This COTW came about as there are several misconceptions about what to do in the blinds with certain hands after multiple limpers. When discussing the possibility of doing this COTW, a regular 2+2 poster for whom I have great respect was of the attitude of "raise it up with good holdings (such as AJ, 99 etc.) - end of COTW". This poster's reasoning was that we are ahead of the limper's limping range and therefore we should raise. I am sure many of you who are reading this are of a similar attitude and it will come to you as a shock, that (in my opinion) this attitude is a dangerous one to have. There are many more factors to consider as opposed to just having preflop equity.

An example hand:

For what it's worth, I like to raise 5-6bb+1 for every limper if I elect to raise from the BB as being out of position sucks.

MP2: 100bb
CO: 100bb
BTN: 100bb
SB: 100bb
Hero (BB): 100bb
UTG: 100bb
UTG+1: 100bb
MP1: 100bb

Pre Flop: (1.5bb) Hero is BB with 8 8

1 fold, UTG+1 calls 1bb, 1 fold, MP2 calls 1bb, CO calls 1bb, BTN calls 1bb, SB calls 1bb, Hero raises to 10bb, UTG+1 calls 10bb, 1 fold, CO calls 10bb, BTN calls 10bb, 1 fold

Flop: (42bb) T 6 5

Hero does what????

We have an SPR of just over 2 and we are in no way committed (i.e. if the money goes in here, we won't usually have the best of it). If we c-bet this for about 28 bb, we leave ourselves with around 62 bb left when called. Assuming 1 caller, we have a stack size of 98bb and we are going to hate all turn cards basically. This leaves us in a various awkward spot where in all likelihood we have the best hand on the flop, but we subject ourselves to reverse implied odds in a large pot where bet/folding, bet/calling, check/folding, check/calling and check/raising all feel so wrong. We raised with what was likely to be the best hand pre-flop and now we find ourselves in a terrible spot.

At this point some of you will say, "Oh that's unlucky, that's a bad flop for our hand". I put a challenge to those of you who feel this way, what board without an 8 do we feel happy with? With a medium pocket pair, an overcard will flop a huge percentage of the time.

In this scenario, have we made a wrong play somewhere? Surely it isn't pre-flop?


So at this stage, rather than just telling you what the answers are, I'd like each and everyone of you to stop for a minute before reading on and think "What factors should determine whether I should raise or not?" Go on, think about it, and don't read on until you have thought of at least five other factors.



Note this list is in no way exhaustive and I encourage each and every one of you to contribute to the discussion if you think of something that is not on the list.

1. Number of Limpers

Hopefully this should be obvious - the more limpers there are, the more likely we are to be called and the more likely we are to be playing multi-way post-flop while being out of position.

Say we have 9 9 and the flop comes down Q 8 3 and we have 2 callers? Do we make a continuation bet? What if we have 3 callers?

What if we have A J and the flop comes down K J 7. How many people do we feel comfortable c-betting into?

Also, what's our plan for various turn cards?

2. Limpers' Limping Range

If you have a bunch of fish who will limp with a bunch of crap, raising medium strength hands for value becomes more automatic.

3. Limpers' Calling Range

Similar to the above. If players will limp/call with J9s and 33, raising TT and AJ type hands for value is more automatic.

4. Effective Stack Sizes

SPR is king in these spots. It (and various other factors including number of players) usually determines whether we can commit post-flop profitably. (See COTW: Using SPR at uNL) I'm not going to go into detail about SPR, but SPR in these scenarios depends on the number of callers.

5. Is it +EV to play this hand out of position?

This is heavily related to post-flop tendencies of our opponents and hence whether we can commit profitably.

6. What is my post-flop plan if I hit?

First thing I ask is "If I hit, will I be willing to stack off?" - If the answer is no, I normally just complete, check or maybe even fold. The thing is, by making a raise to 8+ bb with 100bb effective stacks, we are getting to the point where we need to make a commitment plan pre-flop!!! If we hit post-flop and can't stack off profitably, maybe we should consider playing a small pot where folding post-flop isn't so bad.

7. What is most post-flop plan if I miss?

As an example, if we have 3 limpers and we are pretty confident that, by making it 9bb pre-flop, we can get the pot heads-up with KJ we need to have good fold equity in order to steal pots. We will only hit ~35% of the time and so we need to make up for the times that we miss.

