Minimum Holdings for and Frequency of Re-steals for Low Buy-in STT’s

[Jbrochu]

How do you guys decide when and with what holdings to attempt re-steals around bubble time? For the time being, I’m back playing very low buy-in STT’s with the basic tight early, aggressive (provided I’m opening the pot) late strategy. One thing that seems different than when I was playing at this level a couple of years ago is the prevalence of mini-raising my big blind once the blinds get fairly high. I’m nearly certain this means, “I’ve noticed you’re really tight so I’m just trying to steal your BB but I bet small enough to fold if you push” the great majority of the time.

So does anybody have a rule-of-thumb for when and how often to push back, or are you just going by gut instinct? What type of starting hands do you prefer to push back with, not counting the premium hands that you’re pushing for value?

[Paul B.]

Cmon, man. This is totally read dependent.

[DuderinoAB]

[ QUOTE ]
How do you guys decide when and with what holdings to attempt re-steals around bubble time? For the time being, I’m back playing very low buy-in STT’s with the basic tight early, aggressive (provided I’m opening the pot) late strategy. One thing that seems different than when I was playing at this level a couple of years ago is the prevalence of mini-raising my big blind once the blinds get fairly high. I’m nearly certain this means, “I’ve noticed you’re really tight so I’m just trying to steal your BB but I bet small enough to fold if you push” the great majority of the time.

So does anybody have a rule-of-thumb for when and how often to push back, or are you just going by gut instinct? What type of starting hands do you prefer to push back with, not counting the premium hands that you’re pushing for value?

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No winning player does anything by gut instinct. We do things because we have knowledge of the way our opponents are likely to act. If your opponent is minraising your blind quite a bit, and you have enough chips that he can still fold pretty easily, then your range for restealing should be fairly wide. How wide is determined by the buyin and the knowledge you have of your opponents. With experience you will get a pretty good feel for this type of thing. There really is no other way to do it. If you post specific situations with reads on your opponents, we can help you a lot more. When you make general posts you get vague answers like this one.

[cha59]

The other replies touched on my thoughts as well. It depends.

How frequently has the particular minraising moron been taking your blinds?

Have other minraising morons also been taking your blinds?

What range do you put him on?

How many people are left?

How big is each person's stack - especially, but not only yours and villain's?

How big are the blinds?

What is your hand?

I'm probably forgetting some other things. All these things matter a lot. Hand value should only be a part of your decision.

[Jbrochu]

Cha, as you know my normal STT game is somewhat looser than most of the regulars on this forum, since my background is single-tabling the normal structure Stars games where post-flop play can pay dividends. I’ve recently been trying to learn how to multi-table the turbo’s, and so have been trying to learn how to play that rock tight early, aggressive on the bubble strategy advocated here. All these mini-raises of my blinds are something I’m not used to seeing in the late game, so I think it’s related to how tight I’ve been playing, and thus the others thinking they can pick on me. I’m also in these bubble situations now with the blinds being a much higher percentage of the chip stacks than I’m used to at the bubble in the regular structure games, so I’m sure it’s just something I have to adjust to. Maybe I just have to start pushing back and seeing what happens for a while until I develop a feel for what these mini-raises actually mean.

Anyway, I do understand the points about my OP being too general. I’ll find some specific situations to post.