I recently received an e-mail asking me a no-limit hold'em question regarding blind-stealing. Here is the text (very slightly edited for clarity):
"My question involves open-raising and what size the raise should be. I understand it is customary to use three and a half times the big blind. I have read several books and done a lot of research, and have found that one of the best ways to build your stack is by stealing blinds in unopened pots from midlate to late position. I have read of standards for such a steal as anything from A-X or K-X to any two cards above a 6. But what I have found is that when you do get played back at, if you lay the hand down, you have just lost three and a half times the big blind in an attempt to win one and a half times the big blind (plus antes, if they apply). So, you can get away with it two out of three times and still lose money."
My first reaction was that the author of that e-mail is real unlucky. Whenever he tries to steal the blinds, if his opponents do not fold, he loses the pot! Either the opponents play back and catch him without a hand, so he has to fold, or he misses the flop and has to give it up. Heads he wins (they fold), tails he loses (they don't fold).
My luck has been a bit better than his. I also win the pot on heads, but I do a bit better on tails than this snakebit fellow. To start with, I sometimes have enough of a hand that I welcome a raise. (Admittedly, this strong a hand is not my norm.) When I do get played with, it may well be by a call rather than a reraise. If so, I hit a flop every once in a while. More importantly, if I miss the flop, I do not necessarily lose the pot. Especially in pot-limit or no-limit hold'em, the preflop raiser is supposed to bet the flop and put the burden on the opponent to hit. The opponent is an underdog to buy help on the flop. If the opponent is not slow-playing a big pair, he needs to improve in order to go on with the hand. The raiser, on the other hand, has "stated" that he presently has the best hand, and does not need improvement unless the caller has helped. So, when you bet the flop, you are supposed to win the pot more than half the time. Presumably, the opponent is willing to give up a majority of these smaller pots for a chance at taking you off in a big one. Note that if you bet the size of the pot, you are laying even money, and are not risking more than the amount of the immediate gain, as you did preflop. And if the flop does not offer much in drawing possibilities, you can bet less than the full pot size if you wish, perhaps only half or two-thirds of the pot. So, the situation when you raise the pot should be heads you win, tails you fight.
What about the hand values needed for a late-position steal of the blind money? The e-mail writer talks about a king-rag and even mentions "any two cards above a 6." Are you supposed to be raising with garbage just because you are in late position and no one has yet opened?
Let me ask you a simple question: "How much is the money in the pot worth to you?" Let's look at examples near the opposite ends of the spectrum. In a tournament, if the blinds are $100-$200 and you have $1,200, that blind money is worth a lot. If you wait for a solid hand – or even wait for any ace or any pair – you may well go broke on a worse pig than you are looking at now because you have blinded off most of your money. You are desperate, and must gamble. On the other hand, if you are playing in a money game with a $5-$10 blind and have more than a grand, the amount in the pot is negligible.
Translated into actual hands, the desperate tournament player looks upon a suited king as overkill, whereas the money player views the same hand as sucker bait. In my view, they are both absolutely correct for the mediums in which they are doing combat. I might add that in a money game, although I would not raise with a suited king, I might well do so with something like 8-7 suited, hoping to profit by the surprise value of the hand. Note that I regard a raise with this stuff as incorrect in limit hold'em, but in no-limit, late position is worth a lot more. The value of a hold'em hand is some combination of cards and position. In no-limit, there is nothing wrong with raising with a sneaky surprise when you are in position.
In no-limit play, you have a wide range of options for the amount of your raise when stealing from late position. Here are my views on the subject:
1. The amount you raise is not affected by what you hold. (If it were, you would be giving away vital information to your opponents.)
2. The only difference between no-limit and pot-limit in the amount you bet is that the former affords you the option of going all in. If you do not have a stack size with which you want to go all in, you should open-raise for an amount that is approximately the maximum allowed in pot-limit. For example, with $100-$200 blinds, the pot-limit maximum opening bet is $700. (It costs you $200 to call, and then you can raise $500 more.) So, in no-limit I would open for $600, $700, or $800, varying my choice in a random manner.
3. When do you open for your entire stack in no-limit? You bet the whole farm when opening for a normal-size raise would get you so far involved that you would have to call a reraise with practically any hand. I think this point is when roughly 40 percent or more of your stack is already in the pot. The idea is, if the money has to go in anyway, you should put it in at the beginning to make it more difficult for opponents to compete. This acknowledges the fact that you will be raising on many more hands with which you would prefer not to be called than hands with which you want to get some action.
Frankly, there is much more scope for the exercise of skill in no-limit hold'em in the typical money game than in the typical tournament setting. At the critical stage of tournament play, the ratio of the blinds to stack size allows no room for sophisticated maneuvering. You either scoot your entire stack all in or wait for another hand. (When winning the blinds is not so important, the other three betting rounds also present decisions to make.) Even so, one sees lots of mistakes made in tournaments. A player must be acutely aware of the ratio between the size of the blinds and the stack sizes. If there is not enough out there to make an appreciable difference in your tournament prospects, you do not need to be aggressive in your late-position opening steals. If the blind money is vital to your continued existence, you are forced to attack, quite possibly with your entire stack.