Daily Tourney Tip #8

[Radashack]

Alright the much requested post of Stealing

Blind steals, pot steals, and Stone cold bluffs, re-raising the stealer. *Note the stuff in this thread can and will at time cost you your chips*

All very instrumental plays, especially late in a poker tournament. Will start with the basics, blind stealing. Blind stealing is talked about like it’s a religion among poker players. There comes a point in a tournament where a good 70% of the hands are taken down on the blinds, via steals and people tightening up to make it down the stretch. So when do you blind steal? The answer is simply, when you have the opportunity. That doesn't mean every time a hand is folded to you, but generally you want to try and maintain a blind steal every orbit if possible (simply because this will keep your stack steady). Blind stealing will never improve your position too much in a tourney (yes when the blinds are 20k 40k with a 2k ante the blinds can be profitable ). With that.

Pot Steals. Stone Cold Bluffs, and re-raises. This is where the money is, but requires a good read for the player and what hand they are holding. A for Instance: I'm holding J10o I decide I am going to play some poker. Pot raised to 12k from 3k blinds. I call. Flop comes 2 6 9. The guys bets another 12k I raise to 24 (representing my overpair/toppair depending on his read), he hesitates and calls. Turn is a Q. He checks, I raise all in. Why did I raise all in here? I was playing poker. The guy raises PF, then bets after the flop, but doesn't put a re-raise onto my raise (and I only had about 12k chips left, him about 24k) instantly at that point I put him chasing a hand or on a PP, Turn missed him (at this point if he had a hand he would bet into me). I put it all in, and take down a solid 70k ish pot.

A Re-raise is a powerful tool, Use it! Have you noticed a guy stealing blinds often? Put him to the test, and re-raise him. DON'T min re-raise him, that’s asking for trouble, raise like you mean it!

A good thing to remember about all of this is that these are just tools, and as any tool it has its situation use. Identifying these situations comes with experience, a solid read, and luck. Sometimes you will make a mistake and run into a lucky flopped hand (How I got eliminated from the big 350k on Sunday). Also plays like these will not work as well against bad players, which is why it’s generally recommended to wait till later stages in a tourney before you start playing with these tools.

[whileone]

I’m finding this a pretty tricky lesson in my sng education. This morning I attempted a steal with a8 off and he just called in. On the flop I hit bottom pair, and raised again… I ended up loosing to trip tens.

I know I need to steal more, but the level of skill you have to have post flop seems pretty high. I’m comfortable playing top pair top kicker. I’m comfortable making a stone cold bluff now and then. I have a lot of practice raising or folding those kinds of hands. Blind stealing will get you into a lot more marginal hands, so a noob like me needs to be much more sensitive to raises.

This is an excellent post, please keep them up.

[Corey]

would you show your blind steals? or show any hand depending on it...

[Radashack]

Part of the trick in blind steals is strong post flop play. I personally will flat call a pot steal with hands like J9s just to see a flop, because I know I can play a strong Post flop game.

1 thing about stealing is if you are caught you must stop. This means if you try a steal with A8, miss or hit bottom pair, bet to take it down and get called , you need to stop and re-evaluate your hand. Is their a draw on board? Did he make top pair?

Generally for my pot steals (no hand histories at work) I will work with 2 face cards, two suited cards with no more then a 3 gap. Or Ax, suited or not. However its also a timing thing... I'm less likely to attempt a steal from 2 behind the BB with 78s, because it looks like a steal. Also depending on stacks and the players i would. Also i tend to avoid stealing blinds from the same player often, people notice this and call out of spite, especially a player who is not great. Then again this is also the person I'm looking to make a bunch of chips on too .

[soupie]

My 2 cents,

Excellent post Rad.

The steal play is suffers largely from the name. Most of us are raised that stealing is wrong and therefore when "stealing" we do it poorly. Why do you think so many crooks get caught doing really dumb things?

Look at it this way. Properly applied, a steal is nothing more than saying, excuse me it is my turn to receive some chips here. I have a good hand and you should allow me this blessing. In case you didnt quite hear me, i will put a few extra chips in the pot to make my point.

When raising the pot, you must assume that everyone is weak until they prove otherwise. The problem comes in when you dont recognize when they say, " i dont think so, this is my pot and my blessing, i think you are mistaken kind sir."

You know when a "steal" has gone bad. They play back at you and you dont have anything. If they have called your bet or raise twice and you are looking at a busted hand, think long and hard about putting any more chips in the pot. Now you may have to, but then again a lot of times, you can let it go to look for a better opportunity.

Late in the tourney, u just play what i call, first in wins. Someone bets, everyone folds. Almost no flops seen. Then 2 hands collide and someone goes to the rail. With the blinds huge, you simply have to take one down a round to be competitive. This is more like a bunch of little kids waiting to get on the ferris wheel saying my turn, my turn, my turn. You have no choice but to stay in this line, because if you dont, you never get to go to the top and see the bright lights and big city.

Regards,

soupie

[Joke]

very nice post rad! I totaly agree, the largest pots I ever won in a MTT has been from stone-cold bluffs... the biggest I have lost have been from hands thats a little bit "good" and used for bluffing, then suddenly I get two pair on the turn ignoring the 3card str out there. And wooops Im out!

What I mean is, unless you really know the game your probably better of playing limit or something, cus MTT is probably as hard as it gets!

Keep 'em coming!

[elanto]

Excellent posts Rad, my game suffers a bit on stealing because ill usually try it early on in the tourney, and due to the small blinds sizes people will call me down and ill end up loosing a lot of chips. But im working on improving this leak, good thing i found it.

Rad, cant you consider getting all of this posts and putting them together, and maybe making them a sticky, this way you can just continue to add on to them, itll be easier for us readers who are following your posts,

just my .02


-anto

[Radashack]

I will Compile all the posts, but the I lack the power to make them sticky , but hopefully that can happen. Xianti?