The Cash Trio

It seems like every day there is a new Texas Holdem strategy on the internet that needs to be discussed. One of the newest ideas to pop onto the poker scene is “steal-raise”, a strategy where a player realizes after everyone else at the table has checked. Before you employ this strategy, you need to consider the very serious drawbacks to trying to use this in a real life game.

First of all, how often are you playing a game of poker and everyone at the table checks? It doesn’t happen very often so the required set up for a steal raise is an aberration in itself. You definitely can’t count on being put on this position with any regularity. You would also need to be playing from a late position to even make this feasible. As we all know, the coveted late positions are gone far too quickly for us to really take advantage of their usefulness.

The other significant problem with a steal raise is that there is no requirement that the other poker players fold when faced with your bold raise. They could just as well decide to stay in the game, which would put you in a tricky position. You would then have to trundle to the end of the game with lukewarm cards and a large pot at risk.