History of Poker on Broadway

Stealing the blinds is when, in Texas Hold’em Poker, a poker player raises the bet before the flop, and his raise is not called upon by anyone else, the player winning the blinds uncontested. When everyone folds after your raise, you win this money no matter what cards you have and there wouldn’t even be a flop.

Stealing the blinds is especially important during the tournaments, in which the value of the blinds keeps increasing and in order to survive, stealing the blinds is a good skill to learn. It is also important in the variants in which the blinds have a relatively high value when compared to the rest of the bet, for instance in the limit poker versions. However, this stealing the blinds happens more often in no-limit Hold’em, because the players can do a raise large enough to keep the others from calling it.

During the fulltiltpoker.net tournaments, early on the blinds are not important as they tend to be small when compared to the chip stack sizes and winning them might not bring a big benefit. But as the game progresses, the blinds take more and more of your chip stack and you might consider doing it.

Usually, the blind stealing will be done by a player in late position, often from the button, because such players can see whether the adversaries raised anything. If no one raised, it’s expected that no one has a good enough hand to call you.

Nevertheless, you should know that since the stealing of blinds from the button is a relatively common practice, many players are used not to respect raises that come from that position and might call you even if they have some modest hands. This is why some players will try stealing the blinds from one seat the right of the button.

Choosing the right time to do it is important: You should never try to do it if you are in an early position, if anyone else has been raising, if the gameplay at the table is typically loose or aggressive or if there are many players in the pot.

The amount you raise on full tilt should be big enough to make them fold, but also you should minimize your losses in case you lose. A good value range should be between 2.5 and 4 times the big blind. Some experts recommend you to put the exact sum randomized, so that your opponents might get the idea that you thought your actions well and they also might not start to see a pattern in your actions.