Hand requirements steal & blinds
 

I am curious what your starting hand requirements are for the following situations (I know a lot depends on the table, your image and your opponents, but generally speaking, what are your requirements):

1. When in steal position
a. You are first in and are in the CO or on the button
b. Somebody has limped already and you are in the CO or on the button

2. When in the blinds
a. After a raise from first position
b. After a raise from middle position
c. After a raise from late position, raiser is first one in (possible steal)
d. After a raise from late position, multiway pot

Generally I attempt a steal with all wired pairs and when both cards are ten or higer. Also I would call a raise from the blinds with those same hands. When the raise came from early position I always want a much stronger hand.

What are your thoughts on this?

Edit: I play $2-$4 limit

Re: Hand requirements steal & blinds
 

Link to Stheif's recent thread on this

Re: Hand requirements steal & blinds
 

[img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] Oops! Sorry!

And thanx for the link. I will study it tonight.

Re: Hand requirements steal & blinds
 

Hmmm I had a look already and they are talking about shorthanded play with I think a lot of trash hands when in a 10 or 9 handed game.

Also the OP defines some hands and wants people to respond if they are profitable for them and if they play them at all. I am curious about the range of hands you play in the situations I described.

So maybe not a double post? Who would like to give some answers to the questions in my post above?

Re: Hand requirements steal & blinds
 

It really depends. You'll find that your att. to steal statistic increases everyday as you add more and more hands. I used to have a 20%Att. to steal. Now I'm about 40%. It's just a matter of getting comfortable playing weaker hands in more marginal spots.

-SmileyEH

Re: Hand requirements steal & blinds
 

at 40% I'm going to 3bet your ass from either blind a ton. Being at 40% is ok if you can tweak it so you get in less confrontations w/ aware TAGs that play well post-flop and instead get more or no confrontations with weak tight players. If you can be aware enough while multi-tabling to steal higher than your 40% rate from those players that fold their blinds too often and steal less from the combatitive types -40% will work fine...but you need to be paying attention and if you are on auto-pilot 8tabling and using random aggression 40% will cost you money.

40% is fine overall but it is pushing the envelope in a Full game. Any player worth a fock that has PokerTracker and has any decent sample of hands is going to play back at you often and punish you for your overaggression with these stats--these days that is more players than you think. I find 34%-37% optimal for $3-6 and $5-10 Full games on Party.

Re: Hand requirements steal & blinds
 

I would check out HEPFAP section one

Re: Hand requirements steal & blinds
 

Aware TAGs like yourself are in the minority at 2/4 so I think 40% works pretty well. I dont have a ton of hands playing this aggresively but its more fun anyway [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

-SmileyEH

Re: Hand requirements steal & blinds
 

I'm surprised at that because whenever I look at $2-4 pot averages just in passing they are really crappy [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] so I'd assume they are playing tougher.

Everynight there used to be 5-10 $40 pot average tables.. now I rarely see more than 1 or 2 and that is fleeting..this was more than a year ago thu..too bad!

Re: Hand requirements steal & blinds
 

1a -Steal first in - Any two will do as long as the blinds have not proved themselves to be good players.

1b -Late position with a limper - depends on positon and play of the limper. If I'm playing, I'm raising, but I don't play much looser unless limper is an idiot and I think AXo (for example) might be ahead.

2a-in blinds raiser UTG - I'll only play good hands (we're talking AJs AQo maybe less and pairs (since he's likely to have overcards, I feel fairly comfortable check calling the flop then betting out or check raising the turn if the board co-operates).
2b -in blinds raiser MP - Any hand I'd play from LP against an MP limper, although I just call.
2c - in blinds raiser LP - depends on raiser's standards, but basically, I'll defend liberally and aggressively.

2d -in blinds LP raiser in multiway - any hand that has a draw to a strong hand (all pairs, Kx suited, suited one gappers, unsuited connectors)

It seems that I play a lot looser than you in steal situations. I might be tighter when second in though (I'm folding a surprising number of potentially playable hands to previous non-donk limps) or I might just be playing in more passive games where aggression pays off better.

I play between 2-4 and 5/10 depending on the site and my mood and the quality of the games available.