Home

Blind Stealing Calculator for Fixed Limit Texas Holdem

Introduction

This article relates to the Blind Stealing Calculator located on Google Docs here. It takes the form of a spreadsheet and is free.

The calculator is for Fixed Limit Texas Holdem, and is designed to help players decide whether or not to making blind stealing attempts, when they are on the button and the action is folded to them.

Requirements

  • A Google Account.
  • An Excel compatible spreadsheet application.
  • Blind Stealing Statistics (probably from a poker tracking tool such as Poker Office, Poker Tracker or Poker Crusher).

Installation

Open the spreadsheet from here (a google account is required). Select the File Menu, then Download As Excel. Save the spreadsheet to your hard drive and open it in Excel. The spreadsheet might also work in Open Office, but I have not tried.

Usage

Enter the stats, for the players to your left, into the Player Stats table. Remember to consider statistical accuracy (see How Accurate Are Your Statistics for more information).

If the Total Expected Return (Pre Flop) is positive, then it should be +EV to attempt a steal from the button, and fold if it fails.

If the Total Expected Return (Flop) is positive, then it should be +EV to attempt a steal from the button, and continuation bet if it fails.

Note: See Definitions for further reading on the term +EV.

Assumptions

The calculator is based on a set of assumptions. Please take the time to read and understand them before using the calculator.

  • Player actions are independent and do not affect each other. That allows us to multiply the probabilities to get the total probability.
  • In reality, whether or not the Big Blind calls will be partially dependent on whether or not the Small Blind calls. If the Small Blind calls then the Big Blind will have better drawing odds - 5:1 as opposed to 4.5:1, and might be more likely to call. But if the Small Blind folds, the Big Blind will only have one opponent, and might be more inclined to re-raise if they have a hand.
  • The model makes no assumptions regarding cards, it is based purely on the assuming that players' future actions will follow the same pattern as their past behaviour. i.e. if they've folded to 50% of steals in the past, they'll continue to fold to 50% of steals in the future.

    Players, especially losing ones, will modify their strategies over time. So their future behaviour will always be changing. Therefore, while we need a large sample size, the time window over which the sample occurs should not be too long.

    Also, players will modify their behaviour depending on the competition. For example, if a player notices that their opponents always fold, they might decide to be more aggressive.

  • If the blinds call if raise then the steal attempt results in a loss. In reality, the raiser still has their cards, and could therefore have a winning hand.
  • The Blinds do not re-raise preflop. If they are tight (which is a requirement for +EV blind stealing) then they probably won't raise anyway, unless they have a monster. Therefore, a raise is an indication of hand strengh, and falls out of the bounds of this model.
  • The Blinds do not bet the flop. This should be the case if they're tight and non aggressive. If they bet/raise then it's a sign of strength and stealers will need to act based on their hand strenght, pot odds etc… As a precaution, players using the calculator might therefore decide to additionally require the blinds to have low aggression factors, as well as the current criteria. Poker Offices' default settings define Post Flop aggressive players as those who have an Aggression Factor below 2.0.

Disclaimer

This calculator is based on a simple model and does not take into full account the complex human dynamics within a real Fixed Limit Poker game. Make sure that you understand the mode before you use it. The author accepts no responsibility for any gains or losses as a result of this tool.

Notes

"SB PF Fold to Steal" and "BB PF Fold to Steal" should refer to steals from the button. Most programs seem to include the cutoff position too.

The "Fold Flop to CB" values should only be for continuation bets by stealers. But I have not seen any stats program that explicitly use this.

The "Flop Stats" table calculates the Expected Return for all possible outcomes, excluding re-raises and flop bets. For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_return.

Definitions and Further Reading