No Limit Holdem Tournament - Stealing Under the Gun"Crazy like a fox." - S.J. PerelmanMarch 25, 2008 By Smith Collins Bodog Nation Contributing Writer One of the least talked about yet most effective plays you can make late in a No Limit Holdem tournament is without a doubt the "under the gun" steal. As many of you already know, "under the gun" means that you are the first person to act pre-flop on any given hand, and normally, you need an extremely strong hand to be playing from this position. The theory in most conventional poker books that tell you to play your position carefully is that not only will you be out of position for the entire hand if someone chooses to call your raise, but there is a good chance of being reraised with seven or eight people left to act behind you. With all of these unfavorable possibilities, you would assume that it is very dangerous to play a hand from here and very easy to tell if someone has a good hand just by the mere fact that they didn't fold their cards. This is the mentality that everyone in the poker community has, which is why stealing from this position is such a great move and goes completely undetected. However, like most great moves, you have to use some guidelines when applying it so that you don't get too carried away and become obvious. BodogPoker is a very popular online Sports/Poker/Casino website which offers a great player points system along with many free-roll tournaments! Are you ready to win a seat into the World Series of Poker or World Poker Tour? BodogPoker has built the Best Reputation for Online Gaming by nailing four key service points; offering quick and simple depositing methods, instant cash bonuses, fast payouts, and the most impressive customer service department in the industry! Join BodogPoker today! Having a tight image will help you steal effectively.The first guideline is that you should always be in the antes stage of the tournament when trying to pull this off, because otherwise, the pots just aren't worth stealing and you are better off using this rare move when the pots matter the most later on in the game. The second guideline is that you should have a tight image and you should not have shown down a bad hand recently. This helps credit the fact that you have what you are representing. The third guideline is that you should always be at a table with as close to six or seven players as possible, since this still creates the "under-the-gun" effect when you raise and leaves you with less people that you have to get to fold their hand. Win your seat into the 2008 WSOP Main Event through a World Series of Poker Freeroll Satellite Tournament right now! Stealing under the gun should be done at a table with close to six or seven players.The final guideline is that you should make sure that you have at least 20 big blinds so you can fold if you get reraised without it affecting your stack, and that if you have a weak hand, you are not forced to call anyone else's all-in at the table because of pot odds once you make your under-the-gun raise. Another good reason for leaving yourself at least 20 big blinds is that when somebody flat calls your raise pre-flop, you can throw out a strong looking continuation bet on the flop that almost never gets any resistance as long as you have enough chips to make it look like you aren't desperate to win that pot. This move definitely has positive expected value when used under these guidelines, and I hope everyone who reads this goes to the table and tries it out. --- by Bodog at 1800-sports.com on March 27, 2008
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