Blind Stealing Question, Offense & Defense...common situation

[sofere]

What is the best way to defend against the minraise blind steal. I see this all the time at the 11s on Stars, especially when blinds get to 50/100 or higher. I usually play rockish for the first 3 rounds or so, so I generally have btwn 1200 and 1800 in rounds 4-5.

In the following situation, assume I'm in BB and have 12-13xBB chip stack before BB and villain is button with ~16xBB. 4 or 5 handed. Villain is typical 10+1 Stars player.

I generally fold to these steals unless I have a halfway decent hand (i.e. something i'd be willing to open push with with 8xbb shorthanded). I rarely call, generally reraise to about 5 or 6xbb. But people call these all the time. Then I'm not quite sure what to do when I miss or partially hit the flop and am out of position. Generally any decent bet will be very close to pot committing me, so do I push, check-fold, check-push? Should I just try to resteal with a push?

Now for Offense. Sorry I don't have the HH but it was something like this...Blinds 50/100
Hero button with A /images/graemlins/club.gif10 /images/graemlins/spade.gif with T1200
Folded around, Hero Raises to 300
SB Folds
BB (T1000 after blind) calls.
Flop K 8 5 two tone.
SB checks, Hero pushes, SB calls with 5-3o.

I am finding it harder and harder to steal blinds lately. That was the first time I'd attempted to steal blinds that game, and had seen maybe 1 or 2 flops all tournament when not checking thru in BB.

How can I avoid not getting blinded down when every time I try to steal blinds with a standard bet, I get called with any two. If I miss the flop, i can never be more than 50/50 that they don't have a pair of anything

[assron]

imo, the way to win those blind battles is by being more aggressive. I might just open push with AT if the blinds were one level higher, but probably would raise about 500 right there. I'd push back on a resteal, since you're not in great shape in terms of chips if he comes back over the top, and he's much more likely to fold instead of calling and seeing a flop. This also drives your opponents absolutely nuts and makes them much less likely to try to steal your blinds, which will make you so much better on the bubble since you wont get blinded down as fast as the other players at the table.