In this article we’re going to look at stealing the blinds in its purest form. To define the terms, we mean making a raise before the flop with the intention of winning the blinds and antes by making both players in the blinds fold. This might seem obvious – it’s a good thing to do, right? But, despite how aggressive you think you are, you’re probably not stealing enough, you probably haven’t put enough thought into it, and you’re probably making some big mistakes when trying it.
Why do you need to steal?
To maximise your equity in most games, and especially most poker tournaments, you should be trying to steal the dead money in the pot. Every time you successfully steal the blinds and antes you’ve added to your stack without having to show your cards. In a tournament, as the blinds continually rise, it’s essential that you steal more than your fair share of them.
However, you need to be aware of exactly what you’re trying to do. Too many bets are made in poker – even by good players – which don’t have a clear purpose and can lead the bettor into trouble. So be clear what your opening of the pot represents. There’s a difference between being the opening raiser from the cut-off when you have K-J suited compared to 9-4 offsuit. The first bet could be a value bet, i.e. you could have the best hand or a semi-bluffing hand that could be best after the flop. With the 9-4 offsuit you’re making a pure bluff or blind steal.
As blind stealing has become increasingly common, there are far too many players and bits of poker literature that have come out recommending various hand ranges for making blind steals. But what it comes down to is that if you’re coming into a pot with a raise your chances of winning it are better if you’re doing it with a hand of some value. However, don’t lose sight of the fact that you’re making a steal – regardless of your cards. You expect your raise to be profitable because of your situation.
How much to bet?
As your blind-stealing bet is designed to win the pot without a fight, you should bet only as much as you need, not a chip more, to achieve the desired outcome – everyone folding. This will usually be three times the big blind. However, you should be aware that in some tournament situations your bet doesn’t need to be that big. For example, in the later stages of a tournament, simply doubling the big blind will usually have the same effect as tripling it, as players enter a push-or-fold mentality.
Make sure your bets are standardised. If you suddenly bet less when you have a big hand or more when you’re stealing, you’ll become readable very quickly. More experienced players can vary their bets to manipulate their opponents, but the easiest way to be unreadable is to bet the same amount whatever your hand.
The simple theory of blind stealing is that the later you are to act when action is folded to you the more frequently you should try and steal the blinds. This means that a lot of your blind steals will be made from the cutoff and button. In recent years this part of play, especially in tournaments, has become very well known.
This has meant that players in the blinds defend more liberally and will also ‘play back’ at you with a greater range of holdings and often as a straight bluff.
This could mean that in some situations your ability to steal the blinds is seriously reduced because your raises just won’t win the pot often enough. Or it will at least feel that way. However, it still remains true that stealing from late position will usually be profitable. If the pot is passed to you on the button you only have two players to get your raise by to pick up those free chips, and their random cards will usually not be strong enough to call your bet.
However, don’t fall into the trap of stealing every time if the action is folded around to you. Assess all the other factors at work in the hand before you raise. How is your stack looking? What are the players in the blinds like? What is their perception of you?
Of course, it’s also possible to steal the blinds from middle and sometimes even early position. Making moves from earlier positions requires the correct conditions but you should be looking for these opportunities at all times. At certain points in tournaments – on the bubble or when the blinds are very big – your table may be playing very tight. At these times, especially if your image suggests you wouldn’t usually make such a play, you can attempt a steal from early position representing a very strong hand. In fact, against experienced, tricky opponents this may be more effective than a late position steal as it looks so strong.
Play the players
More important than the cards in your hand or the position you’re raising from are the players whose blinds you’re trying to pilfer from, and the other players who are yet to act behind you. Put simply, if there are tight-passive players behind you and in the blinds, you can afford to open the pot as a steal very often. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. If there are tricky-aggressive players behind you who will play back because they think you’re ‘at it’, or loose players that will defend their blinds, your opportunities to steal are much more limited.
The big blind is the most likely person to ‘keep you honest’ because of the reduced price they have to enter the pot. So pay them particular attention when considering your steal.
