Tips for Stealing the Blinds in Tournaments
One of the skills you need to learn in order to be a good poker tournament player is the ability to steal the blinds every once in awhile. You don’t need to become overly aggressive when stealing the blinds, in fact its better if you don’t stand out at all when you steal the blinds. There are certain times when you want to steal the blinds and there are times when you don’t want to try stealing the blinds. We’re going to walk you through some tips so you know when to try and steal the blinds while playing in a poker tournament.
* The first thing we need to look at is when you should start stealing the blinds in a tournament. Most of the tournaments you’ll play will start with 10/20 blind levels and will go up every 5 or 15 minutes. There isn’t much of a point stealing 30 chips from the pot and I wouldn’t recommend doing so as it will only make you stand out at the table. Wait until the blinds are around 25/50 minimum before you start trying to steal the blinds.
* When you do start stealing blinds you need to always make sure you’re in a good position to steal them. The best position to steal the blinds is in late position, but at the same time you need to be careful. A lot of players will re-raise you if you raise on the button simply because it looks like you’re trying to steal the blinds. I try to avoid stealing the blinds on the button unless I know my opponents are fairly passive. On a 10 player table the best position to try and raise from is the 6-7th position as it doesn’t look like you’re stealing the blinds then.
* One way to steal the blinds if you have a lot of chips in the tournament is by raising the pot in first position. Of course you’re taking the risk that someone is going to push all-in on you, but at the same time if you have a lot of chips most players won’t readily move all-in on you with nothing. When you raise in first position it also makes it look like you have a big hand since most people wouldn’t think about stealing the blinds in this position. The most important thing if you try stealing the blinds in first position is to only raise 3-4X the big blind so you aren’t committed.
* When you’re stealing the blinds you want to try and make sure you have some sort of hand. If you get re-raised a bit you don’t want to automatically have to fold. If you have a hand like a suited 9-8 then you could call a small re-raise in hopes that you hit your straight or flush on the flop. You can create some large pots by playing marginal hands like this. You want to make sure you only call small re-raises though as this type of strategy can become expensive.
