal when I have no information? Should I steal with A9/A10 when there is a guy who is guaranteed to play back at me?

So many questions, and in advance I appreciate everyones advice.

Did you consider your own table image ? If the tight player in the blinds felt justified in calling with Ax, it must have been because he figured he was ahead of your range. Had he perhaps seen you make some unusually loose move in an earlier hand ? Or, were you playing a lot of hands generally ?

I'm a pretty tight player especially in rush so I don't think it was that. I think he just made a generalized read on my blind steal.

Precise stack sizes is hugely relevant here. If you had <10bb your shove is standard and you just got unlucky, probably even <15bb. As your stack gets bigger your steal should tend to be more in the 2.5x size (or whatever, I personally am adopting a more min-raise/2.1x type thing).

Just bad luck then. I don`t see anything wrong with your play as described, but there is always going to be an element of luck in choosing to play a hand which has no showdown value. Sometimes the opponent is on a different page of the script and won`t lay it down.

My stack was somewhere around 13,14 BB. Thanks for the advice.

-Phil Ivey27 said:

My stack was somewhere around 13,14 BB. Thanks for the advice.

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This stack size is too small for us to be worried about stealing blinds and too big to be risking on 96s.

Double-A said:

This stack size is too small for us to be worried about stealing blinds and too big to be risking on 96s.

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But if we don't steal blinds aren't we just withering away?

And let's say I have 25 BB then how about then? (Questions above)

Stealing blinds is something I believe strongly in. If you look at it like I say in my rush strategy, it starts to make a little more sense.

As you saw in the last video, you want to steal, steal, and steal! Find who the tight/passive players are and attack them. At this stage with 16-19 players left we will be widening our range up a lot. We also want to be looking to attack mid-stacks and mid-low stacks. These players are in survivor mode and just want to make the money at this point. So OTB and CO are our spots to steal with a lot of different cards. I’m talking almost anything with an Ace, all pairs, any paint cards, and suited connectors. I am usually min-betting if I see that it is affecting against the players in that certain tournament, if not then I raise 2.5 times the BB.

Since there is an attacking part we must talk about the defending part of this section. It’s not like every person is going to sit back and not raise your BB or SB as well. We must be careful though, just because they are in late position and raising doesn’t automatically mean that they are stealing. But, the majority of the time they are and we must show that we are not weak.


A lot of players do not like to defend, either they are too passive or just completely scared. In my opinion stealing is essential and must be done to win. Also many debate that it is a good way of wasting chips if you get caught/re-raised. But let’s look at it another way. Since the majority will usually fold to aggression then the percentage of time that we win a hand due to stealing or re-stealing will overcome the times that they defend and we have to fold. What I mean is that we will make enough money stealing due to the fact that we will win the hand with aggression the majority of the time.


Let’s say that the blinds are 400/800 with a 50 ante. If we steal the blinds 7 times during this level we will accumulate 11550 chips. Let’s say the 8th time we steal the BB re-raises our 2.5 times the BB raise. We lose 2000 here if we fold, but from stealing in good spots before we still have added 9550 to our stack. Also remember we will get hit with the blinds so this number might be slightly lower but the point is to show that stealing is all that bad, and is much more effective than waiting for a monster.

-Phil Ivey27 said:

I'm a pretty tight player especially in rush so I don't think it was that. I think he just made a generalized read on my blind steal.

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You had said you are a tight player and tight players generally have a solid poker game.
If villian picked up on this he would surely think of this as a steal.
Let's say I'm villian, this would be my thought process, A tight player who makes proper raises throughout game all of a sudden pushes all-in from the button?
He obviously doesn't want me to call and he's making this move from the button. He may be making a steal attempt and I have enought chips to call.

If villian had you outchipped and a call would not have crippled him then he made the right call.
If your going to make a straight up steal attempt then you may want to go with suited connectors and better just in case you do get called you might flop something the villian won't expect.
As for stealing from CO, it is risky but is fine to do but tighten your stealing range up a bit IMO.

A question of my own for the forum in general, What percentage of my chip stack should I commit to a steal attempt if attempting this with ATC form the button?

