Pooh-Bah Redux: Blind Stealing.

[xwillience]

nice post man, really enjoying what you have to say.

[thedustbustr]

hey pokey,

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my steal rate of 38.3% corresponds roughly to stealing with “any pair, any ace, any king, any two broadway cards, and any suited connector down to 87s.”

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you may wish to consider folding Axo and Kxo. Players are very likely to defend their blinds with hands that dominate Axo, and these are also the type of hands that will peel ui in blind battles.

I'm open raising 56o OTB, but folding A6o.

[Pokey]

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If your blind steals are a standard 4xBB, then you will wager 4xBB to win 1.5xBB, so if you immediately win 3 times out of 11 you will show an immediate preflop profit, even if you never win a hand when you don’t win preflop.


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By my calulations you must be successful 73% of the time to show an immediate profit.


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You are, of course, correct. I said it backwards, but I showed the math correctly; notice my follow-up comment:
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Since 3 out of 11 is 27.3%, if our opponents are likely to fold 72.7% of the time, we win immediately.


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Sorry for the confusion.

[Pokey]

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Pokey,

Nice post. However, if you open with AA on the BN, are you 'blind stealing'?

TWP

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Yes, I think you are. Any time you make a play for the blinds, you are blind stealing. Your question is a good one -- you're basically saying, "if I have the best hand, am I really stealing?" Given that the "best hand" preflop can still go down as burning wreckage postflop, I'd rather pick up the pot and move on. Heck, if I won the blinds uncontested 100% of the time when I tried a steal, I'd be happy with the outcome, with a nice winrate of 75 PTBB/100 on my steal attempts.

[Misanthrope]

Thanks Pokey, I am an incomplete reading idiot.

[Pokey]

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hey pokey,

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my steal rate of 38.3% corresponds roughly to stealing with “any pair, any ace, any king, any two broadway cards, and any suited connector down to 87s.”

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you may wish to consider folding Axo and Kxo. Players are very likely to defend their blinds with hands that dominate Axo, and these are also the type of hands that will peel ui in blind battles.

I'm open raising 56o OTB, but folding A6o.

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You don't like attacking the blinds as forcefully as I do, and that's fine. Still, I think you can play a blind steal attempt through the flop without looking at your cards and still have a positive winrate over the long haul. Against a donk with amnesia, I'd be making a steal attempt with 100% of my hands preflop; the only reason I fold occasionally is so that my opponents recognize that "he's not ALWAYS stealing, so he must have a hand when he raises."

To be honest, I think the very best strategy for choosing what hands to steal with preflop is this:

1. If your hand is a top 20% hand, steal. This is any pair, any broadway, any suited ace.
2. If your hand is NOT a top 20% hand, steal if your second card is a club.

Now you're stealing with 40% of your hands. There's a 50/50 chance that you're stealing with a well-above-average hand, and a 50/50 chance that you're stealing with a slightly-below-average preflop holding. After the flop, your hand has an above-average expectation of being strong, plus there's no way to rule out ANY flop having hit me squarely.

Oh, and when you have to showdown a crap holding, change the suit randomly, sticking with your new suit until you have to show again. (There, that solves the last lingering trace of predictability in the system.)

[Pokey]

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Is there anywhere to go in PT to see if my steals have been +EV? I didnt read your post or the thread, so if it was answered already, apologies.

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How to use Poker Tracker, test #3 answers your question.

Oh, and nothing motivates people to answer questions quite like saying "I couldn't be bothered to read your post or anybody else's." [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[AlcateL]

I'm a heavy heavy blind stealer just like you at 100 NL at my winrate of >>10 PTBB/100 hands over 70k I think is a direct result of this.

its not so much stealing its just aggression i mean its profitable imo without the times you actually make a hand, as you say. Obviously at higher stakes 2/4 or 3/6 and up its slightly difficult as when people play back its easy to fold and just play again next orbit and this happens more at higher stakes than lower stakes i'm sure.

[jskinn04]

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when they fold, we win 2.75 PTBBs

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Pokey: by my calculations the steal puts in 2PTBB, the SB donates .25 PTBB and the BB also puts in 2PTBB. Thus, when we take down the pot on the flop, we only make 2.25 PTBB, not 2.75 PTBB. Is this right?

[BumbleBeeRick]

Greaat post!