Blind Stealing 101

Introduction

A few people have been posting stats threads lately and I've seen a trend that really needs to be addressed. Most of the people I've seen stats on are not stealing blinds nearly enough, and aren't defending their blinds nearly enough. I've decided to type up something quick to show why it's an issue.

** Note that I'm not going to be addressing situations where the effective stacks are less than 40bb.

An Abstract Example

It's folded to you on the button with 100bb effective stacks. This is your first orbit at the table, and you have no history with either of the blinds. Through data mining, you know that the small blind is 13/9 and the big blind is 12/8.

Let's consider what happens if you open raise 4x with any two cards.

Assume for the sake of discussion that the small blind is going to call a raise with 13% of his starting hands, and the big blind is going to call with 12% of his starting hands. This means that the small blind will fold 87% of the time and the big blind will fold 88% of the time, so they both fold 76.56% of the time.

So you win 1.5bb 76.56% of the time and lose 4bb 23.44% of the time. Know what that means? On average, you'll win 0.2108bb just from the blind steal, not counting any EV we get post-flop. We see that against nits who don't adjust for people stealing their blinds, we can steal with any two for a good profit.

A Real-World Example

Now I'm going to give an actual example based on the stats that dozer and Jimmy Mac posted in the past day or so. I'm not picking on anyone, but when you use data from real players then they tend to take it to heart a little more. Wink

So assume the same situation as above, except we have dozer in the big blind and Jimmy Mac in the small blind. According to their stats posts, dozer folds his big blind to a steal 83.23% of the time, and Jimmy Mac folds his small blind to a steal 91.13% of the time. If we raise 4x, then they both fold 75.85% of the time. On average, we would make 0.1718bb from raising any two cards against them, without counting any post-flop EV.

The Calculation

To find out the EV of a button blind steal spot with any two cards (assuming your opponents aren't adjusting) it's a rather easy calculation. First find out what % of the time both blinds will fold. To do this, you multiply the BB's fold to steal % with the SB's fold to steal %, and we'll call this value F. In the example with dozer and Jimmy Mac, we did 0.8323 * 0.9113 = 0.7585, so they'll both fold 75.85% of the time.

Now to calculate the EV of raising 4x with any two cards, you do (1.5 * F) - (4 * (1-F)). In the example with dozer and Jimmy Mac, we did (1.5 * 0.7585) - (4 * (1-0.7585)) = 0.1718, so we'll win 0.1718bb on average.

With just a little work, we discover that anytime the blinds have an average fold to steal % over 85.28%, we can make a blind steal with any two cards profitable, even if we check/fold every flop we see. This is why my initial goal when I was working on defending my blinds more was to get my fold to steal% to 85% in both blinds.

Practical Use

Now just because we think we can steal profitably with any two cards doesn't mean that we should. If we steal every single time, then our opponents will start to notice what's going on and they will adjust, so it's better to practice some sort of moderation. The best form of moderation for spots like this is to play hands that have the most potential for post-flop play.

Also, it's important to steal blinds with non-premium hands against players who are loose as well. When you make a blind steal, you have an advantage in initiative and position, which is often enough that the strength of the cards don't matter. By mixing up your play, you also make it harder to read your hands, which is one important step towards becoming a better player as you move up through the limits.

We know that the playability of a starting hand is based on how big the cards are, how connected the cards are, and if the cards are suited or not. For example, J2o might be a preflop favorite against 98s (it has 51.147% equity to be exact), but you'd be better off having 98s when a tight opponent calls your blind steal. With our knowledge of how hands play post-flop, we can make some generalizations about which non-premium hands are best to steal with.

Suited connectors T9s-54s and suited one-gappers J9s-53s should be added to your button and cutoff stealing ranges immediately. You should be raising these most of the time against any two villains.

If the remaining people in the pot are tight, then you can open up even more with unsuited connectors, any ace, suited kings, and K7o+. Even if you get called, you still have a hand to play.

Target Stats

If you're playing 50nl or below, then your attempt to steal % should be 30 at the very least. You can maintain this while playing a nit-ass 13/11 or so game pretty easy, so contrary to what may be popular belief, stealing blinds doesn't mean that you have to become a laggy maniac.

Once you get more comfortable and start finding good spots to exploit nits, you can probably get it up to 35%-38% without much trouble, but I would suggest slowly opening up and adding hands to your LP range instead of trying to jump into playing a game that you're not used to.

Conclusion

My conclusion is that you're all nits and suck at life. Just kidding. Here's what I suggest you guys that are running like a 24% attempt to steal do to open up your game:

1. Immediately add T9s-54s to your button and cutoff open raising ranges against any villains. Also add J9s-53s to your button open raising range against any two opponents.

2. Once you get comfortable with #1, open any suited ace from the button, and add J9s-53s to your cutoff open raising range when the button is tight.