Another vital thing to think about in tournaments when you’re weighing up a bit of blind theft is stack sizes. In general you should steal less from big stacks and short stacks and more from the medium-sized stacks. This is because big stacks can afford to defend – even push you all-in – whereas short stacks are a lot more likely to move all-in with high cards or any pair, which could result in an embarrassing laydown.
Taken separately, these two elements are of use, but what you must do is combine your knowledge of the player and the stack sizes to succeed. For instance, you may be able to steal from a player with a big stack who is ultra-tight, or a short stack that is desperately holding on to make the money and will only play a big hand. So be observant and play the player at all times.
Steal and then steal some more
You should come to the poker table, especially in tournaments, with an aggressive attitude. You must be ready to steal your way to victory, but you don’t have to come out firing from the first hand. Your rule of thumb should be to try and steal the blinds until you’re given a very good reason not to.
Be aware of your image at the table as the more you steal, the more people will be aware of what you’re doing. With some opponents this will mean they’re more likely to take a stand. And of course there are others that won’t.
If you’re ever in doubt about when and why you’re stealing, recall these two essential points. First, remember the difference between stealing ‘with a little something’ – where you don’t mind too much if you’re called by the blinds – and the pure blind steal when you have rags. Second, try and see the correct ‘spots’ or situations to steal, rather than worrying about what your cards are.
There’s irrefutable evidence that playing from the blinds is the most unprofitable position in poker – follow our six top tips and don’t leak chips.
1. Why does everyone say that the blinds are losing positions?
It’s a mathematical fact based on hundreds of millions of hands that the small and big blinds are the biggest losing seats at the table. The reason is mainly down to one thing – the fact that everyone gets to see what you do before you act. There’s also a second reason – the ego factor. This is where you don’t like giving up ‘your’ blinds in the belief that other players are bullying and stealing from you. The combination makes it a losing proposition. Once you’ve put your blind in it’s easy to feel obligated to play the pot. You shouldn’t – it’s not your money any more; it’s payment for the privilege of being dealt in!
2. How much of a disadvantage are you at when you play from the blinds?
It’s a huge disadvantage to play from the blinds if someone has come in raising. When you just call from the blinds it’s because you think you’re behind. You may as well say, ‘I’m looking to hit.’ And what do you need to hit that puts you in front? If you call with 8-9 you probably have to hit two Eights, two Nines, an Eight and a Nine or an open-ended straight draw to give yourself a chance. And if you do get the straight draw you might be drawing to the low end anyway. In most situations you should either raise or pass, otherwise you’re conceding position and control of the pot – and that’s not a winning proposition.
3. Should you ever limp in from the small blind when the action is folded to you?
You need a decent hand to limp with as you’ll be playing the rest of the hand out of position. There’s an argument for just calling when you’re the small blind and you’ve got a big hand too as the big blind may well raise. Don’t call with hands like J-3 and Q-4 because you’ve already got something in the pot and you can get in for a discount – it could end up crippling you and it will definitely lead to tough decisions on the flop.
4. Is it important to try and defend your big blind from a late position raiser?
It’s very difficult until you get a feel for your opponents. It’s often not worth defending in the early stages unless you’ve got a hand that could catch a good flop. Once the blinds are higher you’ll have built up a tight image and your defends are more likely to be seen as having substance.
5. At what point do you need to say enough is enough?
There are times that you don’t have a choice and you just have to shove with any two cards. If you’re in the big blind with a little over 10 big blinds, what are you waiting for? If it’s a late position raise, which could often be just a steal, any two cards are probably worth gambling with, otherwise you’re giving up that big blind and probably the small blind after. It’s important to make a stand by trying to push that raiser off their hand and maybe double-up if you’re called. So, if you’re down to 10 big blinds and the action is folded around to you on the small blind you need to push with any hand – just move all-in. It’s very hard for the big blind to call, and those blinds that you’ve picked up will increase your stack by a tangible 10% or more, giving you another orbit to find a hand. You can even do it without looking if you’re worried that your opponent will be able to pick up on your weakness.
6. If you flop a monster against an aggressive player, when should you lead out at the flop and when should you trap with a check-raise?
