^^^End of Discussion^^^

Well isn't that an argument to adapt an exploitative strategy and limp the bottom of our range since people don't fight in limped pots?

Well isn't that an argument to adapt an exploitative strategy and limp the bottom of our range since people don't fight in limped pots?

Limping is not bad , it's just slightly lower ev than raising for pretty much all hands . If there are any hands which do slightly better as a limp then the trouble is that you can't just limp those hands but you now need to balance by limping other hands and in the end it brings down the ev of your entire range .

Good things about limping sometimes is that a lot of players don't adjust too well against it. They either get over aggressive because they see your limp as weak , or they show zero interest in the pot because it's small and fold a very high % on the flop to a small bet

The way I see it, in most low/medium stake games, a single raise doesn't make much of a difference for most people. Some will still call your 3x raise with 6 7 off suit if they are determined it's a hand worth playing. Once they get the 5 bucks to see 3 cards mentality, 5 more doesn't make much of a difference.

On the other hand, with higher stakes, better players, or in a tournament structure, raising is much more superior for all of the reasons in the book. (Control of the pot, value, stealing blinds, making moves on later streets etc.)

Wait you think raising is bad in medium/low stakes because people will call you with bad hands? Not computing to me.

I am saying, it doesn't work if you just want to steal the blinds.

If you limp then you have to be very good at reading hands. If you limp called oop and end up with top pair and the raiser fires two pot sized barrels and then all in, how do you know if you're good?

I agree, reads are crucial, especially the ones that have to do with analyzing opponent tendencies and stuff.

How do you know if you are good if you raised, get called, end up with top pair and the other guy calls your bets on flop and turn and shoves the river after you check?

Also, I am not saying it's bad, I just feel like it doesn't work on that well. Sometimes in post flop, appropriate amount of aggression with preflop raise hands and a couple of barrels can push players off with hands like J 9 suited, hits middle pair without position/ draw. Touristy sort of players in these games are more likely to hold on to those hands with their lives unless you go crazy.

Anyways, for these kind of games which is pretty much all I've played so far, I have a very tight raising range and a relatively larger limping range. I am no expert, barely passed the donk level in fact, but I feel like the key to these games is to extract value with premium hands and monsters. Steal a couple of pots don't matter with blinds stay the same and rake being what it is.

This is the basic reason why you see unorthodox raise sizing in soft live games. If a preflop open of 2-3 big blinds has practically no hope of stealing the blinds, then all preflop raises are for value. In this case you should open for as large as you possibly can to maximize value.

This is no doubt true in very soft live games, but if the raise can also thin the field (e.g. get you heads up vs one limp-caller), it often means you have a very proftable c-bet opportunity, as limp-callers tend to fold on the flop at exploitable frequencies, because of their wide/weak ranges. So whilst you won't often steal the blinds immediately, you'll often get someone to put a little bit more dead money in the pot, and then fold.
As I think you know, if your 'standard' raise isn't likely to pick up the blinds or give you an immediately profitable c-betting opportunity, you should go for a larger sizing (to increase the immediate and flop fold equity, or start building a large pot with very strong hands), or just overlimp.

raise is only good if people are folding too much. for the same reason you call with hands postflop, limping is good too. and call with hands preflop instead of 3betting your whole range.

people play bad against limping because they are used to fish limpcalling with **** and stacking with bottom pair, a real, balanced range with understanding of stack deepness in limped pots is tough to beat. also you can exclude some hands from enemy's range when it goes unraised.
the only real reason to raise is because preflop there is no rake, so it may be better to steal the pot, tho people dont fold to raises too much nowadays.