Chapter 1: Introduction
In playing NL tournaments (I prefer Sky Poker) as much as I have over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to watch the game itself evolve from theory to theory, and watch play go from super-tight and semi-passive to completely balls out, super aggressive players lurking at every corner of the top tournaments online. Blind stealing has become a very popular technique in accumulating chips over the past few years, especially in the latter stages of tournaments, where the blind jumps can be fatal to a dwindling short stack. As this mindset of blind stealing began to take hold, the great minds behind the game took the concept of stealing a step further, and began making re-steals, big raises or all-ins designed to shut down a steal attempt and accumulate a large chunk of chips without seeing a flop. But what situations need to be present to attempt a successful steal? When is it appropriate to attempt a re-steal against a possible steal, and what range of hands is appropriate? And why would would you deposit at Terminal Poker when you could get a Terminal Poker voucher code?
First, we’ll tackle a few basic situations in which stealing is ideal. The good news is that, especially in online tournaments, blind stealing isn’t useful until the antes kick in, which, on Poker Stars, means you get about an hour and a half of time to get a good study of your table and look for players that are susceptible to being stolen from. Some traits that are ideal in stealing victims include;
A Medium Stack- The big stacks are more apt to play along with your steals, or make big resteals that can cost you large chunks of chips; the small stacks have less room to fold hands and may call your steals with less than optimum hands which still beat your stealing range; the medium stacks are awkward in not having the ability to shove you out of pots, but still having enough chips to have maneuverability if they just fold to your raise, so they by default tend to be the easiest to pick on.
Tight Pre-flop Players- It is important to notice the difference between a player who is tight and one who is just weak, because even tight aggressive players are going to be easier to steal from than weak-passive players that would be willing to call with garbage hands. If a player has been quiet and standard about their preflop selections, they some continue that trend in the opening levels of antes in tournament play, while some switch gears, make sure which they are before you assume too much. Even if they stay tight, folding can ebb away as blinds increase, so be sure to keep an eye on if their style is changing as their relative stack changes in proportion to the blinds.
Weak Flop Players- If you notice a player that likes to see flops cheaply, but tends to fold when pressure is applied on most flops, a delayed steal may be appropriate. Raise a price that these players cannot resist (2.2-2.5x BB from the button ONLY. This play is too risky to get multiple players involved from the CO or later) then fire a good sized bet at 80% of flops they check to you on. You’ll take down the pot a large percentage of the time with little resistance, making this a nice +EV play to add to your arsenal. Occasionally you’ll also flop something big when they hit and your activity may yield you a whole stack.
Chapter 2: Initial Stealing
Now that we have a fair idea of the players we need to be attacking, we need to know what ammunition we have to add to our normal raising range in order to have an appropriate stealing range. Stack size makes a difference in our approach to stealing, and we’ll look at four different stages of stack size in determining criteria for making a steal. These criteria are assuming the action has been folded to us and that the average stack in the tournament is around M10= 5500.
M (cost per round) is < 2. (Blinds are 125/250 with a 25 antee, your stack is <1100) At the point where you are M1+1BB (800 or less) it becomes incorrect for the big blind to fold ANY TWO CARDS to your raise. I have seen some players make folds that are in excess of this, but these folds are rare, and only by the least experienced players. So once you pass below the M1.5 mark or so you are better off waiting for the big blind if you don’t catch a hand that is at least somewhat reasonable like a Qx, or suited connected. In the higher end of this range you want to look for spots that you have any fold equity, but if they don’t come up just wait for the big blind and then get allin with any 2 cards. In a multi-way pot ALWAYS make your allin raise BEFORE the flop, that way your opponents will all at least have to put that many chips in the pot. Post flop someone that hits may bet the other players off.
M is 2 to 4 (Blinds are 125/250 with a 25 ante, your stack is 1100 to 2200)- My range here is the widest of any of the five levels. From the CO, I’m moving in with any A or K, QJ-Q5, JT-J6, T9 and T8, any connected suited 45 or greater, and any pair. From the button, I’m adding any Q and any J to that range, and any suited ten lower than 106. If the blinds are particularly tight, or i have an M of 2 to 2.5 my range will include any 2 cards from the button or little blind. I’m only folding my bottom 15% of hands here against normal players. If we have a 1600 stack and shove from the button and everyone folds, we’re adding 550 to our stack, or about a 33% increase. There is a point at which you have no fold equity. Sometimes you lose a big pot and are left with just a few chips, these situations happen, but never allow your self to fold to the point where you no longer have fold equity.
M is 4-9 (125/250 (25), stack is 2200-4950)- This type of stack is probably the most awkward to play, and your play here is going to vary depending on how comfortable you are at playing flops with a short stack. I’m pretty selective with raising here, because even a “dinkish” raise of 625 (2.5x) is putting a big chunk of your stack in the pot, and if someone moves in on you, I’m really inclined to call the bet given the amount of chips we’ve already committed to the pot. From the CO and button my range is pretty tight, any pair, A8+, KQ-KT, QJ-Q9, and J10. I’m not thrilled raising with the A8-A9 because a shove is much more likely to be from a bigger Ace, but given our vulnerable M, we need to be active in accumulating chips here, because it takes two rotations to knock us down to level 1 and put us in desperation mode again. My ranges for making a Reraise when i believe there is fold equity are actually higher than my range for being first to enter the pot. This will be discussed more in Chapter 3.
