Quote Originally Posted by johnyutah View Post
Dont really like blind stealing unless you at least have a moderately strong hand. You've gotta steal 4/5 times to be profitable at 4nl and I feel I get called down or raised too often. Thoughts?
If you have a moderately strong hand you aren't stealing you are raising for value and hoping to be called by worse. It really depends the size of your raise to determine how often a steal has to work to be profitable, and that isn't taking into account the other advantages of stealing. Position postflop, initiative in the hand, and postflop equity.

Assuming our hand has zero postflop value (which it doesn't, of course):
- If we open to 4BB, we risk 4 to win 1.5, so we need our steal to work 73% of the time.
- If we open to 3.5BB, we risk 3.5 to win 1.5, so we need our steal to work 70% of the time.
- If we open to 3BB, we risk 3 to win 1.5, so we need our steal to work 67% of the time.
- If we open to 2.5BB, we risk 2.5 to win 1.5, so we need our steal to work 63% of the time.
- If we open to 2BB, we risk 2 to win 1.5, so we need our steal to work 57% of the time.
The previous quote is from a concept of the week post on another forum showing how often a steal has to work to be profitable. The post is a great read and I can provide it if anyone is interested.

If you are getting flat called often when stealing you aren't stealing from the right villains. Loose passives are not who you want to steal from. You want to steal from the nits since they will be giving up so easily preflop the majority of the time and they will let you know when they have a hand, which you can then safely fold. That's why table selection is a huge factor in online poker. Sitting in the right spots at your tables (nits on your left and fish on your right) will allow you to steal relentlessly and be in position on the looser bad players.

Im surprised that so many people here say that there is no need to steal at microstakes. In my most recent database I am attempting to steal ~30% of the time when I have the opportunity. When I do attempt to steal I have a success rate of ~60%. That is from a sample size of ~30k hands.

My standard open in LP is 3x, so according to the quote above I am not showing immediate profit when stealing. However, in steal positions I am still a winning player (actually my most profitable positions, which I believe is how it should be.) That is because of a mixture of the reasons I said before. Position; I very often will have position throughout the hand and can see what actions my opponent takes before deciding on the best line for my hand. Initiative; I can often take down the pot unimproved with a standard cbet or the occasional double barrel when checked to. Postflop equity; I can sometimes flop a big hand or a big draw and have a much easier time extracting max value while in position and with initiative.

Of course, all of this is said assuming you know the hows and whys to profitable stealing. I am not telling anyone to open every BTN or CO no matter what, Im saying stealing can add a lot to your bottom line, provided you know how to do it correctly.