stealing the blinds

Does going steling the blinds make a big difference?

Stealing the blinds gets moe tempting as the tourney goes deeper. What criteria do you use?

What position?
What kind of player does the blind need to be?
What kind of cards do you need?
What about stack size?
What kind of raise do you make?
If you get caught do you back off then?
If you get re-raised do you ever call?
If you call then what do you do on the flop?

Generally speaking, i don't tend to try and steal blings unless I am very late, on the button or just to the right. Also, I don't try and steal blinds too early. geting caught ins't worth the small amount of chips gained. With that being said, IF i do get caught I often use that fact that i got caught to my advantage, and play tight for a while. That way next time you come in big in late position, at least one person will think your trying to steal, and thats wonderful thing....its all about adjusting your table image bro.....Cheers...

Like so many things in poker depends on more then one factor. In the early stage of a tournament where everyone has 75-100x the BB it's completely pointless. Later when the average stack has 5-10 times the BB it's necessary to survive.

The trick is to observe players. If you've seen a guy call a shortstack all-in with just queen high then you want to be careful with him. Same way you don't push all-in with 4BB's if the chip leader is waiting to act with 40 BB's.