5 handed game. Folds around to you on the button and you have A 9 2 4

A lot of people would raise here. Is a limp good? t hide power of your hand and to get the small blind in there as well?

I'm talking about lo8 not nl or pl

Five handed and the two players ahead of you have folded? Doesn't seem like a very juicy game. I'd go ahead and raise.

Me included.

A limp seems OK. Your starting hand has a good chance to make the nut low and an off chance to make a nut diamond flush. When you make the nuts, you love lots of chasers who will pay you off... but you're not going to have many chasers anyhow... and your starting hand lacks high card strength for heads-up play. And depending on how you play various other hands, you may tend to disguise the strength of your hand... and SB is probably more inclined to complete than call a raise.

I'd raise, but a limp seems fine.

Got it.

Buzz

cool reply. for the sake of argument, when do u think it is best to limp with A2xx A3xx 23xx ?

no. when equities run so close together, the best you can hope for is folds. not to end up making a nut low and chopping with dude's 99xx. and only raising mediocre hands and limping good hands is the worst of both worlds. sub-optimal and exploitable.

now what if your image is super wild and u can't get any folds from blinds anyway ... then wouldn't that give mroe value to limping?

why? you still have san equity edge + playablity edge + position. building pots in these situations is a good idea.

In that case you want to raise for value with your strong hands. Also, limping when it's folded to you on the button will make the blinds suspicious.

Raise. It will balance the times you open a964r.

I think you definitely want to raise in this situation. In earlier position, you sometimes might want to limp in order to induce inferior hands to call. But getting the blinds to fold, regardless of their cards, is a great result. And if not, you make them put more money in while you have an equity edge. Why in the world would you want to let them see a flop for free?

I limp in early positions and always come in for a raise from h/j and beyond. In EP in a full game this hand is perfect to limp (strong one way, a "pull" hand)

First, and I think this is very important, I don't consider 23XX starting hands to be in the same class with the much stronger A2XX and A3XX starting hands.

To answer your question, at a fixed-limit Omaha-8 table where four (or more) opponents are also dealt cards, whether or not I'll raise pre-flop is more dependent on my opponents than on my starting cards.

In general, I need an opponent related reason to make a pre-flop raise. In other words, I don't more or less automatically raise when entering the action.

And that generally-passive-pre-flop style of play had worked well for me at most of the Omaha-8 tables at which I have played. (I'll concede it's possible a more aggressive-pre-flop style of play would work better for me at some other tables). (I believe one should adapt one's style of play as appropriate).

I have played at Omaha-8 tables where everybody else always raises when entering the action, and at those tables, I also raise when entering the action. But usually (in my fixed-limit games) nobody, or maybe just one or two opponents, will enter the pre-flop action with a raise. And at those tables, unless I want to isolate an opponent (and unless raising works to isolate), I'll just limp with all playable hands, including very strong starting hands. That has been my default style and I believe it has worked well for me.

I should make it clear that I often do play aggressively on later betting rounds

Buzz

Since you asked, I'll give you an answer.

I remember one afternoon, years ago, playing at an Omaha-8 table where there were very few pre-flop raises at Binion's in Las Vegas. I decided to raise the big blind of the opponent seated directly across the table from me every time he posted... just to see what the effect would be.

After an hour or so of this, the guy was glaring at me. I pretended not to notice and raised his blind again. He got up from the table and left for an hour, keeping the seat occupied. He returned, played one round, glaring at me the whole time, then got up and left the table for another hour, again keeping the seat occupied. I feel sure his behavior was in direct response to my raising his big blind.

So to answer your question, some blind posters do not like to have their blinds raised. And they may not like it enough that they will not want to play with you at all.

If you ask a poker player why he plays, he'll probably answer, "to make money." But I don't believe that is the actual reason why most individuals play poker. Instead, I think most poker players play "to have a good time."

I think I fare better, and I certainly enjoy myself more, when my opponents are having a good time. And it certainly makes for a more pleasant table atmosphere when someone isn't glaring at me.

Win or lose, I want everybody to have such a good time they will want to come back for more.

Just my opinion.

Buzz

@buzz: check/raising used to be frowned upon so much that it wasn't even allowed. i take it you never c/r? if people wanna glare at me, w/e. i think it's important to keep a friendly atmosphere, but we are still playing a game. i don't soft play anybody (as i wouldn't in monopoly) and no, i will not ever accept anybody's offer to check it down.

I know a lot of people play poker for fun and not for money. If I didn't think poker was fun, I wouldn't play it either.

But I assume that when someone makes a post asking a strategy question about a specific hand, they are asking what play will make them the most money, not which play will be the most fun.

Agree with Buzz. In limit o/8 I would raise. In PLO/8 I would probably limp. As far as letting people see a cheap flop that's sort of what you want to do in PLO/8. You want to trap them later on when the big money goes down.
In general I don't think it matters much for you to raise or not.

I have played in private games where it wasn't allowed.

Wrong. However I don't generally check/raise just to jack up the size of the pot. I use check/raises mostly as defensive measure. Most (but not all) of my check/raises are to keep someone sitting behind me from betting just because I have checked... I find that tactic works well against some opponents... But, yeah... I don't use the check/raise tactic much... probably not as much as I should.