Say you hit two-pair with 6-7 on an A-6-7 flop in the early levels when the blinds are low, you should probably come out betting. In this case, you’re hoping that the other player has hit an Ace and will re-raise you. Another example is if you call with 6-6 and the flop comes 6-Q-9. You’ve got a strong hand and there’s every likelihood the original raiser will c-bet if you check to him. You can then call and check again, or check-raise, although this gives away the strength of your hand. All of these situations are player specific. If you know the aggressive player will barrel all three streets then give him enough rope to hang himself.
It is often said in poker that the worst two positions you can play from are the small blind and big blind. You already have chips committed pre-flop and there are a number of reasons why these two positions cost the poker player more chips than anywhere else at the table. We take a look at seven ways you can prevent it happening to you.
Prepare to Succeed
A common phrase in life as well as poker is that if you fail to prepare, then you should prepare to fail. This is possibly never truer than in poker positions you feel uncomfortable in. The very nature of the blinds is that some of your chips are at risk whether you like it or not. But while the mandatory bets get the action going, they can put paid to your stack if you’re not very careful. You must retain a positive mindset about playing from these positions. You do not need to play a high percentage of pots from the blinds. The amount you’ll be losing if you fold most of the time will be a fraction of your stack, so stay positive.
Tighten your Range
One way not to lose a lot of chips from the blinds is, of course, not to play so many hands. You don’t want to fold every time as players will get used to you doing so and start taking liberties every time. But you can be careful about what you play. You are going to be first to act a huge proportion of the time you make a call or have a raise called from the blinds, so be prepared to open the action post-flop. Try to play the following sort of hands from these two seats: Pairs you are confident with and that play well against a range of your opponents, AKs down to ATo, KQs to KJo and some suited connectors. While QJs is better than 78s for instance, these lower suited connectors can often have success from blind positions. You may have to be prepared to float like a butterfly to sting like a bee!
Don’t Defend Too Lightly
One key weakness players display when playing too often from the blinds is defending the indefensible! While your K8s looks pretty, if you face a min-raise from one player and two other have already called, are you really in great shape to make it up from the small blind, knowing that you may be out-kicked if you hit and making the first move without any information if you’re not? That is a recipe for losing chips quickly and regularly. Think about what you would do if a player in the small blind made a call that looked like they were defending, then a very action-inducing flop like Q-J-9 came. You would be all over them like Iceland at a long throw. Rubbish cards go ‘into the muck’ for a reason.
Identify Player Types
While you’re not playing every hand from the blind, they provide a really great chance for you to observe how people play poker in later positions. This is key information and you should monitor it. After all, it may well be crucial when you’re in the button one or two hands later and you want to know what the player in the cut-off while you fold in the blind might be thinking in mid-late position when you have positional supremacy. Whether players are loose, passive, aggressive or tight is a much harder trait to figure out if you only ever observe them from hands you participate in. Being able to identify player types without being in the hand is important. Gathering information always pays off.
Play Back at Bullies
Bullies in poker will often target the blinds as an easy way to make regular money. Watch your opponents carefully and look for the types who do this. When they try to do it on your big blind, punish them by re-raising and taking back the power they are trying to demonstrate. Fight back against a bully and they often shrink. At a poker table, that can mean the difference between you playing a passive, ‘catch-up’ game to becoming table captain. Lay down the law to anyone who goes after your blinds without good reason.
Induce Poor Actions
Poker is a game of very small margins, and one edge you definitely want to try to perfect is in inducing bad players to make poor decisions. Whether it’s a bad call, loose raise or ill-timed all-in move, players who fail to process hands are giving their money away, and the blind positions are often going to get to see them do so more regularly just because they have a vested interest in the hand! Watch for mistakes keenly and if you see an opportunity take advantage. The player who is sat in middle position often misses out on the chance to take an overly-loose player out of a tournament or reduce a cash game stack to fresh air. The blinds are an ideal position for being Sheriff to any rustlers who have taken their eye off the rope!
