Blind Stealing Strategy?

[wjmooner]

Love EmarkM's article on NL tourneys and it got me wondering about blind stealing in SnGs.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=890506&page=&view=&sb =5&o=&vc=1

I was hoping for some general answers about blind stealing. I play mostly on Stars, but I'm sure it can apply to Party as well, although frequently optimal strategy is all in or fold there.

I moved up to the 20's after doing great in the 10's and got creamed by some bad beats and some weak-tight play by me, and am looking for some general steal advice w/ the blinds at 50-100-150.

Example of what's been happening to me: You have T1800 w/ the bb at 100 and are in 4 out of 6.

Raise from the CO w/ A7 to 300. Big blind calls. Flop K63. I bet 400. He calls. Now what do I do? I usually check it down, but then I get played at on the river quite a bit, obviously. Played all right up to that point?

What are your stealing standards, if there is such a thing? I am positive I'm not playing enough hands when we get down to 4-6, which is leaving me frequently hanging on at the bubble and then hoping my better hands don't get cracked by big stacks.

Sorry if this is general, but I want to hear some general thoughts, and searching didn't help me that much.

Chris

[morgan180]

Check out this thread - it is very interesting and covers a lot of ground on blind stealing:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=singletable&Number=115 3326&fpart=&PHPSESSID=

the article that they are referring to is here:
http://teamfu.freeshell.org/tournament/theorem_blind_stealing.html

[lorinda]

A lot of this is sadly just 'experience'.

You need to pay attention to who might fold in the blinds, and, especially as a newer player, you should be doing this from the very start of the game (Paying attention, not stealing).

It is not easy at first to watch every player on the table, so pay utmost attention to the people 2,3 and 4 to your left, see how often they call preflop, see how they deal with raises preflop, watch them like a hawk.

After a while these things become more instinctive, but watch those people from the start and start planning your steals from level 1, although don't start making them until much later.

You could also play some low limit 6-max sngs.

Lori

[ron dogg]

I'm writing this based on the assumption that the Party S+G's are similar to the paradise ones which is what I have observed to be. Anways, the 2 are very different IMO for a couple very important reasons:
1) Stars has more chips in play
2) Blinds go up every 10 min on stars as compared to every 10 hands on paradise/party.

What this means is you can play tighter on stars than on other sites so your hand values change, you have more time. Its hard to give exact examples because stack sizes are so important in these. Generally, stealing is not important until the 50/100 level. If you have not played a hand on party you are under 1000 chips so your only move is all in. What hands to use is table dependant. You are not desperate here and position is still of premium importance. Assuming about 6-7 are still around and they play typically in ep, 77-AA, AK AQ AJ are strong enough to move. As you get later, you can do any pair, suited A, KQ, KJ. If you get more desperate, you can move with higher suited connectors, you are very rarely ahead if called but are rarely in bad shape as well. Remember the next stage from that is 100/200 which moves you to desperate really quickly.

On stars you get many more hands at a given level especially after people bust out so you can slow your game down a bit. My profitability on stars improved dramatically when i made this change to my game.

Remember how many times the BB you have, how well a player defends his blinds and when the blinds are going up and you will go into these situations with a great deal of clarity.

Hope this helps,
R-