Your thinking is pretty good in this hand - you had good reason to think this was a good stealing spot and weren't afraid to have a shot at it. You are right that steals are essential to do well, just because this one went wrong doesn't mean you should change your mind about this being a good type of situation to do it in. I agree with shinedown.45 that a shove with 13/14BB looks like it doen't want action - the villain is possibly expecting something like a small pair or weak ace here. My usual plan in this situation is to 3BB raise and if someone comes with me, just take the hand as it comes. If I lose and am down to 10BB then at least my decisions are easy - 'all in or fold' when the situation is right.

I think that 12 -15BB area is horrible in a tourney, for the reason that this hand shows. You feel a bit of a chump going out with a 96s shove when you've played well to get this far, yet if you don't get proactive soon you are going to be so short that your stack isn't going to scare anyone and even a double up still doesn't get you in a very comfortable zone.

I wouldn't change your attitude towards stealing too much based on this hand - most times it pays off as KingCurtis says. You got unlucky here that someone got a hand they felt they could call with and then you didn't get lucky in a 60/40 pot.

One of your questions was about what cards to steal with and if any ace was good. Assuming there are not any rediculously big or small stacks in play, if you are having a stab at a 3BB steal then the cards don't matter. In fact, I prefer a wierd 96s/75o above an Ax hand if I am 3BB stealing. The rationale is that suppose we have A6o and the flop comes AK9 - we can get into all sorts of trouble. It can be hard to lay down because we might be ahead, yet any serious action from the villain will mean we are beat. Now we are down to 10BB having our c-bet called is just horrible as we are essentially bluffing this flop. However, our 96s is easier to play - we can get away from it more easily or check it down or if we c-bet and get action we are in a marginally better position against the villains AT than we were with our A6. Also, on the odd occasion that we get a great flop with our 96s (578 say) we can cash in bigtime as our villain might be tempted to play their overcards aggressively, especially if an ace comes on the turn. With A6 there are a lot fewer flops that will see us in such a strong position with potential for action.

Regarding the open shove steal with Ax, again I don't like it. Assuming again that stacks aren't huge or tiny, the problem we have is that we are going to be in bad shape against any sensible calling hand. Things like A6o,A7o can get us into all sorts of bother - if we get called by an ace it's going to be bigger and we are 75/25 dog. A suited A2-5 is sometimes worth a punt as we are only 70/30 dog to the bigger ace. But if the villain is going to turn an ace over I'd much rather be showing 96s.

Lofwyr said:

Precise stack sizes is hugely relevant here. If you had <10bb your shove is standard and you just got unlucky, probably even <15bb. As your stack gets bigger your steal should tend to be more in the 2.5x size (or whatever, I personally am adopting a more min-raise/2.1x type thing).

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This.

-Phil Ivey27 said:

But if we don't steal blinds aren't we just withering away?

And let's say I have 25 BB then how about then? (Questions above)

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Stealing blinds is mandatory... but w/ 13-14BB we have let our stack get too small.

With 10BB remaining, we're pretty much running on fumes and looking for a spot to shove and pray. With 11-15BB we're kinda screwed as far as stealing blinds is concerned... one failed attempt and we're left with a crippled stack.

With 11-19BB we should be waiting for two things: a monster hand and/or an opportunity to shove over a standard raise.

With a stack of 20BB+ we can take a "normal" approach; making standard raises w/ our good hands and looking for opportunities to steal blinds.

-Phil Ivey27 said:

I held 9 6 suited on the button and my HUD told me there were two very tight players in the blinds, with medium stacks! BINGO! Right?

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If they are thight they will fold to any raise... so why risk your all of your stack.

If you shove on the btn it does looks like a steal, after all YOU will have position through out the rest of the hand.

And your hand, take a good look at the hand range King Curtis mention "I’m talking almost anything with an Ace, all pairs, any paint cards, and suited connectors." (you might even include a king) yours are not among those its a medium Suited 2 gapper.

That said, it's never wrong to try, but when it fails you know you took a shoot and had a chance, as you always will have with live cards.