I’ve always been what people would call a recreational poker player even though I try to make some money by playing. Unfortunately, I don’t make enough to classify as a semi-pro or especially pro hence the moniker of rec. player. But one thing that I’ve always understood as something that can separate a winning player from a losing player is the ability to steal blinds from others.
Sure stealing the blinds isn’t going to rocket you into the Forbes Billionaires List, but it can definitely give you an edge over others at the table - even if it’s just by a little bit. And the first thing that you need to know about blind stealing is that you need to be in the right type of game to pull this maneuver off. If you are playing in a micro stakes game then you’re probably not in the right place to try stealing blinds.
Players in micro stakes will often play just about anything so stealing blinds here is a futile act. If you’re going to try and steal blinds at the table then you should at least be playing limits of $1/$2 where there are some decent players who actually have a fear of playing a hand when they have nothing. Stealing blinds also requires you to create a table image so you need to play somewhat tight in order to create an image that you’re not calling with just anything.
One last thing to keep in mind when you are blind stealing is that you don’t want to have any loose-aggressive players at the table when doing this. Sure the loose-aggressive players may not always have something when they call, but you also don’t want to have them call when you’ve got absolutely nothing.