How to Steal the Blinds in Poker Tournaments

Blind stealing is a common poker strategy. It doesn’t matter what game, format or variation you play.

However, I’d argue that blind stealing is a more important and useful strategy for tournament players to understand and use. It keeps them alive when their stacks start shrinking, blinds are increasing every level and when they go through droughts of playable hands.

So with that in mind, I’d like to present you with 9 facts about stealing the blinds. Read on to learn more.

9 Facts About Stealing the Blinds

1. Your cards don’t matter.

Believe it.

The reason why your cards don’t matter when you steal the blinds is because if the blinds (or anyone else, for that matter) decide to play back at you, maybe re-raise you, you’ll just fold. Same thing if you’re called and you continuation bet the flop. What difference does it make if you are doing that with KQ or 74o?

It doesn’t.

Granted, in an ideal scenario you’re stealing with a hand that has equity. Hands like suited connectors, broadways, pairs, etc. Anything that hits the flop well.

But you don’t have to.

2. You will get re-shoved on if you’re not careful.

One thing you won’t to be aware of are the stacks to your left. You want to make sure that when you open, that a) you’re not creating a favorable pot to stack ratio for your opponent, and b) you have fold equity versus your opponents.

Favorable pot to stack ratios will usually happen when your opponents have 15 big blinds (or less) and the pot makes up 20-30% of their stack. So the more guys to your left that have 15 big blinds, the more hands I’d open for value (to call off with) in case I’m shoved on.

Otherwise you’re just bleeding chips.

And bleeding chips sucks, in case you’re wondering.

3. Antes are good.

A lot of players don’t like antes because it costs them chips to play every hand.

But antes are a good thing.

Antes create large pots that we can win by stealing the blinds. With the added money in the pot, our stacks will grow at a fast rate every time we take one down.

4. Stealing blinds are necessary to win tournaments.

If you want to consistently run deep in tournaments, much less win them, you have to steal the blinds. The blinds will keep you afloat when you’re running bad and they’ll help build you monster stack to abuse the other players with.

5. The types of opponents at your table will impact when and if you steal.

You want to keep an eye on your opponents and figure out who they are and how they play, because it will impact your own strategy.

Lets look at a couple of examples to show you what I mean.

Say, for example, that the blinds are the tightest players at the table. It would be absolutely ridiculous to pass on stealing the blinds here because they’re going to fold more often than not. So stealing the blinds would be a good way to quickly build a stack.

However, say you’re in the cutoff when those players are in the blinds, and the button knows how tight the blinds are too. So every  time you raise the button decides to 3-bet you. In this case you’ll want to be a little bit tighter so you’re not always folding to the button.

Now, for another example, say your opponents to the right are super-loose. They open up hands all the time. In this case, whenever they fold you’ll want to consider opening your hand up to try to steal since your opportunities are so far and few between.

Does that make sense?

6. You should be in position when you steal.

Stealing is going to be more effective when you try to steal in position. So stealing from the button, cutoff and hi-jack will be your best bet. Even if one, or both, of the blinds call, you’ll be in position post-flop. Often times the blinds will check, giving you the opportunity to c-bet and take down the pot. But if they donk the flop, you can give up your hand easily.

Hardly ever should you be opening (to steal) from an earlier position than the hi-jack. There are just too many players to get through, and often times you’ll find yourself in a hand, with callers, out of position.

7. Good players in position will try to 3-bet or re-steal often.

I mentioned this a little above already, but, good players will 3-bet you often. Especially if they know you’re trying to steal the blind.

They’ll do this because they’ll be in position, and will make it difficult for you on later streets. Also, when you open you create a lot of dead money. So it’s very profitable to 3-bet you if they think they have fold equity.

To combat this, I’d change up your range to consist of mostly hands you’re willing to call and play post-flop with – even out of position. I wouldn’t fold hands like KQ, KJs, Ax suited, pocket pairs, etc. Just because you’ll probably get 3-bet with a larger range than that.

Just make sure your opponent is 3-betting you to steal, and not for value. Just because your opponent 3-bets you twice in a row, that doesn’t mean he’s trying to steal – he very well could have a hand.

8. Sometimes you will need to cut your losses.

Sometimes your blind steals won’t work. You’ll get called.

Sometimes when you’re called, you’ll continuation bet and you’ll be raised or called.

These things happen. At some point you need to cut your losses and move on. Just because you have money invested and you’ve been called, doesn’t mean you should continue to throw good money after bad. Just check or check/fold and give up the hand. Then try again later. You’ll lose less money this way compared to continuing with a hand that’s (clearly) no good.

9. Min-raising is the most cost effective blind sizing.

Despite what you may hear elsewhere, min-raising is a good bet size for blind steals (or any bet at the antes or later stage).

The biggest concern that players have with min-raises is that you’ll get a lot of callers. You won’t have any fold equity.

In my experience that’s not the case. I get plenty of folds min-raising, especially since some players view that as strength. Also, when you show down a good hand or two after min-raising you’ll start to get some credit.

The biggest benefit to min-raising, though, is that you’re often risking less than what’s in the pot to steal it. That’s good because you only have to be right 1 out of 2 attempts to show a profit (and less than 1 to break even). Min-raising also preserves your stack for when you’re wrong, enabling you to steal more often. It also makes the pot smaller, so that your c-bets on the flop are smaller. Overall, you risk less money.

That’s always a good thing in MTTs.