Practice Pot Control
Have you ever played a pot against a player who made a mockery of the way you had position on them at the start of the hand? You have the opportunity to do the same, and playing from the blinds is often the position from which this skill is developed. There is a twisted logic that if you tell a child to do something, they will resist, but if you tell them to do the opposite, they’ll comply with your original wish. Poker players are often like children with their backpacks, bottle of drink and note from their mother, so make sure that you manipulate them by pressurizing them to decisions by acting first or potentially re-raising with good showdown hands you think you can get value on during the streets before the river. By stepping out of line, you can often get a fold, as the assumption would be that to check-raise from the small blind for instance would only be done with a very good hand because you are at such a disadvantage, position-wise. Take control by forcing your opponent to second-guess your lines of action more than you have to with theirs.
Good luck from both blind positions and may every monster hand you are dealt come in late position as a reward!
Let’s talk a little about bankroll management and tournaments, an area that sometimes trips up even experienced poker players who aren’t as mindful as they should be of how the variance of MTTs should affect what buy-in levels they choose.
MTT bankroll management: Why have a bankroll?
It goes without saying — a “poker bankroll” refers to money set aside for poker only, and should not overlap with living expenses or other funds designated for other uses.
Most poker players who are successful over the long term practice strict bankroll management in order (1) to ensure they can play their best at all times (and not be “scared money” playing above their heads and worried about losing), and (2) to help lessen their “risk of ruin” by avoiding getting involved in games that can threaten to deplete their entire bankroll and force them to quit altogether.
If you’re only a casual poker tournament player, perhaps jumping in MTTs once in a while for fun as a way to break up the monotony of cash games, you needn’t worry too specifically about tournament-specific bankroll management. But you shouldn’t ignore it, either.
The only real bankroll concern the casual MTTer should have is not to play a tournament for which the buy-in is so high it will disturb your ability to play without worry of losing what you’ve paid. If you typically play a $1/$2 no-limit hold’em cash game where you might win or lose as much as a few hundred in a night, playing a $5,000 NLHE tournament is probably a bad idea, both because of the higher level of competition you’re likely to encounter and the possibility that your fears of not cashing and losing that big buy-in will negatively affect your play.
Some pros suggest cash game players should never risk more than around 1/20th of their cash game bankroll when playing a tournament. In other words, if you have $5,000 set aside as your cash game bankroll, you really should limit yourself to playing tournaments with buy-ins of $250 and below. If you wish to play a higher buy-in tournament, you can consider selling action in order to lessen your risk.
You can adjust that 1/20th figure up or down depending on your own risk tolerance, but be cautious about risking too much on a single “shot” at a high buy-in MTT. Only 10-15% of those playing tournaments tend to cash, and even if you’re an above-average player in the field your chance of not cashing is going to be greater than your chance of making the money at all, let alone enjoying a big score.
For players who are more serious about playing tournaments — especially if you’ve chosen to specialize in MTTs to the exclusion of cash — you need to think specifically about your tournament bankroll and always be mindful of how a given tournament fits or doesn’t fit into the requirements you’ve provided for yourself.
MTT bankroll management: How is it different from cash games?
Cash game players set bankroll requirements based both on the stakes of the games they wish to play and game types.
Obviously higher-stakes cash games require a larger bankroll than do lower-stakes ones, but perhaps not so obviously certain game types require deeper bankrolls than others because of the increased variance or “swings” they cause.
If you wish to play short-handed (6-max.) or heads-up cash games, you need a deeper bankroll than you would if you stick with full-ring games. Similarly, playing a game like pot-limit Omaha is going to require having a larger bankroll than playing NLHE at the same stakes, since PLO typically tends to cause wider swings.
Similar principles apply to bankroll management for multi-table tournaments. That said, those familiar with managing a cash game bankroll may miscalculate what it takes to maintain a sufficient MTT bankroll.
Someone who regularly plays $1/$2 NLHE cash game for which the typical buy-in is $200 might reasonably think a bankroll consisting of 30 buy-ins or $6,000 is plenty (although more conservative players may opt for an even deeper bankroll).
