How to play the middle phase

The middle phase starts when your chip stack gets below 24 big blinds and it ends when it sinks to 13 big blinds or less, putting you in the push-or-fold phase.

In this phase, your strategy is to play less hands than before, but you complement this strategy with two special moves: blind steals and steal re-raises.

Download the charts and overviews as a printout version here (Adobe Reader PDF-Format)

Starting hands chart for the middle phase of a tournament Hands Raises in front of you Early pos. Middle pos. Late pos. Blinds AA, KK None Raise   One or more All-In   None Raise AK, QQ, JJ Exactly one All-In   More than one Fold AQ, TT None Fold Raise   One or more Fold Special rule In case of a raise behind you, you only continue playing with AA, KK, QQ and AK and go All-In right away. You fold all other hands.

As you can see, we got rid of the small pairs. The reason is that you can't play them profitably any longer by just calling pre-flop. If you were to play them, you would have to play them aggressively in the context of a blind-steal or a steal re-raise, as we will see later.

What is a blind-steal?

In Texas Hold’em, there are two players every round that have to pay a certain amount blindly, the blinds, in order to create a pot that's there from the start. In the middle phase of a Sit and Go, the blinds grow to a size where it starts getting lucrative to run a risk in order to win this pot.

A blind-steal, the practice of stealing the blinds, is accomplished by threatening the other players with a raise before the flop so that they all fold and you can collect the blinds. This works a lot better in the later positions, of course, and only when everyone in front of you folded.

That's why the following rules apply to blind steals:

• All players in front of you have folded.
• You are in late position (CO or BU) or in the small blind (SB).
• You want to force the other players to give up and you do not want to play for a big pot against them.

This means: if all the players in front of you get out of the hand and you are in late position or the small blind, you raise. This isn't all, however, as you can't simply steal the blinds with any two cards. They can be weaker than the cards you would usually raise with, but they should at least have some sort of chance to win, in case the steal doesn't succeed and a player decides to call your raise.

The following overview provides you with a good guideline to attempt steals.

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Overview of all possible blind-steal hands Your position You raise as a blindsteal with ... Cut-off - CO Aces AJ   Kings KQ   Pairs 99, 88, 77, 66 Button - BU Aces AJ, AT   Kings KQ, KJ, KT   Queens QJ   Pairs 99, 88, 77, 66, 55, 44, 33, 22 Small Blind - SB Aces AJ, AT, A9, A8   Kings KQ, KJ, KT, K9   Queens QJ, QT   Pairs 99, 88, 77, 66, 55, 44, 33, 22

It's not a big blunder if a player calls your raise. You will just continue the hand normally, just as if you had raised regularly, according to the next article about play after the flop.

It will, however, be inconvenient if a player behind you decides to re-raise you. In that case, you unfortunately have to fold all blind-steal hands. Sometimes you might feel like you are committed to the pot. Try to resist this feeling and stay true to your strategy by folding!

What is a steal re-raise?

You've just learned that a raise in the middle phase doesn't necessarily mean you're up against a strong hand. This opens up the opportunity for another move: the steal re-raise.

A steal re-raise is quite a simple move: if a single player raised in front of you and no one else has called him so far, you go all-in right away, trying to steal the pot.

This works in the long run if you follow these three rules:

• A single opponent has raised.
• No one except for that one player has entered the hand so far.
• A steal re-raise always equates to going all-in right away and putting all of your chips at stake.

If someone has entered the hand in front of the raise or if someone has called it, the situation is not good for a steal re-raise.

You can't just execute a steal re-raise with any two cards either, as was also the case for the blind-steal. They should at least be good enough to not be completely hopeless in case your opponent doesn't give up and calls your all-in.

So far, it has also been important what position you're in. For a steal re-raise, what's important is the opponent's position, however. There is one simple reason for this: even though a lot of players might not know the principle of position, a player will usually raise with stronger hands in early position.

The following overview shows you in which situations you can react to an opponent's raise with an all-in. For simplicity's sake, it also includes all the hands with which you would put all your chips in anyway, such as for example, a pair of aces.

Download all charts and overviews as printout version here (Adobe Reader PDF-Format)

Overview of all possible steal re-raise hands Opponent's position You go all-in for a steal re-raise with ... Early position Aces AK, AQ   Pairs AA, KK, QQ, JJ Middle position Aces AK, AQ   Pairs AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT Late position Aces AK, AQ, AJ   Pairs AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, 88 Small blind Aces AK, AQ, AJ   Kings KQ   Pairs AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, 88, 77

Examples for practice

Before the flop - Blinds: 25/50 - 7 players

You are in the CO

MP1 folds MP2 and MP3 call for 50 chips You fold

Another hand that looks good but shouldn't be played in this situation. There are already players who've entered the hand in front of you, meaning this is not a blind-steal situation anymore. Instead, you should play according to the starting hands chart, which doesn't include ace ten (AT) at all. This means you should get out of this hand and fold. It doesn't pay to play it - the hand merely looks good.

Before the flop - Blinds: 25/50 - 8 players

You are in the SB

All players before you fold You raise to 200 chips

In this case, we have a typical blind-steal situation. All the players in front of you have folded their hands and you're in the small blind (SB) position. The overview shows you that queen ten (QT) is included in the hands you can attempt a blind-steal with from the small blind, so you raise.

Your goal is to get the player in the big blind (BB) to fold and to collect the pot. If this doesn't work and the BB calls your raise, you just play as if you had raised regularly, as specified in the article about play after the flop, which you will see later.

Should your opponent decide to raise, the hand is finished as far as you are concerned. You should definitely fold now. QT might be a good hand for a blind-steal, but nothing more than that.

Before the flop - Blinds: 30/60 - 8 players

You are on the BU

UTG3 and MP1 fold MP2 raises to 240 chips MP3 and CO fold You go all-In

As you can see, one player has raised in front of you and nobody else has entered the hand so far. You should immediately recognize that a steal re-raise is possible here. All you have to do is to check whether your hand qualifies in the overview.

According to the standard starting hands chart for the middle phase, you couldn't profitably play a pair of tens (TT) against a raise. This means you would normally fold, for instance when other players already entered the hand.

As this is a special case, the starting hands chart doesn't count, however, and we use the overview for steal re-raises instead. Your opponent raised from the second middle position (MP2). And just look at that, the overview tells you that you can steal re-raise with TT if your opponent has raised from middle position, meaning you can go all-in.