what to do against a possible steal
I'm wondering what goes into the thought process when you are facing a reasonably likely steal attempt. I realize that there are lots of points to think about and there are no "right" answers, but I would love to get any advice I can get on this subject.
Here are four types of hands I usually don't like to fold when I'm facing a late position raise: 55, KQ, A8, 98s. Are there differences in the way you would play hands like these? Which ones would you want to reraise with? Which ones would you want to call with? What if you had position (say the cutoff raised and you were on the button)? Would you play a hand differently in this situation? How does the size of your stack affect your decision? Are there any other factors you need to factor in?
Here are four types of hands I usually don't like to fold when I'm facing a late position raise: 55, KQ, A8, 98s. Are there differences in the way you would play hands like these? Which ones would you want to reraise with? Which ones would you want to call with? What if you had position (say the cutoff raised and you were on the button)? Would you play a hand differently in this situation? How does the size of your stack affect your decision? Are there any other factors you need to factor in?
Comments
I think I call with all of the above hands except perhaps A8. That is my own personal preference to not play weak aces against raises, to much trouble a brewing if an ace hits. As far as your question about what to do when facing a late position stealer, I would say it depends on how often he is stealing. If it is very consistent, make him pay for it. If I have a very good read that a player is stealing I'll re-raise with nothing, make him fold and show him garbage. It's also very easy, most of the times, to trap these players. Wait for a monster and just smooth call with it, a stealer will typically represent a stong hand on the turn and river...continuation bets.
For those players that steal randomly, here and there, let them. You can't catch everyone all the time and will kill yourself trying.
stp
If you are out of position, make a big re-raise. You don't want a call when you are out of position. You can probably do this with any 2 cards. The raise should likely be 3x his bet. If that is more than 40% of your chips, just push em in. Just make sure he isn't pot committed or you might be in for a bad beat.
In you have position, and you feel you have a better hand, I would sometimes smooth call. He'll likely throw some more chips at you on the flop and you can take them, too. The risk is he hits his hand and you lose big. I'd be more tempted to do this when I'm sure my cards are better - I'd skip the 98s here. If you do happen to hit at least 2 pr (preferably a set) on the flop, you can slow play this all the way. Only a maniac would still bet into you on the river. If he doesn't, give him a nice price to see your hand.
If you convince him to fold, I would not show him my cards. Keep him guessing the next time he has a chance to steal from you.
Fair enough for NL, but what about limit? This easily has to be the toughest part of the game for me, as it all comes down to feel (and good post-flop play). I absolutely detest people that think they can liberally take shots at stealing my blinds just because it's folded to them on the button. I agree that calling down with semi-strong hands tends to reduce variance since you will tend to induce the stealer into bluffing the whole way (or you minimize your loss if he actually has a hand). What is annoying is when he sucks out and catches his card on the river to beat you. Conversely I find that some of my most profitable hands tend to be rasing in LP (CO, button) or in SB vs. a super aggressive donkey that compulsively ALWAYS defends his blinds. There is nothing funnier than flopping top set, filling up on the turn and having capped betting rounds to the river to have him show you bottom pair, or even a T kicker with a hand that could have simply been folded preflop.
That's the whole thing about playing against a thief. It seems very situational. I don't think you want to make a move on him every time he raises your blinds. So I'm just trying to figure out what situations I want to be looking for and what I want to be thinking about when the time comes.
Thanks for the input guys.
This has to be done at the 2-5% relative blind compared to your stack, 25/50 into 1200 avg stack or 50/100 into 2500 stack etc.
A person who is attacking your blinds will be doing so at this level and you will have to raise against it with ANY two cards. Put this person back inline now so that they will not be as willing to get out of line on your blinds later. Your risking 15-20% of your stack now with a reraise vs. risking the leak of chips if an aggressive player pounds on you through the rest of them game.
Typically it takes two fights like this and your good for game (only to be applied sit'n goes or tables were you will have the same players to invest in), , 50% of the time I will muck on the flop, 50% of the time I get something good enough to bet out of position and take down the pot.
If you get called your done on the flop, unless something breaks open from your hands. But dont be a chip farm , dont be a chip bitch.
