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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.
Private Freeroll Tournaments – A Great Bankroll Builder For New Poker Players
A freeroll is a poker tournament with free registration. There is usually a real money prize pool but sometimes there can also be other prizes such as entry into other tournaments. With freerolls you can play exciting real money poker for free, with no deposit needed. It’s a great way to start learning poker and to increase your bankroll.
Freerolls with Open Registration:
Free tournaments are very popular in the online poker rooms as they are used to attract new players. Some tournaments are open to everyone and are held on a regular basis. For example Pitbull Poker hosts free tournaments every hour for all of their members. Some poker rooms have special tournaments that are reserved to new or loyal players. For example Carbon Poker has a $50 Freeroll for all new players which runs 4 times a day. New depositing players at Carbon receive 14 days entry into their $500 Freeroll which runs once a day. To reward loyal players, Carbon has a $50,000 Freeroll that is open to all players who earn 5000 comp points during the month.
Most of the tournaments which are open to all members will have a lot of registrations. This can lead to very long tournaments, and often frustrating because it is difficult to finish in the money. In fact freeroll tournaments with many players involve a lot more luck then regular buy-in tournaments since the players have nothing to loose. The play is usually more aggressive and you will see a lot of “all-ins” in no limit games. Some “freerollers” play in as many free tournaments as they can. You will notice these players quickly as they play with no fear (and no skill) trying to raise their stack quickly with many “all-ins”.
Private Freerolls:
The registration for these tournaments is either restricted with some password or with a list of players. Private freerolls are usually offered by affiliate sites that promote the poker room. The tournaments help to send more players to the poker room and also give the players a better experience once they have joined. Playing in free tournaments is good way to try out a poker room before making a deposit. Since private freerolls have fewer players than those with open registration, the tournaments are easier to win and the skill level of players is usually better. In order to gain entry, you usually need to be a member of a certain site or community. Very often you will also need to meet other requirements before you can gain access to the passwords. The idea of private freerolls is to reward loyal visitors of the site, and that is why most sites do not give an easy access to their passwords.