Theory has it, that if you were to enter a free Poker Tournament at a no limit table and manage to steal the blinds just one time when the deal button rounds the table, that you could win the tourney. This is even though you have never raked in a huge pot.
This isn’t something I would recommend you do when playing in your next tournament, but it does suggest the importance of stealing the blinds. So, lets go through what ’stealing the blinds’ actually means when playing free poker.
In short, stealing the blinds is defined as making a pre-flop raise that is designed to induce folds and win the hand pre-flop. When making this move the value of your hole cards is of no importance. You do not intend to see a flop and when successful all players remaining in the hand will fold.
A raise in late position with AQs that induces folds may have the same affect, but it is certainly not the same play.
Since our goal is to induce folds there are several things we must consider before pushing a raise across the line.
What is my position?
How many players have called the big blind pre-flop?
How many big blinds are left in our stack?
How healthy are the stacks of those left to act?
What is my image at the table?
If a decision to steel the blind is made, then it should preferably be made from the last position. This enables you to look at how the other players play pre-flop before making a decision to steal.
Generally we will only want to attack those players in the blinds as their money was in before they got a look at their cards. It is acceptable to make a play for the blinds against 1 (maximum of 2) calls, but only if those calls were made by players who have played loose all night.
It is never okay to try a steal when there is a raise in front of you! Let’s assume we are sitting on the button (last to act), there is one call (by a loose player) and the rest of the table has folded.
We must now determine if our chip stack will allow us to make a move on the blinds. The intent of our raise is to take away any equity in the pot and make the only smart play for the blinds a fold, but our stack must be adequate enough to afford to do so.
In our hand there is a small and big blind in the pot and we have 1 caller. Using $100 / $200 blinds as an example the pot is now at $500. In order to take the equity out of the pot for anyone considering a call we must raise at least 3 times the big blind.
Many players still see a 3x raise as standard, however I have found a raise of 3.5 or 4.5 to be extremely effective (3x = 600, 3.5x=700, 4.5x=900).
Ideally we would like to have 30X the big blind or more left in our stack after we make the raise (30x=6,000), so our chip stack of 8,000 will allow us to attempt the steal in this position.
Note that this play is much more effective when your image at the table is that of a tight player that raises with solid hands.
As with all poker, whether you are playing free poker tournaments or casino poker live, its all about patience. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you do, another player will always have a better hand. Stealing the blind can be an effective method at times and gives you an opportunity to hold out for premium hands.
Nick, originally from the UK now lives in Sweden with wife Lena, 2 daughters and a Border Terrier called Gunnar. He is Marketing Manager for Free Poker Games site NoPayPOKER and publishes Free Online Poker tips videos on Youtube as well as running free poker tips blogs where you can learn about poker and find out more about free online poker sites.
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