I would like your help. If you can, please check your database and post some stats on this thread.
There is a play I call Auto Theft, and I would like to know how often it succeeds in LHE cash games. The situation is that you are in the big blind, and only the small blind limps in before you. You check. On the flop, the small blind checks to you. You bet. The question is how often the small blind folds.
Some players will never open-limp in the small blind, so they will never give you an opportunity for this play. However, many players will open-complete mediocre hands, and then check-fold if they miss the flop. This might make Auto Theft profitable with 32 unimproved. If you get 1/3 folds, you show an immediate profit, and much more than 1/3 of the time, the small blind will have no pair, no draw, and no ace. Of course, you would like to compare betting with checking behind, but I think you get so many folds by betting immediately that you don't do better by checking behind when your hand has no showdown value.
The way I have used in the past to test my Auto Theft success rate is to count hands which fit particular filters, filtering to hands where I am in the big blind, where the first limper was in the small blind, where my preflop action was to check, and my flop action was to bet followed by anything. Those are Auto Theft attempts. For Auto Theft successes, it must be that my flop action was to bet only, and that I did not see the turn.
My guess is that many LHE players will not realize how profitable it is to bet in this situation, particularly in low stakes games, and will play a strategy which is too balanced. If you look into your database, please post your number of attempts, number of successes, and success rate.