However for a multi-table tournament player who plays $200 MTTs, a bankroll of $6,000 is not going to be adequate. Given the variance of MTTs, even good players can occasionally go 30 tournaments without a cash, a possibility that is much more likely to occur than for a good cash game player to blow through that many buy-ins.
MTT bankroll management: How many buy-ins do you need?
A typical recommendation for tournament players is to have at least 100 buy-ins in your bankroll for any tournament you play, although it should be said right off that is often a minimum recommendation. Even so, you can see that for a player of $200 MTTs, that means having a $20,000 bankroll at minimum to absorb the swings of MTTs — much higher than the bankroll of a cash game player whose buy-ins are the same $200.
The same advice goes to the online poker player who sticks with $5 multi-table tournaments, for which a $500 bankroll would represent a comfortable minimum. You can take shots at those $10 or $20 tournaments once in a while, but know that in order to move up to those buy-in levels permanently, you’ll need a bigger roll.
Meanwhile, there are several other factors that can push that 100 buy-in suggestion even higher.
For one, if you’re on the cautious side you may want to have at least 200 buy-ins or even as much as 500 buy-ins in your tournament bankroll. Also, if you mainly play large-field MTTs, you’ll also likely want to have more buy-ins given the higher variance of those events when compared to smaller field tournaments.
How you approach tournaments — that is, your playing style — also matters when it comes to MTT bankroll management. While we’ve been recommending “going for the win” in this series, many tournament players place a greater emphasis on simply cashing than focusing on trying to make final tables where they can play for real money. Such players tend not to win the big prizes up top, but may overall experience less variance and thus can get away with having smaller bankrolls. This is where many recreational MTTers end up, with bankrolls of 60 buy-ins (or even less) and cashing enough to stay in the game.
The more serious professional tournament players who do play for the win are going to need deeper bankrolls in order to handle those long stretches between final tables when they aren’t cashing at all.
MTT bankroll management: How does your ROI affect bankroll decisions?
Finally, if you keep good records (as you should) you can calculate your win rate in tournaments — commonly referred to as your return on investment or “ROI” — and use that figure as another guide helping you decide how deep of a MTT bankroll you should have.
Your tournament ROI is calculated by dividing how much you profit in tournaments (your “return”) by the amount you spend on buy-ins (your “investment”). Usually the result is then multiplied by 100 and shown as a percentage:
(winnings – buy-ins) / buy-ins *100 = ROI%
While it’s somewhat subjective to say what a “good” ROI is for MTTs, obviously anything above zero percent marks you as a winning player. Having a 10-15 percent ROI is good, and anything from 25-30 percent ROI and above is going to be better than many MTTers. Meanwhile only the top pros tend to reach and sustain levels higher than those.
Having a relatively small ROI means needing a deeper bankroll so as to ensure you’re able to stay in the game during those dry stretches, while having a consistently high ROI means you can get away with less.
One important word of caution, though — don’t be overly affected by small sample sizes when looking at your tournament ROI. One big tournament win can inordinately skew a player’s ROI, sometimes inspiring false confidence about the sustainability of such a rate.
Don’t let a ROI percentage calculated from just 10 or 20 multi-table tournaments inspire wild adjustments to your MTT bankroll management strategy. In fact, some say you need at least 1,000 results for the sample size to be significant enough to be meaningful, so while you should keep track of your results, understand what they mean when you do.
Most of us learn early on in our poker education that having position on our opponents is always much more desirable than being out of position. It’s a fundamental strategic truth of all poker variants, and especially true of no-limit hold’em. With position, we get to act with the knowledge of our opponents’ action, and as a result have more information available to us than when we have to act first.
There are certain mistakes many no-limit hold’em players make time and time again when playing from out of position. Becoming familiar with these mistakes can both help us avoid making them and perhaps help reinforce the lesson that it is better to play in position than from out of position.
What follows are five common mistakes no-limit hold’em players make when playing from out of position. These mistakes occur often both in cash games and in tournaments, and can be detrimental to the players making them in both.
Mistake #1: Playing Too Many Hands
First and foremost, as a general rule you should be looking to play more hands from later positions (the hijack seat, the cutoff, and the button) and fewer hands from under the gun and UTG+1.
