Texas Holdem Poker

In the early stages of the tournament, we were able to avoid losing any chips in marginal situations, as well as doubling up our stack with a premium hand. The blinds are now becoming large enough that merely winning a few blinds, will help to increase our stack significantly. As a result, it is time to change gears from our early stage style, to a stealing style of play.

Our strategy is now to win as many blinds and antes as possible, as well as playing our premium hands strong and trying to double up if possible. The main difference in our change of gears, is that we are now going to be opening with raises with a large range of hands and rarely limping. With the suited connectors and small pocket pairs that we limped with in late position in the early stage, we are now going to be attacking the blinds.

A few things to remember and be aware of when attacking the blinds. You have a much better chance of stealing blinds without contention, when raising from late position. We must also take into account the stack sizes and playing styles of the players we are attacking. It is not ideal to attack a large stack poker player, who is loose and aggressive. These players will almost always defend their blinds, which is exactly what you do not want. Also, be sure that the players in the small blind or the big blind are not so small stacked, that they will be looking to move all-in in order to try and double up and survive in the tournament.

The ideal candidates for stealing blinds from are players with average chip stacks and are tight players. Also, if a player has just doubled up or won a big pot to get back to a good size stack, it is a good time to attack their blinds. They will not feel they need to defend with weak hands, as they have just increased their stack. The opposite goes for players who have just lost a big pot, they will be more willing to gamble and defend their blinds in order to increase their chip stack, so we want to avoid them.

The single most important aspect of our stealing strategy, is knowing when to slow down and change gears again. If you have just stolen three consecutive uncontested blinds, be aware that the players may be willing to make a stand against you. If you start getting played back at frequently and called with weak hands, it may be time to tighten up for a few rounds. Remember, we want to avoid playing pots with marginal hands, we just want to win the blinds.

As you develop your instincts in this strategy, you will begin to pick up on additional situations, where you can steal pots from the Big Blind and Small Blind positions as well. As the tournament progresses, many players will tighten up and some players will attempt to steal more and more blinds. This will give us situations, to re-steal from the blind positions, as well as from late positions. I must clarify, that this is a highly advanced strategy and should not be used until you are experienced in this gear and have developed a very good sense of reading situations in poker tournaments.

Stealing the blinds and antes helps us to continually increase our chip stack, without having any premium hands. It is essential that we continue to build our stack throughout the tournament and by using the strategy in this stage of the tournament we can put ourselves in position to make a deep run in the tournament. Remember, you want to steal as many blinds as possible without making it look like you are getting out of line. Make sure you come back tomorrow, as I will take us through our third gear and the tricky Bubble play section of tournaments.