Blind Stealing

eggie

I came across a post a few months back on 2+2 concerning blind stealing. I thought it was very interesting at the time and decided to develop and mathematically analyze my own strategy to see if would improve my results. Mostly for low stakes NLHE. I leave it here for the critics of the forum to disect and shred, improve if possible and for those newer to the game to realise the thinking and strategic rationale that goes on behind the scenes. By no means is this a new invention, just my spin on someone else’s creation.

Blind Stealing

Are blinds worth stealing? Too much risk for so little reward? If they are worth stealing, when do we steal? With what holdings? Against what type of players?

At a 6max cash table we pay 1.5BB every orbit in order to take part in the game. Lets say we play 60 hands per hour, which works out to be 10 orbits ph, i.e. 15BB per hour. Even at only .5/1 this is a cost of €15 per hour. It is obviously in our best interest financially to reduce this cost on our behalf and let someone else foot the bill if possible. To do this we need to defend our blinds against steal attempts, or steal someone else’s to compensate us for our initial outlay, or both.

Therefore it is paramount to develop a +EV strategy to reach our goal of reducing our cost ph.

Blind steals obviously rely heavily on folding equity, therefore the more inclined our opponent is to fold to a raise the more successful our steal attempts will be pre flop. What type of player folds most pre flop? The tight player, who only wants to play with good starting hands. If we miss the flop do we C-bet to represent a hand and take the steal attempt one step further? What type of player will this work best on? The weak player who gives up when he misses the flop. This makes the weak tight nits ideal targets for blind stealing. The looser your opponents are pre flop the more difficult it becomes to steal their blinds.

When sitting at a table I like to look for a weak tight player to have on my left to raise the EV of my steal attempts. There are variety of methods to stealing, lets concentrate on the standard - folded to you in late position i.e. CO/Button.

With only 2/3 remaining opponents with random hands, the chances of them holding a decent hand are low.

Some of the time your steals will get through pre-flop, there will be other times when you get called pre-flop. Don’t be disheartened by a caller pre-flop, we’re not finished with this just yet. We now have an opportunity not only to steal the blinds but also the called bet.

Against steady aggression most opponents will fold when they miss the flop, this is where our c-bet continues our attempt to steal. To keep our opponents from catching on too quickly and adjusting their game to combat our strategy it is important that our c-bet is the same whether we connect with the flop or not.

For those who are inclined to steal less often (say, 16% of the time or less), your flop bets should be enough for your opponent not to doubt that you have improved your hand. Given that you are only attempting a steal 16% of the time, you will be stealing with reasonably good hands yourself:
16% corresponds roughly to stealing with any pair, any ace, any two Broadway cards, and any suited connector down to 87s (412 from 2,652 possible combos pre-flop). If that's your steal range, the chances that on the flop you have at least a pair will be 58%.

(AA-22, 100%, 156 combos)(remaining 256 combos hitting 33%):[(156 x 1) + (256 x 0.33)] / 412 = 58%.

38% the time the pair will be low and unplayable after the flop against a tight player while the other 20% (hitting the flop with AA-JJ - 48 combos x 100%; AK-AJ, KQ - 64 combos x 33%; and flopping a set with TT-22 - 108 combos x 12%) we have a very playable hand on the flop, this is discounting those times when we flop big draws.

[(48 x 1) + (64 x 0.33) + (108 x 0.12) ] / 412 = 0.2 or 20%

As we steal less often than others we do not need to bet the flop less, just make our c-bet a little smaller.

A pot-sized bet needs to win 50% of the time to break even, a 2/3-pot sized bet only needs to win 40% of the time to break even.

Consider the value of a steal attempt from the button against various opponents, assuming they will:

(a) fold pre-flop if their hand is outside of their specified range (winning 1.5 BBs)
(b) only call the flop with a hand that improves or can beat 2nd pair. (when they fold, we win 5.5 BBs, and when they call, 80% of the time we lose 11.0 BBs), ignoring turn and river play when we hit ourselves (20%) as our intention is no longer stealing blinds but delving in to post flop play.

This assumes our betting is 4 BB pre-flop and 7.0 BB on the flop. If we consider only the tightest opponents, we see this:

Tight opponents: (calling range AA - 99, AK-AJ): 124 possible hand combos. They will hold this range 4.7% of hands; 4.7% times 2 players (BB & SB) = 9.4% and therefore 90.6% of the time they both fold pre-flop.

Lets assume:
AA-JJ & AKs they call pre-flop and wont fold to flop bet (52 combos).
TT-99 (24 combos) ; 12% they hit a set, fold if miss.
AQs,AJs,AK-AJ,KQ (48 combos) ; 33% they improve (again discounting draws on the flop) and have high pair good kicker, fold if miss.

Assuming they fold other holdings to a c-bet (quite reasonable as they will only hit the flop 1 in 3 and fold a lot of pairs to overcards on the flop which we can represent with or c-bet), so 43% of the time they fold on the flop.

Fold: (52/124 x 0) + (24/124 x 0.88) + (48/124 x 0.67) = 43%.

Pre-flop: They fold - 0.906 x 1.5BB = EV +1.359
Flop: They fold - 0.094 x 0.43 x 5.5BB = EV +0.2223
Call flop: 80% we lose, 20% we cont - 0.094 x 0.57 x 0.8 x -11BB = EV -0.4715
1.359 + 0.2223 - 0.4715 = EV +1.1098 BB

The above calculations discount draws our opponents will continue on the flop with, and also discount the draws that we continue with (lets say they cancel each other out for now). It also discounts play after the flop, but we are not worried about that stage of play as our steal attempts end at the flop (unless we have developed sufficient reads to extend this strategy further in to the hand).

