1/2/2 NL structure -- to steal or not to steal?

[El_Hombre_Grande]

A local casino is spreading a NL 200 game with two $2 blinds and $1 on the button. I've only played it once, and the players are/were very passive and typical loose. At first glance, I thought that stealing the blinds would be more worthwhile than a typical game, but realistically, to have a greater than 50% of stealing them without a flop, I would estimate your bet would need to be 8 or 9X BB, which to me seems to be a disproportionate risk to reward ratio.

My next battle plan was to play the way I generally play live 1/2 or 2/4 with loose passives who will call big bets -- relatively passive preflop, big raises for big hands, mini raises for pocket pairs to "brew" a pot pre flop, limping along with implied odds hands until I have the goods, betting the goods, getting called, rarely bluffing and waiting for them to make big mistakes, rather than forcing the action more.

Does the extra BB change preflop theory considerably? should I be stealing here?

[a breath of air]

I am inexperienced, but I would say that stealing the blinds is not really feasible in very loose-passive games. With an additional BB in the pot some players are likely to play even more hands. My humble advice is to use your standard strategy against loose-passive opponents.

[benlj21]

I would say make bigger raises preflop because there is more to win. Also, play even more hands from late position because more people have an incentive to call your raises out of position. In other words, the button is even better than normal. If it was folded to me on the button I'd probably raise about half the time, no exaggeration.

[El_Hombre_Grande]

[ QUOTE ]
I would say make bigger raises preflop because there is more to win. Also, play even more hands from late position because more people have an incentive to call your raises out of position. In other words, the button is even better than normal. If it was folded to me on the button I'd probably raise about half the time, no exaggeration.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are right on. But its not going to get folded to the button often in this game.

[El_Hombre_Grande]

[ QUOTE ]
I am inexperienced, but I would say that stealing the blinds is not really feasible in very loose-passive games. With an additional BB in the pot some players are likely to play even more hands. My humble advice is to use your standard strategy against loose-passive opponents.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, it just seems odd that what appears to be correct is some degree of passiveness, even with added "juice."

[kayfish77]

the idea behind stealing the blinds is so that when you actually have a hand people will begin to get sick of you winning 2.5 bbs unopposed and strt to play back with marginal hands. its a fairly rare game that you're going to steal the blinds more than 2/3 of the time which would make it neutral ev if u make a 10 dollar raise, but the added ev you get due to shania and metagame ectecetera makes up for it. also, especially if its loose-passive cbets should win hands the majority of times you're called anyway.