3. Once you get comfortable with #2, start opening suited aces from the cutoff when the button is tight. You can also start adding the bigger suited connectors, suited aces, and suited one-gappers from the HJ when both the button and cutoff and blinds are tight.

It's a gradual process. Don't try to open up too much at one time. Get comfortable playing non-premiums in these spots, and slowly open up. If you guys have any questions/comments/whatever, throw them up.

Wow, all I can say is nice post. Very insightful, as I personally had been wondering (well, I figured I should be, but didn't know approximately how much more) if I should be attempting to steal blinds more (I play pretty tight pf, and my attempt to steal blinds is ~20).

I love it when a great forum has great people giving great advise. Much appreciated spoon, a true gentleman and scholar. Another tool to my game. I love how you used dozer as an example, we're about to go to a buddies house for a live game, so if he hasn't read this post yet, i'm totally going to try to exploit him Smile

Nice post! I do really need to open my game out a little, here seems like a good place to start. How are you adjusting to loose players behind you or in the blinds? I find I dont want to raise 67s if there is a donkey with 50bb still to act, should I tend to stick to high cards and Ax in this case?

Also, would be nice to hear something on blind defence. Im folding to steals something stupid like 90% :/ I 3bet or fold against probable steals but Im thinking I'm not 3 betting them nearly enough. Do you ever cold call a steal from the BB?

Youre forgetting the cbet on the flop. The cbet changes our EV drastically, if we make it (and we should)

I've opened my LP range a fair bit lately, but I still don't like to do it with more than one limper behind -- then I usually limp behind.

...too passive?

What does PokerTracker consider a chance to steal? Yesterday I was stealing with atc on the button any time it folded to me, and very liberally from the cutoff. I only got to 35 percent but it was a small sample.

Is chance to steal big blind from small blind included when it folds around to sb?

Great post.

The attempt to steal % in Poker Tracker is based off what % of time you open raise from the cutoff, button and small blind when folded to.

wow. i thought mine would be higher, then. hmmmm.

that makes sense then, just co and btn when folded to. So, the more limping and multi-way pots in your game the fewer opportunities. I would assume as you move up and the games tighten up and become more aggressive, this number will increase. I'll be all out to get it >30 at NL50 but I'm going to try and keep it there.

I think this applies a little less to microstakes. On the really really loose tables you find down there this will often get you into potentially expensive multi-ways vs stations who will call mid-pair+ down on you, and the c-bet costs you more...

depends really on the 3 or 4 villains to your left + limpers...

I think the fact that poker is like...almost always 'it depends', makes it the great game it is

This is great stuff spoon!

You say it doesn't matter if the blinds are aggressive, can you explain that a little more? I mean, if there is only a 10% chance the BB folds, that should change a lot. Right?

Great OP. Wish I'd read this before now as my att. to steal is about 25%. The simple maths showing how its +EV makes so much sense. Thanks a lot.

Bump for all of the nits who keep posting stats that make me want to cry.

This thread needs a bump but I decided to throw out a nifty-looking chart this time.

We all know that we always have equity when someone calls our raise, so we know that a blind steal that is exactly break even just from fold equity will be +EV since we will [hopefully] be +EV post-flop with our positional advantages the times we are just called. To give an idea of how much this can change things, I threw together a quick chart to show some numbers for a hypothetical situation in which both blinds fold or we are only called by 1 blind. On this chart, x is the minimal amount of post-flop equity we are assuming we have, y=f(x) is the amount of times both blinds would have to fold for us to break even based on the appropriate x, and the last column is the square root of y, which is how often each blind would have to fold for us to break even if they always fold the same % of hands.

Bump cuz i need to read this again.

I just come across this thread by chance (link in another thread)

Really enjoyed reading it. My problem is something not really mentioned in this thread (unless I am blind)

Playing 6 max, if you happen to be on a table of nits, You get many situations where it is folded round to SB v BB. This is a major leak in my game I feel.

I'm not so bad from the BB. I mean first of all you have position there. Something you don't hear mentioned much, but it is like having the button in a heads up contest. If I see someone stealing a lot, I wont call them, I 3 bet them. Then if they raise, I give them credit for a good hand. If someone is tight , then they fold it to you often. Thanks very much. If they Limp a lot then I will raise them a lot if I think they will fold.

However in the small blind, I am never sure what cards I need to play against the BB. I hate limping in it, seems so silly when you can raise and take the pot, which is fine if you have a nit in the blind. However when you come up against someone with a bit of resistance, I find myself folding the blind.

Say I am in the BB with K6o, against someone who will defend his blind 1 in 3 times, whats the move ? When I say defend I am including a call in that, because that is where I get in the most bother. What is the move? K6o rates to be ahead of 2 random cards I would say. It is playing the hand out of position which gets me in to bad situations.

*Edit* Just noticed this is in FR forum, it is still a valid post though , hopefully

For what it's worth, if you're on the BB you're not out of position.

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