So do something about it, pal!

I was on the receiving end of an unpleasant complaint from somebody at my Hilton tournament table today.

There's a guy I've seen there several times before, though I don't know his name. He always seems grouchy and ready to tear into somebody for some perceived offense. Today it was me. He got moved to my table, two seats to my left. After being there maybe an hour, it was folded around to me on the button, so I raised with an A-7 offsuit. This guy looks at his cards, then shoots me a dirty look, and says, "You just have to raise on your button every time, don't you?" Then he mucked his cards.

Usually I let this sort of idiocy go unchallenged. But he was so far off-base that it irked me. I had not been at all out of line with late-position raises. I was playing pretty much textbook A-B-C poker. Yeah, if it's folded around to me, and I'm on the button with only the two blinds yet to act, and I have an ace, of course I'm going to raise! That is absolutely the standard, obvious, and correct thing to do, because any ace is statistically likely to be the best hand when put up against two random hands.

Soon after this guy moved to the table, I did the same thing with a suited K-3, and the big blind moved all in for just a little bit more, so I naturally called. He had an A-3 and won. OK, no big deal. K-3 was likely to be better than either of the blinds held, and this time it just happened not to be. The call of the raise was a no-brainer because of how little it cost me. But apparently, this planted the idea in this guy's mind that I was routinely stealing with nothing.

Yeah, a couple of times it was folded to me on the button or in the cutoff seat (one to the right of the button) and I raised with garbage, for a couple of reasons. First, I had a larger-than-average stack, and, second, the three players to my left (including this guy) were ones who tend not to play back at a raiser unless they have a strong hand. Again, raising in such a situation is exactly what every strategy book written since Super System would recommend. Stealing blinds is absolutely crucial to tournament success.

I've been on a short stack when there's an aggressive big stack one or two spots to my right, stealing the blinds every chance they had. It's a helpless feeling, because there's nothing you can do about it, other than fire your one all-in bullet and hope that it isn't the one time the thief has a real hand. Yeah, it sucks, but that's just how the game is played. Big stacks have a huge advantage over smaller stacks in a tournament, and the blinds are in a strategically weak position. Put those two things together, and it's not hard to predict who will be preying on whom.

But this curmudgeon apparently felt like it was personal, as if I were reaching into his wallet and absconding with his cash. No, pal, I was just playing the game exactly the way every expert recommends--probably somewhat tighter than optimal, in fact, stealing the blinds less often than I maybe could and should have.

I actually responded a bit testily to him: "If you had been paying attention, you'd know that it hasn't been anywhere near every time." He said it literally had been. Absurd. I just don't play that loosely/aggressively. I pointed out that I had even folded on the button a few times, which he claimed was untrue. But I remembered doing it, because I felt a twinge of remorse when I did, thinking, "I should probably be raising rather than folding here," but couldn't get myself to pull the trigger with, e.g., 9-3 offsuit.

It doesn't really matter, though. Suppose I had been raising every single time I had the button--so what? What earthly good does it do to complain about it? It just makes the griper look like a whiny Phil Hellmuth wannabe. It certainly isn't going to slow down an aggressive position player--in fact, it might make him even more determined to steal, steal, steal.

If you want to break somebody of the irritating habit of stealing your blinds too often, the remedy is simple and universally recognized: You re-pop them. Put in a huge re-raise. It doesn't even matter much what cards you're holding at the time, because if he's raising every time, and you've let it slide four or five times in a row, he's going to have to give you credit for having a big hand, whether you actually do or not.

The first time I played a tournament at Caesars Palace, we were down to the final six or so. Sure enough, I got a habitual button-raiser two seats to my right, and he had a bigger stack. After about four times in a row, I decided to stick it to him, to try to make him a bit more selective about his steal attempts. I re-raised all-in with a K-6. He insta-called, and I knew I was in deep doo-doo. But to my delight, a 6 came on the flop, his A-K didn't get any help, and I doubled up! He exited soon thereafter; I went on to take first place.

On the other hand, the same situation arose at a tournament at Binion's a few months back, and I did the all-in reraise with a J-10, and again learned that my timing was off, since the aggressive big stack had the A-K that time, and knocked me out. But that's still the thing to do. Most of the time he'll fold and start being a little more careful about his steals. Sometimes you'll get unlucky and lose. Sometimes you'll get lucky and double up. That's just how the game goes.

Being a sourpuss about having your blinds stolen--even if it is flagrantly more often than the raiser could possibly have a strong hand--is counterproductive. It makes you stew in your own juices, which isn't good for your game, and it lets the raiser know that he's getting to you, which will only encourage him. Rather than complain about it, act--put in the re-steal. It's risky, but it feels great when it works (which is most of the time), and it's far more effective at accomplishing what you want. For those of us who are physically kind of like the 97-pound weakling who gets sand kicked in his face at the beach, the big re-raise/re-steal from the blinds is the poker equivalent of giving the bully a black eye, a bloody nose, and a fat lip after he tries to steal your lunch money once too often. It feels tremendously empowering (and, compared to the fistfight, has the added advantage of being perfectly legal and relatively safe).

There's this old joke: What's the difference between a puppy and a poker player? After six months or so, the puppy will stop whining.