Big stack steal: stack sizes

[maddis]

I wanted to steal today with J5 from the BU. (hand below) I guess that was a -ev move. how should their stacks look like to do this move? or should my hand me better, whatever their stacksizes are.
(sry for bad english)

TEXAS_HOLDEM, NO_LIMIT, T4-50938543-191
played at "Sioux City" for USD TC from 2007-10-01 15:34 until 2007-10-01 15:35
Seat 1: chesscycle ($28,026 in chips)
Seat 2: xsammy69 ($27,483 in chips)
Seat 4: Knolli77 ($44,232 in chips)
Seat 5: HERO ($119,864 in chips)
Seat 7: SamuelWahlen ($19,546 in chips)
Seat 8: Dolly102 ($25,144 in chips)
Seat 9: WESTBLEEDER ($81,991 in chips)
Seat 10: AAwtf119 ($141,654 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
SamuelWahlen posts blind ($3,000), Dolly102 posts blind ($6,000).

PRE-FLOP
WESTBLEEDER folds, AAwtf119 folds, chesscycle folds, xsammy69 folds, Knolli77 folds, HERO bets $119,864 and is all-in, SamuelWahlen calls $16,546 and is all-in, Dolly102 folds.

[levAA]

make your steals against medium stacks

here you got two supershort stacks in the blinds - M=2 and M=3 (without antes). these players have to gamble and will call you (spec. BB) with nearly ATC - so this wasn't a good steal.

[maddis]

against ~50k stacks this steals is good?

[levAA]

don't count the chips - make this calculation with M (M=stack/blinds+antes).

steal against opponents who are not big, but not desperate either - this is usually about M=10 - so here you would say about 90k. can be a little bit more or less.

shortstacks need to double up soon and will therefor liberally call in the BB where they get good odds.

btw it's always better to steal from a bigstack than from a smallstack. with your 120k here you can push against a 200k stack - cause he has much to loose - and most people get tighter the more chips they have.

[Sherman]

Probably best to steal against someone with like an 80K stack here (although that sets him up nicely for a re-steal).

Also, you won't want to shove as a steal against that stack. You would make a normal raise.

FWIW, your shove here is ok so long as you think you have FE PF. This is similar to the flyswatting Harrington talks about. I do this often against nitty short-stacks when I have a big stack with junk cards. They usually fold and if I get called it 1) doesn't hurt me much if I lose and 2) I usually have some equity againt them anyway.

Also, it makes me look wild and loose. Believe it or not, plays like this make my steals work more against small stacks who believe I won't fold anything and are too afraid to "risk" their tournament lives.

[ssnyc]

don't think it's terrible if they have been tight and folding too much...worse case you get called and have to hit...best you take a nice chunk of blinds and antes