As an aside, if we raise to 9bb from the BB and we know that we will get one caller (ignore the fact that we can never know this), and the pot becomes 20bb, by making our opponent fold to a 14bb c-bet 60% of the time, we net on average: 20*0.70-22*0.30=7.4 bb which is a huge profit. The point is, if we can get our opponents to invest large sums of money pre-flop and make them fold post-flop, we stand to win an awfully large amount of money.

As an extreme example say we have AA in the BB 100 bb deep and the SB raises to 90bb and we shove. Would we prefer that the SB calls or folds??????

We actually prefer the SB to fold.

If villain folds, we win 90bb outright which is great.

If villain calls, AA has 85% equity vs a random hand and we look set to win 100bb 85% of the time and lose 100bb 15% of the time EV=100*0.85-100*0.15

EV=70bb

The point is, if we can get our opponents to fold post-flop in large pots, sometimes it can be better than getting all in as a big favourite.

8. How likely will I be to extract value post-flop?

This is basically the opposite to the previous point - if we have low fold equity post-flop, we need to be able to ruthlessly extract value the times that we do hit which need to more than compensate for the times that we miss and have to fold. This may be a point where people go majorly wrong in my opinion because fish won't fold J 9 on a A 9 3 board to your 7 7 because they never fold.

9. How likely will I be bluffed off the best hand post-flop?

Again with 9 9 on a Q 4 8 board, if we bet and get raised, we can definitely be bluffed off the best hand a good percentage of the time if our opponents are aggressive post-flop.

10. Probability of being limp/re-raised and how to respond to it[/QUOTE]

If we want to get all in pre-flop to a limp re-raise then this shouldn't matter however if we intend to fold to a limp re-raise, then we should be less likely to raise pre-flop if we are more likely to face a limp/re-raise as we don't want to fold out or good equity.

In general, playing most marginal hands out of position is a bad in a raised pot when the pot is likely to be multi-way. For this reason, if I am reasonably confident that I will be called in more than two spots, I am more likely to complete/check as opposed to raising. I mean AJs and 99 play really well as drawing hands multi-way especially against limpers. Just as an aside, how comfortable do we feel stacking off on a 9 7 4 board with T T with an SPR of 2 against 4 opponents? I don't think anyone would feel thrilled about this spot if they bet and get raised (even though they commit themselves with a bet and checking that flop just feels so dirty when we are going to hate a bazillion turn cards).

However on the other hand, the more likely I am to get the pot heads-up, the more inclined I am to raise it up and combine value-bets, bluffs and semi-bluffs to make money against a weaker player even out of position. Note that this also merges your range quite a lot and makes it very balanced in these spots against good players.

There is a key factor in determining how to likely a raise is to get this pot heads-up: The tendencies of the first limper. Say the we have five limpers in the pot, all the limpers but the first one usually have some medium strength hand which won't like to see a huge 10bb raise right? However, if the first limper calls again, the others are more likely to follow suit as they have better implied odds and pot odds. Limping, like calling, is contagious in these spots. Harrington aptly described this as the waterfall effect. If we are confident that we can get the first limper to fold, we can take the pot down pre-flop unopposed a large percentage of the time which will net us a good win-rate from the BB! Folding in these spots is also contagious!!!

Hopefully this will generate some good discussion points.

Alex

furst

i'm a firm believer of ruthelessly punishing limpers no matter what my position if i have a hand i believe to be ahead of their l/c range. obv this is far better with a max of 2 limpers before you, and were i to play that example hand i'm insta-checking the BB. i still think it's better to punish limpers rather than join them so to speak, but you definitely bring up some good points of where it might not be totally prudent to go wild with a medium-strength hand.

2nd 1st

Good post lx

I don't get this. A hand like 88, if we hit, we will definitely want to stack off, if we don't we don't want to stack off. So why bloat the pot pre, right? however a hand like AJs hitting top pair in a limped pot we are trying to get value but also not go broke in a limped pot right? but if we raise it up big and a fish calls us, then TPTK can be a stack off hand in many situations.

That's where I differentiate from hands like 77-88 and hands like KJ and AJ. The former are good hands but they hate the flop a bunch of the times and leave us guessing, while they could hit big and win a big pot if we complete. However a hand like AJ dominates fish's limp/call range and likes the flop a lot more than 88 does and so bloating the pot pre isn't a bad thing. I've been watching the big game and Chris Stapleton has a weird obsession with "thinning the field", while I think that phrase is retarded, you still want people to pay to out draw you.

4rd

I think the majority of the value comes from the line we are taking and not our hand strength, so really the most important things to consider are position and if we can make the opponent fold, raising 2-6o into 2 opponents is practically the same as raising 7-7 since with both hands we will mainly be trying to make our opponents fold excluding the rare times we hit our set.

