OK, First, if you haven't already, read Pokey's
Brilliant post on blind stealing, read it now.
Secondly, what I'm about to write is not for every1. Unlike blind stealing, you don't HAVE to do this to play optimal poker. I know that a lot of good players/respected posters do this already and some don't like it at all.
OK, what you have to realise is quite how +EV blind stealing is. Check you BB/100 when blind stealing in PT. I'm sure that for most of you it's bigger than 60 PTBB/100, now that a hell of a lot of $$$$!!!! The reason for this is in a way, NLTH is a badly structured game in the way that when you play without antes, the blinds are at such a disadvantage, they have to post their blind without even seeing their hand. Now considering that a good TAG player will normally only play about 20% of their hands, this means that on the BB , they're losing 4BB every 5 hands, that they normally wouldn't put in.
OK, so lets say you're on the button and MP limps to you. You have K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], what should you normally do? Well folding certainly doesn't look too bad. We've got a poor hand after all. What do I think you should do? RAISE THAT [censored]!!!
Reasons:
1) now, yourblind steal doen't even look like a blind steal, so it's less likely the blinds will see it as that and play back at you.
2) It's scary the amount of times that I've seen people limp/fold preflop, even from CO. It kinda baffles me realy!! What kind of hand can they have?
3) What do you opponents limp with? This is a very important consideration. Normally, either trash/SC/PP. These hands miss the flop very often. So even if you do get called, they won't continue after your flop cbet very often.
4) When we take it down preflop, we now win 2.5BB. Thats over 100PTBB/100.....freakdaddy, we'll catch you yet [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]
5) We'll get paid off more on our big hands.
6) Our oppponents are plays sub-optimally by open limping. So by raising, we are punishing that mistake.
Next, lets think about what will happen after we make this play a few times. Well, either you're at a table of mega mega unobservant fish and you just keep raking in the money from their limps. Or maybe you're sitting at a table of just mega unobservant fish, and they realise what you're doing and they stop limping. Well, is this a good thing or a bad thing? I think in a way, its a VERY good thing. It means 1) they will be folding more, so you can steal the blinds more, which as we've already discussed is $$$$$$. 2) They will be raising more and will be out of their comfort zone. This means they will usually make even bigger mistakes than usual as they try to adjust
Next, what hands should you be doing this with? After how many limpers? After what sort of limpers.
IMO, you should do it with your normal blind stealing range, so SC, unsuited connectors, suited 1 gappers, Axs, Kxs, low PP etc etc.
No. of limpers: normally 1 or 2, but sometimes more if conditions allow
The type of limpers: the ones that like to fold, eihter preflop or 2 cbets.
Lastly, the problems with this:
1) If you do this too often, you'll find that you open up your game tooo much and start raising poor hands OOP too and get into trouble.
2) watch out for LRR
3) You'll be put in a lot more marginal situations post-flop, so you need to make sure your reasing skills are goot.
IMO, playing a huge range of hands from the button after 0 or 1 (and even 2 limpers), raising them all and then from all other positions just play pairs/big aces/KQ is a simpleish but very profitable strategy