M is 9-14 (125/250 (25), stack is 4950-7700)- This is a stack that you can really get aggressive with as far as stealing goes, and now you can start releasing hands to re-raises a bit more; your goal is to try to steal once per round with this size stack if it is possible, and you can now consider stealing from the hijack as well, but only if conditions are incredibly ideal. This allows you to get more active in stealing, and, when you do pick up a hand, you’re more likely to be re-stole from, given your frequency of raises, thus raising the likelihood you can pick up monster pots with your monster hands. The hijack is trickiest. My normal raising range here is AA-66, AK-A10, A9s-A8s, KQ-KJ, K10s, QJ, and J10s. This is a looser raising range than my standard opening hands, but still strong enough to take a flop with from a flat caller. The advantage of having a semi-tight hijack range comes when players try to re-steal from you in that position. You’re not raising with absolute garbage, and in fact, with about 50-60% of the hands on this list, you’re very happy to see a flop. (AA-88, AK-AQ, AJs, KQs, and more given the right opponents) This allows you some deception in your steals that can earn you stacks. The CO can add the other pairs, A9-A8o, K10o, and J10o. You’ve now got a decent opening range, but now you’re only expecting to call a re-raise all-in about 30% of the time. The button adds all aces, K9-K7, Q10-Q8, and J9. No preference to suited, here, if you get these hands, you’re justified in a raise. You’re now only calling a re-raise shove that puts you allin about 25% of the time. Which seems bad, but remember; with each position you move up, you lose one player you have to beat to win the pot. From the button, only two players are left to act, while in the CO, 4 remain. My raising amount here tends to be light; 2.3x-2.8x, although from the hijack, I lean towards making more standard raises of 2.5x-3x, to better disguise the strength of my hand. The .2/.3 may not seem like much, but over the course of a tourney, a player that steals at 3x that gets caught once a level is losing chips that a player stealing at 2.7x is keeping. Remember; if a player is going to fold for 650, they’re going to fold for 615, and the 35 chips you save can add up over the length of a 9 hour tournament.
M is 14-20 (125/250 (25), stack is 7700-11,000)- With the semi deep and mega stacks i will break off of just opening raising requirements and discuss the game a little more in depth. The semi-deep stack is an incredibly difficult stack. With a stack of this size you can get involved in coin-flip situations with chips added and survive through some bad luck. With a stack this size you can play position with force or with finesse. If there is a deep stack on your left you tend to want to play somewhat tight, if there is a deep stack on your right, you want to play moderately loosely against them. I hear so often that what you want to do against a big stack is simply to avoid going bust. Avoiding a big stack when you have positition on them is terrible unless they are a far better player than you. Your whole goal with this stack is to find +EV situations, and exploit them. When you and another player are deep, position will often yield you a tool box to find +EV with mediocre holdings. If the other semi-big stack or bigger stack doesn’t want to get involved with you, then you can pick a lot of little pots off them, if they do want to get involved with you, you may be able to get their whole stack in one hit. If you’re M18 and you double up off an M20 stack, you’re off to the races with a mega-stack.
M is 20+ 11,000+ This stack is what you play for. If you can get to a stack this size after the antees, and play it well you have a real chance of going really deep in the tournament. Other players know you can put them out without really putting yourself at much risk, so you are likely to have players scared of you. This stack is so difficult to play that it will take a lot of practice. At this point think of one thing and one thing only, how do i increase the probability of getting ALL the chips. One thing you can do to help you get all the chips is to take marginal gambles against short stacks on your right. For instance if you are M30 and in the big blind, if a small stack raises allin M3, you should fold most bad hands based purely on EV, but if it means eliminating a short stack on your right then you could gamble here with ANY TWO CARDS. His range is likely to be virtually any two cards, but this means calling with some of the worst hands will be -EV. However eliminating him will help set up situations where you are directly to the left of a deeper stack. If you double him up, now you are at least to the left of a stack that is worth more. Chips really do flow to the left.
Chapter 3: Re-Stealing
Re-stealing is a bit more risky than just stealing, but the rewards that come with the risk are just as great; not only do you gain the blinds from a prospective re-steal, but you also gain the initial raiser’s chips along with it, sometimes increasing your stack by 50% or more with a single move. The only catch is that if you incorrectly re-steal someone with a strong hand, you’re likely out of the tournament or crippled if you are M10 or Less.
As such, my re-stealing requirements are a bit tighter and more dependent on the player that is making the raise. Also, when re-stealing, I tend to respect position outside the cutoff, so only the CO and button stealers are being discussed in the next section.
Assuming CO/BU is raising to 750 (3xBB) and player is LAG (Loose Aggressive) and a fairly well-respected player, you are BB and it’s folded to you.
M<4- The odds of you successfully re-stealing with such a short stack are slim to none; you’re not able to raise a significant enough amount to chase even the weakest bluffs away; they’ll be forced by the pot odds to call. Notice, by the way, that if the bubble is not close and a button is raising, they have a hand they’re comfortable calling your shove with generally, so don’t be encouraged to shove with 84o because you think there’s some slim hope you can get them off their hand; it’s not likely to happen. Instead, look for hands you can get your stack in with that have hope of being on the positive side of a flip; any pair, AK-A8, KQ-K5, QJ-Q6, J10-J8, 109, 108s all seem respectable enough to go ahead and shove with, given a positional raiser’s likely range of hands. You’re not actually planning to re-steal except against the weakest of hands with this stack, so don’t be too concerned with the idea, here.
M is 4-8- This is the easiest stack to re-steal with, because you aren’t concerned with re-steal amounts or bet sizes or anything of that nature; you have enough chips to simply shove all-in and if you succeed, you add over 1,000 chips to your stack, essentially adding 30% to your stack.