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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.
Online Poker vs Real Life Poker. How to Become A Poker Star (Page 1 of 2)
There are many differences between online poker, casino poker, and home games. In a home game you might just play strictly with cash. It can make you stop and think before you call a $15 raise and have to physically put three more $5 bills into a pot just to see one card that may not even help your hand. In real life at the casino and sometimes at a home game, you usually have to buy chips with real hard cash. There is a certain shift that occurs when this happens.
It is psychologically easier to throw three $5 chips into a pot than three $5 bills. Chips make counting and stacking a lot easier but they also disassociate you from real hard cash. Real money can once again become clear for a brief time as soon as you have to buy more chips with real hard cash. It always makes you think when you have to reach into your pocket or purse and grab your wallet.
In an online casino, it’s usually just a matter of using a credit card or sending a money order/wire transfer to the online casino to get your virtual bankroll started. There are no real chips, just icons that represent chips, which are in fact virtual numbers. You must have an even greater discipline to respect your money in this scenario.
Time
In fact, you don’t even have to push the chips onto the table to make a bet, call a raise, etc. etc. All you do is click a mouse button and you’re done. It can be done so fast that if you don’t take a breath; it’s easy to have your judgment thrown off by emotion.
Your play is magnified on an internet casino. One main reason is that the cards and hands are played so much faster. There is very little physical movement, as all you have to do is point and click the mouse. It literally takes seconds. In real life there is the physical motion of picking chips up, counting chips, and placing them in the appropriate place.
This all takes additional time and fortunately can help you when having to make a decision. There is no real dealer in online poker other than an icon representing a dealer. That means no tipping. At a $1 or $2 tip per win, this can save your bankroll a lot of money.
The rake still exists and actually varies depending on the online casino you choose to play at. The rake should be considered because after all said and done if you break-even while playing, the rake would eventually take all of your money over time.
When there is a rake involved in poker it is your responsibility to find and play with players that you are better than. A home game is the only exception as there typically is no rake. If you’re in a heads up game online and your opponent is almost equal to you in playing ability, then you are both going to break even most of the time with each other, and find your bankroll slipping away to the houses rake.
On average, an online poker game will move three times as fast as a real casino. That means your weaknesses will be magnified three times. That means the rake is three times as much. Of course you’re still getting three times as many hands for your money. For some players however, this can be catastrophic. What seems like hours for someone to call a raise may in reality only take seconds in online poker.