So, every hour (60 hands) we steal 16% in CO/Button (1/3 of positions at the table) at a +EV of 1.1098 BB.

60 x 0.16 x 0.33 x 1.1098 = €3.50 p.h. We have now reduced our cost of sitting at .5/1 table from €15 to (15 - 3.5) = €11.50. Reducing our costs by 23%.

REM: The less likely your opponent is to fold (loose pre-flop or adjusts to counter or strategy), the less profitable your blind stealing will prove to be in terms of folding equity. However, your opponents are just as, if not more, afraid of you than you are of them. This is your hand - you've raised pre-flop and bet the flop. Given that your opponent has exhibited no aggression at this point, your folding equity remains good.

If your opponent gets aggressive, believe what he’s telling you. Don’t be afraid to let go when a steal attempt fails. It is a small pot strategy, therefore don’t be over betting in a frenzy risking your stack if it doesn’t work out, and sometimes it wont.

The observant opponent may catch on to your strategy and adjust to counter it, by either re-raising pre-flop, or calling pre-flop and check raising your continuation bet. When this happens our EV is falling and our opponents EV is rising. We then need to re-adjust to balance our EV. As our opponents pre-flop and flop range will widen when he adjusts, we counter by narrowing our stealing range, so that when we see a flop we have a playable hand more often than before. In this case it is essential that we c-bet exactly as before as not to alert our opponent that we have adjusted and have a solid post flop holding. We now have various options open to us depending on the strength of our hand on the flop such as -calling the CR, pushing, CR the turn, etc. This adjustment will take our steal attempts in to post flop play which is another topic. We will have also turned a tight player somewhat looser pre-flop. The strategy for stealing against looser opponents is for another post as this has gotten pretty long winded.

When we flop a draw we can mix it up, taking free cards and also betting them. This keeps our holdings more disguised..

Don't get discouraged if your steals fail. We're often worried that because our opponent played back at us the last time we tried to steal, we need to tighten up considerably- unless we notice a change in pattern i.e. he has adjusted to counter our betting patterns.
Our opponents don't adjust at lower levels as much as we think they do. Just because you got re-raised pre-flop the last time you tried to steal doesn't necessarily mean that they've got your number but that they actually had a hand.

If you have successfully stolen blinds the last few orbits, fold the hands lower in your stealing range this time as they will be getting annoyed, maintain and control your table image.

DO NOT SLOWPLAY. Your entire strategy here is a bluff that depends entirely on you playing your monsters and your junk identically. Fast play of big hands is essential to the success of this strategy. So if you like what your read get on the right side of those nits, play your normal game and just add a few steal attempts and see how it works.

Please do not attempt this strategy at live cash games, it will be detrimental to your bankroll.

DISCLAIMER: The strategy mentioned above, is merely an opinion and I hold myself in no way responsible if losses are incurred when implemented. All wins and losses are the responsibility of the player concerned.

Ste05

What an understated title eggie, very well written and thought out post. Nicely played.

Rb

Ste05 wrote:

What an understated title eggie, very well written and thought out post. Nicedly played.

.

Good read.

phantom_lord

thread sticky...

BobSloane

Yes very good post.
It takes guts to play back at someone raising your blinds. If the blinds are say 1-2 and I'm in the BB and the c/o or button raises to 6 - To sucessfully play back I must raise to around 20 to get him below getting 2-1 to call. He would now be calling 14 into an existing pot of 27 and with position. Its a very fine line i think defending your blinds. Next thing you know you've lost a huge pot out of position with second pair or some such crap. It's your duty in late position to try and pick up your opponents blinds. I love games where there is an aggressive player in mid position trying to steal the button. They will often battle for the blinds that are not even theirs to start with.
In a way the blinds are what poker is all about. Without them, there is no game - nothing to initially win.

phantom_lord

I think it's better in general to go steal someone elses than to defend your own.

MacStacked

Nice post eggie. WP

Killme00

phantom_lord wrote:

I think it's better in general to go steal someone elses than to defend your own.

.


Good post eggie...how would you deal with more than one caller preflop

Scouser in Dub

Killme00 wrote:

.
Good post eggie...how would you deal with more than one caller preflop

At the levels I play it's usually fairly transparent as to whether anyone has connected on the flop people are reluctant to check raise a preflop raiser and so if you are last to act and it is checked to you then the pot is yours more often than not, occasionally I will have to fire another barrel on the turn but this happens rarely and I am reluctant to do it unless it is a semi bluff.

I find that if I am called preflop and post then most people at the micro levels are in calling station mode so another barrel usually requires that I have at least a chance to improve to the best hand.

eggie wrote:

.
For those who are inclined to steal less often (say, 16% of the time or less), your flop bets should be enough for your opponent not to doubt that you have improved your hand. Given that you are only attempting a steal 16% of the time, you will be stealing with reasonably good hands yourself:
16% corresponds roughly to stealing with any pair, any ace, any two Broadway cards, and any suited connector down to 87s (412 from 2,652 possible combos pre-flop). If that's your steal range, the chances that on the flop you have at least a pair will be 58%.

I am a little confused by this, if I am stealing this infrequently (which I may be) I am likely to be trying to steal with my worst hands, if you are including 88+ AT+ JTs etc these hands I may play for value and will occasionally want a call with them if I can get it heads up with a raise from the button rather than looking to just take the blinds down. am I playing these wrong?

Great post