When to start stealing blinds?

[fnurt]

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I think this may not be very relevant to the small buy-in MTTs you're talking about (and which I play a lot of as well), but it would directly apply to SNG's or any tourny with fewer tables:

You can start stealing blinds from the very first hand dealt (done it! [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]) not because you need the chips, since risk/reward ratio is definitely not there, but to get the other players accustomed to the sight of you doing it. It could be a double edged sword but what happens is you'll get some very loose action down the road from some who decide to take a stand when you DO have a good hand that dominates theirs. At that point, you can easily double up once or twice.

Any other thoughts on this? It's an interesting question, would be interesting to see what the rest of you think.

Kirk R.

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I take the opposite view. You get bad hands a lot more often than you get good ones, so it's better to set up steals than to cultivate a loose image.

If it's folded to me in the SB early in a tournament, and I have a hand I don't want to play, I'll typically wait a few seconds before folding, just to call a little more attention to the fold. I may want to pick on that BB later, and I'm going to want him to give me credit for a big hand, so I'll make it obvious that I'm happy to fold when I don't have a real hand.

More often than not a table image is a reflection of the cards you're dealt anyway, rather than something you intentionally choose. The important thing is that you remain aware of what your image is, one way or another. If you get no cards for the first few rounds and you're not in a hand, you'll get a lot of respect when you suddenly come out firing with a raise - take advantage of this! Conversely, if the cards force you to raise a lot of hands preflop, your steals aren't going to get as much respect, unless you've been showing down all those big hands of course.

[Kirkrrr]

That is definitely a very good point.