That doesn’t mean you should never be opening pots from early position, whether with strong starting hands or even occasionally with medium or weak holdings (to balance your preflop raising range). But some players overdo it, and as a result set themselves up for further mistakes when stuck having to play from out of position after the flop.
Mistake #2: Calling Too Many Three-Bets
Sticking with preflop problems, some players who are willing to open-raise from early-to-mid position with non-premium starting hands subsequently have difficulty folding to reraises coming from players in the later positions.
For instance, it folds to a player in middle position with who notices three tight players to his left decides to open with a raise. But the player in the cutoff then three-bets and it folds back to the original raiser. Letting such a hand go is perfectly fine to do, and in fact can affect your image in a useful way when you later raise with a legitimately strong starting hand from early-to-mid position and get reraised again.
Depending on the opponent doing the three-betting, folding hands as strong as or middle pairs can be acceptable as well. Even calling a three-bet with pocket jacks from out of position is not going to be a play that makes you money in the long run. Don’t be stubborn when calling three-bets from out of position with hands that become difficult to navigate without having hit a perfect flop.
Mistake #3: Playing Overly Passive
Moving to post flop mistakes, it is natural (and even correct in many cases) when playing from out of position to become passive — that is, doing a lot of checking and calling in an effort control the pot and prevent getting raised out of hands. But too often players having to act first on the flop grow accustomed to such passivity and fail to recognize when it is right to make more aggressive plays like leading with bets (or “donk betting”).
Playing a lot of hands “OOP” might even cause some players to begin playing a more passive game in other spots, too, including in hands when the player has position on an opponent. Often when out of position it is necessary to play a “defensive” style, but if that becomes your default mode you’ll find it difficult ever to pressure opponents as you’d like to be doing.
Mistake #4: Not Check-Raising
This mistake could be regarded as a variety of the previous one — that is, letting your passive play from out of position rule out the idea of check-raising in spots when doing so would be profitable.
Whether done with a strong hand (like two pair, a set, or better) or as a bluff, check-raising is a show of strength that puts an opponent on the defensive. Say your opponent opened from the button with , you called from the blinds, then check-raised following a flop. It doesn’t matter if you have it or not, your opponent who missed is going to have a hard time staying after your aggressive play.
However, players who play lots of hands from OOP are often also not aware of other fundamentals, like how check-raising can be a powerful way of grabbing the initiative away from an opponent who has position on you, enabling you to take charge of a hand post flop. The fact is, if you’re going to play hands from OOP, you have to be comfortable with check-raising and be able to recognize when you should employ the move.
Mistake #5: Check-Raising Too Much
Finally — and on the other end of the aggression spectrum — is the player who check-raises too frequently when playing from out of position, thinking it’s the only way to manage a hand post flop when OOP.
In some cases, check-raising a lot is just an extension of the loose (or reckless) mindset that encourages someone to play a lot of hands from out of position. Occasionally those with a limit hold’em background might check-raise more than they should in NLHE given that it is a more commonly seen move in LHE.
In any event, check-raising all the time can become a very exploitable pattern, with opponents knowing they can check back to get free cards or bet big hands knowing you’ll be helping them bloat the pot.
Conclusion
Sometimes you haven’t much choice when it comes to playing post flop from out of position, such as when you raise preflop and someone calls you from the cutoff or button, or when getting involved from the blinds. But be wary about getting involved in hands too often from out of position, and when you are playing from OOP remain mindful of other common mistakes players make to hurt their bottom line.
who notices three tight players to his left decides to open with a raise. But the player in the cutoff then three-bets and it folds back to the original raiser. Letting such a hand go is perfectly fine to do, and in fact can affect your image in a useful way when you later raise with a legitimately strong starting hand from early-to-mid position and get reraised again.
or middle pairs can be acceptable as well. Even calling a three-bet with 
, you called from the blinds, then check-raised following a 
flop. It doesn’t matter if you have it or not, your opponent who missed is going to have a hard time staying after your aggressive play.