[redbeard]

according to what i got from the thread i linked in my earlier post, the authors definately advocated stealing from the button and co. my 6 max stats are 17% vpip, 13% pfr, 28% ats, and 26% went to sd. i buy in at 40 big blinds and then do pretty much what you said regarding your starting hands. as for stealing to give you an idea i steal on button with: 22+, Ax, Kxs, K9o, Q8s, QTo, J7s, J9o, T9s-43s, T9o, 98o, T8s-53s.

so you can see that is a pretty wide stealing range. in fact, i seem to remember the authors saying that stealing equity superseeds everything else and if you are confident it is a profitable play to steal then do that before considering stack-to-pot ratios. the nice thing about it though is that say for instance you are in a 1/2 game with a $80 stack, your standard raise for most people in the game will be $6 to $8. this fits perfectly for top pair hands to generate a stack-to-pot ratio of 4 if you get only one caller and less if you get multiple callers. top pair hands love this. when you steal you can still make this standard raise and no opponent will be able to exploit it as your hand is played just as a top pair hand would.