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Poker Tips for Beginners (Part 2): Blind Stealing
If it folds to you in late position and you decide to open for a raise, then a large portion of your profits will usually come from the times the blinds fold. Being able to accurately assess the conditions for stealing blinds will allow you to add a lot of money to your win-rate without much effort. The idea behind poker tips for beginners should be to make the most money with the least amount of complicated poker theory, and a basic understanding of stealing blinds achieves just that.
On the most basic level, everyone left to act will fold some percentage of the time on average. If everyone folds often enough, then you can be raising with any two cards. For example, if you open raise to three times the big blind, and everyone folds a total of 70%, then that means 70% of the time you win 1.5 big blinds, and 30% of the time you lose 3 big blinds. If we plug that into an EV equation, we get the following:
EV = 0.70(1.5) + 0.30(-3)
EV = 1.05 – 0.90
EV = 0.15
So on average, your blind steal by itself is worth 0.15 big blinds. That might not seem like much, but remember that if the blinds were $1/2, that’s $0.30 made from one action. If you had this chance every hand, you’d be making $30 per 100 hands just from blind stealing.
There are a few general factors we can think about that contribute to the EV of a blind steal. First is how the people left to act tend to play. In general, people who fold a lot are gold to our left, and people who 3-bet a lot aren’t much fun to have on our left. People who call a lot can be good or bad depending on how they play after the flop, and whether or not we have position.
Another important factor for consideration is the size of our raise. If we raise to four times the big blind, we need our opponents to fold a lot more than if we raise to three times the big blind. Against the right opponents, it can even be correct to minraise pre-flop, as long as we’re in position. Open minraising from the small blind is pretty terrible since the big blind is getting 3:1 to see a flop, meaning he will call a huge percentage of the time, and he will have position for the rest of the hand, which puts us at a huge disadvantage post-flop.
Positions at Poker Tables
Position of players at poker tables is extremely important and strategic. The poker table position of a player may be the make or break factor in a game. The position of a player is where he sits vis a vis other players. Usually the point of reference is the dealer and what is significant is whether the person in question would have an early or late action in one round of betting.
Since the dealer is the point of reference, he usually moves from position to position so that everyone gets a fair share of being in each position. Being the last to act is considered the best.
There are nine players in a full table. The different categories of positions are a) The early positions b) The middle positions c) The Late positions.
Early positions are the three positions to the left of the dealer. These are the worst positions because these position holders have to be the first to bet without having any idea about the other players strengths. Amongst the early positions the person exactly to the left of the dealer is the small blind. The person to his let is the big blind. The small blind has to put in any minimal amount before dealing of cards happen. The big blind has to put in an amount bigger than that of the small blind usually double.
Middle positions are better than early positions because they get to know about the early position holder; however they still have no information on the late hands. The remaining are the late positions consisting of the dealer and the other two players to his right. These are the best positions as they have the most information on all other players.
Poker being a game of chance and luck as also a game of information, complete or incomplete-the more information one has the better are his chances of making an informed decision and thus better are the chances of win. Fortunately it is easy to learn the advantages and disadvantages of each position and thus the strategies that has to be adopted.
In the early positions one has to play the best hands because being the earliest to act every precaution needs to be taken. The middle position holders too need to be cautious but they are definitely at an advantage. The best of course are the late position holders and they can afford to be least cautious.