As I don't employ this strategy often at all, a question is for those who employ a l/rr strategy - what are your preflop ranges for doing it EP on a loose table.

And also given the unbalanced nature of l/rr what are you defending with generally?

Some hands I played which illustrate this

Employing L/RR

This first hand was played on a table which people were calling raises and raising very wide, one maniac raising with ATC, and multiway action always

H limp TT EP, PFR raise to 15, 5 people call 15 including maniac, H l/rr to 125
PFR flats 125, SB raises to 550. I fold (500 behind) knowing that SB has a tell when he has a strong hand (starts talking way too much)

Is this too weak to L/RR? JJ+ AQ+ ??

Defending L/RR

Different table, loose/passive generally

V limps UTG, H in EP raise to $20 w/AKo 450 eff, V limp/rr to $40 total, what am I doing here? V has never limp/rr, saw him being a little aggro with his shorter stack earlier but nothing too out of line

Should I 4bet!? or fold AK and flat all weak PPs here?

I have this in my toolbox, and i bring it out when i find its appropriate or the table that i am at requires it. Mostly it is good on tables where you have couple of aggro iso raises pre, and many people passively calling the open to trap alot of dead money in the middle before you can limp/reraise.

Mostly i do it with JJ+/AK. On some special tables facing very wide ranges i can limp reraise wider, throwing in hands like 99 or AQ. Many players levels themself easily facing limpreraises, so i have always found it to be very effective if done correctly and against the right players.

Hand 2 is a simpler situation. Unless you have some reason to think otherwise you can assume a limp/raise is AA/KK and an outside chance of QQ. Call if your getting odds to fish for a good flop with pairs and suited connectors and fold otherwise. In the specific example you give, $20 to call with a bit over $400 behind is a clear call with a pair but nothing else. If villain starts making enough limp/raise or min-raise moves you can think about opening up your range but usually it isn't worth it.

The first question about when and what to limp/raise is way more situational. How many hands are being raised, how much 3 betting is going on, how people are reacting to raises all matter. Stack sizes also matter, short is better. When the table as a whole is really deep you are better off raising yourself and hoping somebody 3 bets.

I generally don't limp/raise at all. If there is a maniac or the table is really aggressive in general I will do it occasionally with QQ+. If they are folding to reraises then rarely add AK. If there is a maniac who is short and I'm willing to limp/put maniac all in then I might go wider depending on how many other people are in position to get involved and how likely they are too be trapping themselves.

As always, it depends. It depends on who is doing the raising, and from where, and who wakes up with an odd reraise, and everyone's stack size, etc.

For example, in the TT hand (where I'm fine with the open limp at tables like this), whether I actually reraised would depend a lot on what I think about preflop raiser who looks to be raising from EP and his stack size. With these non-short stacks, and against an EP raiser who might not be getting out-of-line (reads?) I might be fairly happy just calling to setmine at this point. If the raiser was shorter stacked, in later position, a known wide raising range, etc. then the more I'm going after the dead money.

Facing a limp/reraise is the same sorta "it depends" although mostly leaning towards you're likely up against the exact hands you think you are. With non-short stacks against a guy not-getting-out-of-line-when-deeper, leaning towards a ~trivial fold.

GcluelesslimpreraisingnoobG

your not gonna fold AK to a min raise in position, i would just call if you suspect a nutted type of range and see a flop; in general limp raises should be pretty strong but not strong enough where you should fold AK for that price

With AK our IO and RIO both suck, so I think we should be folding to the minraise. Much more argument for continuing to the minraise with almost any other hand.

GimoG

I’ll limp reraise suited connectors and suited one gappers if I think the original raiser is light and there are multiple people who flat behind. I don’t do it often, but if I go to showdown everyone thinks I’m crazy and starts paying me off later.

why is that ? you think his range is heavily weighted towards AA and KK?

Typically limp/reraise ranges (especially ones begging for action with a minraise) are weighted to AA/KK, so that's part of it. But also because if he happens to have QQ/etc. he isn't going to lose much on A/K flops (or even with KK on A high flops), especially compared to what we lose on A/K flops when behind. Plus we'll have to give up against cbets from wider parts of his range on flops that don't contain an A/K.

Much more of an argument for continuing with something completely different (ex. JTs) where our IO (much more likely to get paid off if we outflop an overpair) vs RIO (much easier to know when we're behind with TP) are a lot better.

GimoG

L/RR is one of the most polarized lines you can take, so I prefer a polarized range.

At my usual aggressive game, I regularly do it from early position.

My range is AA/KK/AKss (as usual) but also suited wheel aces. Including the bluffs lets me regularly pick up some nice dead money pre-flop and prevents people from playing effectively against me (I have straights and flushes in spots they think is impossible).

im still not folding for 20 more in position, he can have a lot of PP's and maybe even AQ here, the limp min raise is very unusual so seems less likely we are up against AA or KK; and we don't need an A or a K to hit to win this pot in position; Yes if we flop a king and are up against AA then that would suck but we do block AA and KK

I don't do it. When I'm UTG/+1/+2/+3, my range is slightly tighter than the table dynamic. I open for the same amount, no matter what I'm holding. If I think I can see a flop UTG with A4s w/o a 3! behind me and see it multi-way with decent size stacks on the table, I'm in. My range depends on the table, but my bet size is the same for that table dynamic & it's never a limp.

People say that LLSNL players are clueless, however, where I play, there's always 2 or more that understand a weak open in EP is a small PP or SC, so I open for the same size as I would with AA, which isn't a lot - maybe 3.5BB or 4. However, it all depends on the table dynamic as to what amount I open for. If I have to open for more, than SCs, like 65s, go in the muck. They have to have high card strength.

Here's a hand I played last night.

There's a Button straddle. The SB calls. The BB calls. I'm UTG with AK and overlimp along. EP raises to a rather smallish (due to table action and straddle) $20 with a $240 stack. There are 5 calls so pot is about $120 when it gets back to me. This is *totally* yawn standard at the tables I play at (don't be jelly).

I ship $500. I'm *snap* called by the original raiser for his $240. We've only played together no more than half a dozen times but I'm sure he's got some inkling about what I'm all about. Everyone else folds.

He tables A9soooooted.

So I get in $240 stacks with $100ish dead money as a 70% fave for an +EV of a mere $160. If everyone would have folded, I would have taken down $120 uncontested (and untaxed). You really think the EV of raising AK here (or any hand for that matter) and going 6ways to the flop and playing OOP postflop against the world is going to be more EV than this?

Table dependent of course, but raising from EP (and even sometimes from MP and sometimes even LP) is flat out horrible when compared to limp/reraising EV-wise, imo.

GnowifIcouldjustholdinspotslikethis,lol...G

there are times when fish limp, and you want to play more speculative hands(46,45,58 etc.) with him so you start limping along with the fish....then all of a sudden a guy behind you is raising like a madman to isolate the fish, which makes your life hell folding these golden opportunties vs the fish...
hence you start trapping him a few times with those limp/rr and he'll know what's up

yea we might miss out some value from the fish instead of going the standard raise, we end up trapping those guys who isolates the fish
then again, we might even get to play with the fish even after we limp/rr
so this becomes even more profitable

this is probably my only times when i limp/rr or if i can make limp/rr bluffs against villains that i know who will fold

no, i don't really limp/rr for value because it puts my hand face up, nobody will pay off unless vs a clueless fish...i rather limp/call than limp/rr with premiums