Quote Originally Posted by Pelion
Do your steel attempts make 1.5bb every time you try them?
1.5bb is what you would make if your opponents folded every time. Unless youve found the tightest 2NL table in history that isnt going to happen.

Also just as a note, the BB that pokertracker counts are Big Bets by default, so if youre comparing to your PT database you will only get 0.75 BB for a succesful steal.

When tables are fairly tight and people arent making huge mistakes you have to fight over the small change. When tables are loose and people are calling down to the end with top pair hands on any board, attempting to blind steal with weak hands in already multiway pots will more often than not just put you with a weak hand in a multiway pot post flop. When people wont stack off in small pots with weak hands, building a pot preflop with an implied odds hand makes sense. When people will already put in a big chunk even an unraised pot, it doesnt.

I think both raising and calling preflop are going to be fairly +EV, and there probably wont be a huge difference between them. I dont agree at all with the idea that calling is just blanket wrong, without any consideration of the opponents likely tendencies, and I dont agree at all that blind stealing is anywhere near as crucial a part of winning at microstakes as doing well in big pots.