Stealing

Tom Leonard

It has been said that poker is stealing by mutual consent. I know that to be a fact because that maxim appears on a wooden plaque hanging on my game room wall along with all kinds of other poker related pictures and memorabilia. That pithy saying refers to the perceived disparity of skill among a group of poker players. The kind of stealing I'd like to discuss today is the absolute necessity of stealing blinds and small pots in tournament play.

As the blinds continue to escalate and antes kick in, each lap becomes more and more expensive. This is, of course, how the tournament format forces attrition which continually narrows the field to ultimately produce the winner. An essential tool to help build your stack or at least prevent it from shrinking is the steal. Small pots add up and stealing the blinds from the button or cut off seat is essential to survival and hopefully winning the tournament. In the early stages of a tournament the blinds are really not worth the risk involved to attempt steals. However, as the tournament advances and antes kick in you must begin stealing or even re-stealing against a larcenous button raise. If your stack is not increasing in a tournament format, then it's shrinking.

The need to steal antes from the button is a well known strategy....so well known that a savvy player in the small blind may well re-raise to knock out the big blind and attempt to re-steal from the button. Another steal tactic which is becoming more common is to steal from an earlier position such as the cut off seat. Yes, stealing isn't as easy as it used to be. What guidelines should one adopt to make stealing more successful and less vulnerable to a re-steal? Well, at the risk of driving this point home in every column..........study your opponents to get a read on who is capable of a re-steal and who is a passive wimp!

Another critical aspect of stealing success is to be aware of both your chip position and the chip position of the players whose chips you are attempting to abscond with. Medium stacks are the best stacks to steal from. Short stacks may well make a stand against your steal attempt and go all-in while big stacks can just be plain dangerous, especially if they wake up with a hand.

Another consideration is the table's image of you. Have you been raising and taking pots without having to show down a hand? Always be aware of what the other players think of your play. If it is perceived that you have been stealing, even if you haven't, then someone is likely to call you down or re-raise. The flip side of this situation is if you have shown down some strong hands then your steals may well go uncontested. Players tend to believe in trends. If you've shown down several solid hands they tend to believe you may be getting hit with the deck and if you've been caught bluffing they tend to feel you won't have a hand if called. Of course believing the distribution of recent hands has an effect on future hands is nonsense but be aware that it is a common belief so you can react appropriately.

Our goal for this time together is to remain acutely aware of our stack size in relation to the blinds to make sure that the number of laps around the table that our chips enable us to make is constantly increasing. In tournament play, if you're not stealing on occasion to increase your stack size, you will be sliding backwards. See you next "TIME".

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