Blind stealing frequency

[Unarmed]

Say I have a read that the two players to my immediate left will lay down their blinds to a steal. With 3,4, or 5 left, is stealing (3xBB raise) if folded to me with any two a bad strategy? Assume average stacks.

I've been doing this if there are no other aggressive players at the table and it seems to be working quite well, but I only have a 20 SNG sample size.

Thx.

[rjb03]

If you're on a steal the cards you hold mean nothing unless called obviously.

[Awesemo]

The way you phrased the question it makes it almost impossible to say no. However, I do not think raising with any 2 is a good strategy. The worst cards to steal with in my opinion 3-5 handed are Kx, Qx, and trash hands like 96. Ax and two big cards are pretty much automatic pushes if the blinds are moderately high.

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
The worst cards to steal with in my opinion 3-5 handed are Kx, Qx, and trash hands like 96. Ax and two big cards are pretty much automatic pushes if the blinds are moderately high.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the best hands to steal with are the trash hands because they're really easy to fold (NOT laydown) if the blinds actually come over the top of you. The blinds you steal earlier in the round make up for this one steal attempt that went wrong.

Don't turn AQ into 72.

[sofere]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The worst cards to steal with in my opinion 3-5 handed are Kx, Qx, and trash hands like 96. Ax and two big cards are pretty much automatic pushes if the blinds are moderately high.

[/ QUOTE ]


I think the best hands to steal with are the trash hands because they're really easy to fold (NOT laydown) if the blinds actually come over the top of you. The blinds you steal earlier in the round make up for this one steal attempt that went wrong.

Don't turn AQ into 72.

[/ QUOTE ]

I could be wrong, but it seems to me like your saying that you should at least 3xBB every time. Either that or you're saying that you should raise with trash and just call with good hands??? Maybe I'm just misinterpretting your entire post.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
Say I have a read that the two players to my immediate left will lay down their blinds to a steal. With 3,4, or 5 left, is stealing (3xBB raise) if folded to me with any two a bad strategy? Assume average stacks.


[/ QUOTE ]

Try re-stating a question that doesn't have a trivial answer.

Any raise at all is always the correct move here, and the size of the raise or anybody's stack, as long as you have the blinds covered, is 100% irrelevant.

eastbay

[Awesemo]

that may be true for a mtt but for a stt usually at this stage if you raise 3x the bb you usually have a significant portion of your stack invested. I was actually thinking of when you have less than 10x the bb, when you generally push any hand you play preflop if no one else is in.

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
Say I have a read that the two players to my immediate left will lay down their blinds to a steal.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't have such a read. All you can have is an estimate of how tight each of these players is, how each of them reads you, and with what range of hands (or % of time, for that matter) each of them will call you or raise against you.

Basically, if they are very tight (and the blinds are high enough, so you don't just "ruin" your image, if that's important to you), raising with any hand is +EV.

[KenProspero]

Doesn't it come down to Math. You're saying that your belief is that SB and BB will fold any 3BB raise (unless they really have a hand).

So, what you're doing is Betting 3BB to win 1.5 BB. If they're going to fold 2/3 of the time or more, you clearly have a positive ev.

In addition, even if you've raised with Junk (and are prepared to fold any re-raise), some of the time, they'll just call, and you may get a miracle flop.

The problem, as I see it is how long does it take them to get wise to the fact that you're stealing their blinds and change their play. Opponents getting smart can really screw up your strategy [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img].