Riling an opponent to the extent that he/she glares at me is just something that happened that one time in Las Vegas.

I don't want enemies.

Agreed.

Take care.

Buzz

Good point.

Buzz

After i read ss2 08, i was thinking about one day that limping with one way low hands is bs, but i soon figured it is actually bs. Big bet poker differs as one has to think that factor deeper.

all other things equal - raising is much better than limping

the goal of limping with a2x hands is to entice worse hands into the pot where hero can draw to the best low (also to make it harder for certain dominating hands to isolate)

in this case, you are enticing at most half a bet from the sb, *blinds are very unlikely to raise

for this reason, as well as favorable position postflop, hero should strongly prefer to raise

All other things, of course, are not equal.

I'd be more inclined to agree with your "glib generality" if you were talking about no-limit Texas hold 'em that fixed-limit Omaha-8. I continue to think that whether to raise or not is highly dependent on one's opponents and one's specific goals. (I realize that's vague... sorry).

That makes sense to me as a goal. I don't think it's the goal. Limping with A2** hands also tends to disguise other hands. That is, when you limp with A2** hands, your astute opponents can neither be sure of what you have or don't have when you limp nor what you have or don't have when you don't limp.

That has never been a goal of mine when I have limped with A2**. I'll have to think about that.

Not true, because the betting doesn't end here. There are two more betting rounds to go... and the bet sizes double.

?

I do prefer to raise here... but not "strongly."
(1) I think (A2)94 lacks high card strength for heads-up play.
(2) (A2)94 also has the nut diamond draw
(3) (A2)94 also has the nut low draw plus a nice back up for low.

I think these three factors favor limping. And anyhow, I'd kind of like to see what develops here without trying to push anyone out of the pot.

Thus a limp seems OK to me too.

Just my opinion.

Buzz

limping is surely still a positive play, and if opponents are prone to making poor decisions postflop that provides additional incentives ..

i do think it is appropiate to limp certain low orientated hands on the btn in this spot - for example limping something as strong as AA[2-4] is probably the correct play

some examples of hands i would prefer to limp
a234
a235/6/7
a75x
a86x
a[22, 33, 44]x
45xx , 35xx with xx including high pairs, suited face cards
good but not great high-orientated hands missing an Ace: KQJT, KQQx
aa[2-5]
some of these hands can go either way depending on opponents or as part of an overall balancing strategy

that we have the 9 is actually one the main reason i prefer a raise - if we limp and sb completes we have are looking at a 3way pot with a mostly one-way hand while A29x should always see a flop headsup

i prefer narrowing the pot while the math suggests it is prudent

postflop i feel confident that i can make good decisions, including sometimes stealing the pot with the worst hand becase of superior position

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
ad2d94	54.90%	228,487	266,418	8,290	265,003	17,351
****	45.10%	170,854	325,292	8,290	44,055	17,351

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
ad2d94	41.17%	130,758	170,560	8,520	238,861	32,014
****	29.43%	104,491	207,564	10,099	33,605	18,392
****	29.40%	104,363	207,590	10,093	33,854	17,983

i prefer raising for these approximate reasons

1. our hand is a small equity favorite over random cards and i would be happy to realize that positive equity immediately by folding out marginal hands

2. we can represent lots of hands that we do not have after the flop by raising preflop

3. we can punish opponents defending inferior low draws

4. a lot of the time opponents do outflop they will try to check-raise us and we will see a turn card cheaper than they want

5. its easier to pot control with only 1 opponents, something we will frequently want to do given the intrinsic strength of our hand



unlike the A29x hands, A2Jx and A2Tx gain another 3-4% equity over a random hand and it difficult to represent that range compelling with a limp

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
ad2dt4	57.38%	243,036	281,189	9,878	265,072	17,329
****	42.62%	155,876	308,933	9,878	43,908	17,329

A24Kss would be 60%+ vs random

also a small thing - a249 actually has more equity vs 1 other hand than pretty much any 4 Axxx hand where x = a card between 2-8, the value of our 9 is much smaller in a multiway pot

Strictly for Limit games: In EP, I'll limp with the intention of limp/raising at least 50% of the time, if not more.

In the later positions near~the button, I'm rarely limping with strong hands---the blinds mean too much to me. I will limp, however, if there's a player behind me(or in the blinds) who feels that he can outplay me and especially since I limped, I mean, my hand has to be "meh", right? Well, against someone who has that kind of logic, then yes, I would limp, but, there aren't too many players that really fit that bill. Maybe a handful.

Raise it up, people are so fishy in these games they will call anyways.

A249 single suit is NOT a really good hand. It is definitely a playable hand, especially on the button but is not as strong as you make it out to be with the thread title. Also, after reading all your posts in this thread, you mention absolutely nothing about the other 4 players in the game or even the actual table dynamics. Outside of our position and the actual hand these are other factors that would reflect my answer here on how I would play it.

Matt

I tested limping EP/LP as well as flatting instead of 3-betting strong hands on the blinds for deception, range balance and other reasons often mentioned in such cases, and found it is simply less profitable than playing straightforward. The equities run close, yes, but habitually missing those thin 60-40 or 55-45 actually does damage to our winrates.