Blind Stealing, Blind Stealing In Poker
Blind stealing is a situation in poker when the move is carried out with any two cards, including weak hands or garbage and the pot only contains the two blinds. If you are in the late position either on the button or cutoff and are first to act, you raise pre-flop in the hope of picking up the blinds.
It is deemed as the most important factor of playing cost-effective pre-flop poker. In layman language, blind stealing in poker games is any open-raise made from the SB, Button or CO. You have a blind steal opportunity if everybody so far has folded and you are on the button.
However, how often should you make this attempt and when is what we are about to learn in this blog today. Here are a few tips to make the best out of stealing blinds.
Understanding the System
Most successful blind stealing opportunities take place in the first hand of the blinds changing. Show your good hands and bluff with a near zero frequency. Create a very tight but very aggressive table image. In case an opponent decides to call, make sure to follow up with a continuation betting poker strategy.
Passive Big Blind
Any player who decides to attack the passive big blind will certainly profit as this player is particularly free money. You may have to concede the passive blinds to him if he has a position on you, depending on how he opts to fight the pots.
React according to the situation, if you have a position on the aggressive player, then you should play back at him regularly.
Know Your Opponents
A few players will just love to put you in the complicated situation by re-raising your blind take attempts. You need to be really cautious with your attempts to blind steal in poker, especially when sitting to their right corner.
There will also be some players who will fold approximately no matter which to a raise. Give their hand a respect on the flop if they call, it might lead to a worse hand on the flop, but you can still enhance your stealing range against these players.
When You Get Caught
Your history will definitely be jotted down by your opponents sitting at your table if you are caught blind stealing. It will lessen your tight table or any poker fold equity image. However, you can turn a loose table image in your favour by overplaying superior hands such as QQ or KK, particularly against loose opponents.
To sum up, in order to keep your money afloat and giving away free chips, you must be aware of a few elements in the game at all times- your opponent’s table history, table position, his chip count and so on. Make sure you have a good poker hand to back you up or else if you get caught, you lose your table image.
Blind stealing is always profitable and if you know how to play this right, you’re already saving a big chunk of your bankroll, not to mention your opponents will take you seriously.
