How forced bets create action and shape every poker decision.
Blinds are forced bets that two players must post before any cards are dealt. The player directly left of the dealer posts the small blind (typically half the big blind), and the next player posts the big blind. These bets rotate clockwise after every hand so everyone pays equally over time.
Cash games: Blinds stay fixed. A $1/$2 game always has $1 small blind and $2 big blind. You can buy in and cash out at any time.
Tournaments: Blinds increase on a schedule (e.g., every 15 minutes). This forces action because your stack shrinks relative to the blinds over time. Eventually, you must either win pots or bust out.
Your stack size relative to the big blind is the most important number in poker. The same hand plays completely differently at 100bb (deep stack) vs 10bb (short stack):
Stealing blinds — raising from late position to win the blinds and antes without a fight — is essential for tournament survival. Every orbit you don't play a hand costs you 1.5bb (or more with antes). Successful blind stealing offsets this cost and keeps your stack healthy.
The best positions for stealing are the cutoff and button. Players in the blinds are forced to play out of position if they call, so they fold more frequently. Use the Starting Hands Chart to see which hands work for blind steals.
Many tournaments add antes starting at a certain level. An ante is a small forced bet posted by every player, not just the blinds. Antes increase the pot by 30-50%, making the pot worth stealing more often and encouraging wider opening ranges.
With antes in play, the pot preflop in a 9-handed game with 1000/2000 blinds and 200 antes is 4800 (1000 + 2000 + 200x9). That's more than two full big blinds worth stealing, which is why aggressive players thrive in ante stages.