Leaving the impression that you will FIERCELY defend your blinds now, makes a BIG difference to getting them stolen later.
Then if you get a raise out of that position later, it is ALOT more likely to to be real strength rather then a steal and you have to judge your hands accordingly.
That being said;
If your short stacked with 55, QT, even A8 etc you should pushing all your chips in if your the raiser would be raising with a coin flip or better. You need to gamble unless you have time to wait and show down a monster, you want to push all of your chips in first in these situations, but if someone is out of line before you then look to double up in a gamble.
(1) Identify the player in question as having a large gap. That means he is open raising with a wide range of hands (typical of a stealer in late position of the small blind) but he will only call a re-raise with a very small range of hands.
(2) If the first criterion on met then I generally let my cards determine when I re-steal (which I will do in the cutoff, button, small blind, or big blind). I re-steal be tripling his bet. And, I do it with: (a) any pair, (b) any suited ace, (c) any suited connector, suited one gap, or suited two gap excluding Q-Js Q-Ts and Q-9s, (d) A-K to A-J, or (e) K-Q.
(3) Every now and then, if I have been undergoing a drought of my re-steal hands I will re-steal with ANY two cards. One re-steal is worth three straight steals. So, you have afford to be patient and get your chips back in chunks when you decide to move.
(4) I will call a typical steal raise fairly frequently with a lot of hands NOT on this list. 8-7o, 5-2o, etc. Hands with some potential. This is partly because of implied odds and partly to set up my re-steals.
So... question for discussion... Why are these hands my re-steal package?
A very interesting question, and one worth thinking about carefully I think. I'll post my thoughts in white in case people want to think about this one some more on their own. Update: I'll put my post back to the usual colour now. :cool:
Because you have characterized the re-steal target as someone who "will only call a re-raise with a very small range of hands". As an example of such a range of hands, say your opponent will call with only AA-JJ, AK and AQ. Where did I dream up this particular range of hands? I found it in Part III of some article series by some smart poker author that's on some website of his. *wink*
The idea (which, to be fair, I learned mostly from Dave himself) is that your range of re-steal hands should try to avoid being dominated by the range of hands you'll get with called with. This seems to be why hands like suited Kings and suited Queens are left out. Although these hands have nice high card strength against a random hand, they are in really bad shape against the hands you'll be called with.
Why then include suited Aces in the bunch? They are also very often dominated by the range of calling hands. Well, a few reasons come to my mind.
1. Having an Ace in your own hand reduces the chances of your opponent having grusome hands like AA, AK, and AQ.
2. An Ace (as opposed to 75s say) does have 3 solid outs against KK-JJ. To some degree, this additional high card strength against these particular hands compensates for the risk of domination by the others.
3. Going up against AK or AQ, you still have 3 solid outs which also limit your opponent's re-draw if you are lucky enough to reverse-dominate them. Not so if (for example) you spike a 6 to your K6s against AQ. Also, you will split the pot playing only the Ace on the occasional board.
I find the KQ to be a bit of a bizzare choice, since it is easily dominated by the calling range. However, if your opponent decides to expand the calling range we are expecting to include hands like 99-TT and/or AJ, it's not looking so bad any more. Essentially, KQ seems like it's a good enough hand on its own merits (plus it performs well against exactly JJ) to be thrown into the mix.
ScottyZ
Now I am wondering if my approach (psychology) is a beginning to be amended by a technical approach or is it a separate tangent of game strategy?
When against a steal, I am trying to assess what they THINK I will bet out with, not just defend with. Understandably your putting them in a box, and assessing what they have. But how much do you apply to what they think YOU have.
Right now my decision is based on 70% of what I think they have, and what they will think I have. 30% of how will my cards hold up against what I think they have.
Or did I miss the point?
Why do you exclude these hands? Too much potential trouble if you catch the flop?
That's what Dave was asking us, right?
My interpretation of the wording here was that the hands
(d) A-K to A-J, or (e) K-Q
are included in the re-steal package.
ScottyZ
The others included in the re-steal package.
Q hands are too often dominated. The exception is KQ which is marginal, but OK.