I don't see anybody doing it frequently 1-2, 2-5. Ever since I went back to live from 6 max I tried stealing the blinds live with a 3bb size with Ax.

Hit an ace on the flop and lost my whole stack to pocket aces on the big blind who knew exactly what I had and was playing like they didn't have sht.

As live ranges are tighter seems like a smaller raise size would make your range predictable as a weaker hand.

You can open liberally when it is folded to you on the button, just like in any other form of poker, and you don't need to raise more than 2.5 or 3x the bb. Actually this is a good way to get a bit more of an action image and of course it is profitable as well. Plus most live players do not play very optimally in heads up pots. Of course in a good game you could go an entire 8 hour session without it being folded to you on the button. But don't feel like you have to go broke with top pair especially in a heads up single raised pot where presumably SPR is quite high.

It's not often when it's folded to the CO or BU at LLSNL. But when it does, I open as much as I would online, if not wider.

In the SB, I usually auto chop.

The term "blind stealing" is a bit strange to me. When you think about it, opening any position is a potential steal. The only difference is your chances go up in later position.

This question is equivalent to "is opening the button a thing in live poker?". Well of course it is, you just won't get the chance very often because people limp in and don't fold enough pre.

Only if you're varying your raise size based on the strength of your hand, which you shouldn't be.

My coach says rake makes it not really profitable.... which is only capped in big pots which are where the profits come from in low stakes live poker. Also his reasoning is that people call to much to where you should play stronger hands and just save money getting into less marginal spots low stakes live.

So basically I play every position like early position in live and it works better than when I try to experiment playing looser in late position.

However the more I study and play 6max online, the more I question what are more ideal things to do. I just don't know if I'm doing more ideal things like opening wider late position or just spewing.

It might be more productive for you to discuss some actual situations and decisions that you made rather than simply continuing this discussion in the abstract.

Live 1/2 you raise to 3x and your opponents treat it like you just limped.

They didn't drive all the way to the casino to fold preflop.

How marginal are they, though? You get to play in position against god-awful postflop players who are calling too wide pre and almost never 3-betting (thus allowing your weaker "steals" to realize a ton of equity instead of being forced to fold). If the EV of that is greater than zero, you should do it.

So you stacked off with Ax on an A high flop.

This is bad


Ranges are wider in live poker. How often u see guys open limp Qx sooted from EP in online. Happens live ALL THE TIME. U got that backwards.

Both of these errors lead me to believe that your coach telling you not to steal is a good thing. Your post flop play is not good. Your understanding of how live poker works is flawed. You need to fix this stuff pronto

this post is conflicted

you say that his post flop play is bad - this is probably true, but it's fairly hard to square off telling him not to stack off just top pair, but at the same time you are saying that ranges are much wider live. if correct, and i have no reason to doubt that it isn't, then we are pissing all over villain's range from a great height. plenty of players live where it is correct to go to the felt here, but if OP can't identify said players, and also can't work out a line to use if not playing against said player post when wa/wb, then yeah, maybe fold pre

64-I make my posts brief.

I stand by my post. I have not played 1/2 in a long time. But I have won piles at 2/5+

TPNK in a single raised pot ip full ring v all but the fishiest is not a stack off for 100 bigs period (barring big reads/meta etc)

If the stakes are low enough in a live cardroom to make blind stealing a nonissue, your opponents are almost certainly bad enough that you SHOULD vary your opening size to exploit them.

Since this is posted in the Beginners Questions forum, I assume this condition applies to the games the OP is playing in. It would not be the case in a deep 2-5 game or bigger.

Yeah I used to think varying raise size by hand strength was a good idea then I realised most of these guys have seen it all before. You can probably nudge it up by a bb or two in multiway pots because it's harder to keep track of what you are adding for all the limpers but if you open 4x normally and then go 7x because you have premiums, most of the table will definitely notice what you did.

For the actual question, no in live poker raising to steal the blinds is much less of a thing than online.

Online it's not uncommon to fold to you in LP and be able to raise relatively small with a quite wide range.

Live it's unlikely to fold to you on the button and if you raise 2.5x, they will call very wide indeed. If you raise 5x then you need a lot of folds to make your marginal hands good raises.

So it's fine to take the approach of just raising because you have a good hand, adjusted for position, rather than looking to eke out some +1bb/100 type win or ensure that you have a finely-tuned unexploitable button raising range.

Your money comes from bad opponents putting in too much money preflop with poorly chosen hands, not owning nits for 1.5bb here and there.

The problem in small stakes live with opening a wide range on the button for a 2x to 3x sizing is rake. You should still be opening >50% on the button, but ideas of opening >80% and outplaying your opponent postflop are crushed by the rake.

You are going to make your money in small stakes live by opening a tighter range to 4-5bb + 1bb per limper and playing pretty solid postflop.

always chop the blinds

If people saw the hands I was raising with they would assume I'm trying to steal but really I'm just trying to play pots.

Also, I never chop.

it makes perfect sense you're the guy the entire table is annoyed at

i'm ok with consistency, but i've literally seen people who will chop as sb but never chop as bb and they don't see the conflict

even worse is the people who look at their cards first before deciding to chop

once saw a woman get stacked because she liked her hand and decided to stop chopping instead of playing, she was new to the game and in the sb, the guy explained the chop and they'd done that a few rounds, then she said she changed her mind and wanted to play and put in a big raise, the guy protested, told her she should be consistent etc and she didn't care and put the chips in, so he said ok and put her all in, she flipped over jacks to his aces - was perfect justice

Perfect justice would have been the jacks sucking out tbqh

You just made the case for why I never chop.
Huh?

Would the guy with aces have done the same if they had 72o? It's at best lame speech play and at worst angle shooting

So if someone agrees to chop each time and then suddenly refuses to chop you should just keep your mouth shut? Sorry, I'm not following that logic whatsoever.

I'd be like "oh, ok then" and play my hand accordingly. It's their choice and it's none of my business.

Ok, so from this discussion we can derive thay you're probably one of the anglers that selectively chops. This is why I never chop.