Will read thoroughly later, but with the 88 example in a large multiway limped pot OOP, I like to:

- Underaise, IE make it 5-7bbs, c/f if you miss. You have beefed the pot up for when you hit your set and IP villains are not going to release top pair when they call your PFR

- Check/complete, good for deception, you can set over set people here.

I really don't see much value in raising these sort of pots really big OOP I think you lose your hand on the flop/turn way too often. Cbetting the dryest flops with 2+ villains in the pot (IE K72r board) is really borderline.

Also I know that those bets are easy to read, but this is OK at micros.

Yeah, pretty much this.

6rd.

This is very true. I was trying to make this point here by getting people to think about it, as opposed to just giving them the answer. Raising hands like AJ and KJ against fish is good because we are still likely to dominate their calling range i.e. they'll call with A7, K9 and T9 type hands whereas with 88, it is a mission to play oop multi-way except for when we set mine. If we would rather set mine/overpair mine and play poker where commitment issues haven't yet reared their ugly head, completing/checking is best. But you def want to get the pot HU if possible though as FE goes up heaps (I don't know about the rest of you, but FE is my best friend at the table in these spots).

True. Sklanksy mentions this - he says against good players who will either limp/re-raise or fold as opposed to flat calling, raising 72o is better than raising a hand that is strong, but that we don't want to stack off with. SO possibly even QQ or JJ should be completed in this spot.

Was thinking of mentioning this, but decided against it a sweetner raise can be good. Ideally we want something that sets up an SPR of around 10 - it also has the added benefit of giving us a laggy images so regs will pay us off in weird spots.

Also, can someone sticky this???

Most of the times I have hands like these (88) I just complete since I don't know how play it multiway unless I hit a set. I always look at limpers fold to cbet and AF. Logically, higher fold to cbet and med/high AF --> iso more.

golden COTW. so common at micros

The initial list is repetitive, since listing 'opponents' effectively describe limp/calling ranges, post flop play, and number of players, in one word. With that being said, opponents, position, stack sizes, and image are my primary considerations before isolating.

Remain a firm believer in exploiting limps, but rarely raise a full table with connectors or dominated broad way from the blinds. Shorter stack sizes limit speculative hands that can be raised profitably unless the opposition is mostly the limp fold type. Image does not influence my blind ranges, as they are mostly for value, although it effects bet sizing.
I equate pot builders to blind min raises, in the sense that they fail to thin the field and commit more money from the worst positions. There is a difference between exploiting weak opposition despite being predictable and making pointless raises.

I agree with OP that you should think before you raise with any hand, let alone middle PP. I tend to look at the villains player type (vpip/pfr/AF/AFq), tendency to fold to 3bet, fold to cbet, stack size and their tendency to push to 3bet. I also take into account position, both original raiser and my own. After evaluating the situation, I will mentally make my post flop action on various boards.

When I get into these decisions, I decide what I want the pot to be for the hand I have. If I am really powerful, like AK, AA, KK, QQ and maybe JJ, then I will raise like you suggested, 8-10X.

With a lot of other hands, like suited connectors or other pocket pairs, I like to raise enough so that it is likely most to everyone will call. Then I have a good hand that plays well in large multi-way pots and the pot is bigger. Now if I flop something, it will be harder for two pair TPTK to get away from their hand. I believe I am being deceptive when I do this.

I don't think it is likely to raise 10X like the example and get that many callers. If you do, 88 is probably not good.

I haven't worked out the maths but I am pretty sure a raise in this situation is profitable and has great implied odds

Thank you.

1. Yes, but then why not say something vague like "everything is situational".

2. If a 43/5 player limps, KJ dominates them more often than they dominate you. Yes and the lower the SPR will be otf, the tighter you need to be preflop.

3. The thing is, why do we want to thin the field with what is essentially a drawing hand? We are making it easier to commit post-flop for when we do hit. Also, if the pot is larger, in general, the more often we can cause our opponents to incorrectly stack off i.e. with a wider range. The raise has a point. Fish tend to think "that pot is small, he can have it" and "I'm not gonna let him bluff me out of this big pot".

We're talking about limped pots though? Why is there an original raiser?

Note this is exploitable fwiw. It's also not very deceptive to any observant opponent.

It has happened to me before except I had JJ and the flop was K73 2 tone and I didn't have a J of either of the suits on the board. It wasn't a pleasant situation based on reads on an opponent.

It will be for reasons listed above.