Background:
9 handed

Preflop:
Me - UTG ($550): Limp J10
U3 ($1400): Raises to $25
BTN ($430): Calls $25
Back to me I raise to $140 to make rep AA or KK

Both players are fairly straight forward. Tight Aggressive.
Thoughts Please

trying way too hard to be fancy. Just raise pre. Ez game.

You have to be lucky and have things line up for just right. You need to start with a good clean image. Preferably TAG but it can work for a LAG if you don't make a lot of preflop bluffs. It works best against aware players when there are some aggro villains so your limping AA/KK makes more sense.

You have to make the initial limp without knowing how things go behind you and the right players have to get involved in the right way. You need a raise from a villain that won't get sticky and a call from somebody that will fold. You want at least 2 so the original raiser is squeezed but more then 3 raises the risk that somebody calls it off because there is so much in the pot.

If your going to limp from EP it should be an option in your playbook but not something you do very often. A lot of the time it's just FPS. In this specific one it could be OK. You need UTG+3 to have a wide enough range to have enough folds. And you need BTN to not feel committed with stack vs pot.

Just no.

I think it's fine.

You'll either get folds, which is great, or you might get to showdown the hand and then have people think you're a maniac, which can be good too.

I do this play a lot with random cards if it seems players are weak. I might go a little smaller on sizing though - I think $110-$120 gets the job done the same.

Sent from my LM-G710 using Tapatalk

What's your plan for when you get 4-bet?

I think it's fine as long as you are doing this with AA/KK as part of an overall strategy. If you are doing this with AA/KK you're going to want some bluffs in your range and this is a pretty good hand for that.

However, running a complicated strategy like this probably isn't more EV+ than the simple strategy of just raising these hands UTG instead.

It's all well and good that you are repping AA/KK, but it doesnt meant that people will play perfectly on the assumptions that's what you have.

Theres a reason people do this with AA/KK, because stations gunna station.

Not all TAG players assume a preflop limp-raise UTG is AA or KK. JTs pluses well multi-way. I think this play, generally, is bad.

I've done this with suited aces successfully, though not for a while. I like them better because you remove an ace. Blocking JJ and TT is pretty good. When you get that unwanted action though, I think the ace will wind up saving you a bit more because you can beat TT-kk with a pair of aces.

As others have mentioned, it's a very image-driven play. I'm a MAWG. It seems silly but I might even unconsciously factor in my clothing that day and how I've been talking on the table and stuff like that. But you need Vs to see you as kind of a bad nit. If I was a young Asian, I'd never do this. If I was an OWG I might do it every day.

Vs need to be the kinds of players who "know" that the limp RR is always AA or KK. Maybe younger regs who aren't that great and who will feel good about themselves, scoffing at your obvious and terrible play, as they muck the best hand.

I would also want some particular reason to think the raiser was light. Could be a tell. Could be I've seen him raising limpers too much. The latter would be ideal because he probably knows he's raising limpers a lot and it will seem even more likely that you have limped AA or KK hoping he will do it to you.

You'll have AA/KK in the UTG about once every 110 hands. At a 10 person table getting 25 hands/hour, that's about once every 40 hours. If you do this do this once every 80 hours or so of play, then it is fine.

I'll note that the vast majority of LLSNL can't resist playing with a new shiny toy. If you're a weekend warrior, it could be a couple of months between using this if you're doing it right. You're more likely to keep doing this repeatedly in a session and eventually get your head handed to you.

If you have an UTG limping range this would be the worst hand to do it with. Personally don't advise to have such a range and exploit those who do

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Yes well I was playing pretty tight pretty aggressive and I think my insticts kicked in quickly. Noticed that the 2 guys I am up against are thinking players and can lay big hands down. Thats why I didn't think to much about it and bet $140.

But $140 does seem to be a bit too big for AA or KK. Next time if I run into this spot again, I'll down size that to $110 or $120.

Going back to the comments on 10 J suited raising pre UTG, I'm not a fan of playing that loose under the gun, but 10J suit was just hard for me to let go after folding so many hands thats why I limped to see a pot for free. And thought this was a good place for a steal like that.

The bigger problem arises when you start randomly picking hands to limp re-raise trying to rep AA or KK.

That is a great point persianpunisher.

Sometimes we feel like Phil Ivey more often than we really should and try to pull of these highlight real bluffs.

Good point.

But I must say I don't do it that often, when I do, do it, they for some reason do seam to work maybe because of tight image or maybe solid instincts but yeah it is a good point.

If you wanna have UTG limp/3-bet in your game, pick something like A5s and A4s to bluff with. That'll give you 12 combos of AA and KK and 8 combos of bluffs. Maybe even just the A5s for a 12-4 ratio.

And here is one of many problems with LRR strategy. We assume LRR looks way too strong, so we start randomly making it 28 bb preflop into two people OOP with J hi to “balance” our play.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't know about your sizing, which seems a bit large, but I like the play. Some very good players have been experimenting with limping ranges from EP with positive results. Here's Jarretman, who knows more about poker than I probsbly ever will:

JTs would be a standard open UTG even in 9max if you have a reasonable amount of confidence in your post flop game in a live setting.

But by essentially turning this hand into a bluff we're faced with occasionally not being able to realize our equity when 4bet, also setting up for some lame situations on the flop considering SPR which basically sets us up for a flop overbet shove only or having to call off while being dominated by their ranges on a variety of boards while OOP.

I am not sure what exactly your thought process was but basically with the point of this play with these particular stacks and table is to take down the dead money pre. Since if get called by 1 or 2 ppl we have to act first and if our strategy is to ship the majority of the flops it becomes a spew and the boards that we actually hit their ranges hit better.
So in my mind in this scenario IF we want to make such plays occasionally we need to pick hands that play really bad post in our situation. Something like 22-66 if you also limp those which i don't advocate for.

p.s For live low stakes threads better not to relate to theoretical concepts of good pros especially they admit they're not using themselves. Good +EV exploitative concepts only will add up to your game with experience and will pop up in your head automatically when specific combination of factors occurs again at the table. Whether to apply them or not will depend on your judgement in terms of live reads and table dynamics.

All been said but yeah I think this is the wrong hand to do this with, because it’s a pretty nice hand to just raise and see a flop. Would rather do this with baby suited aces as suggested above. Actually a pretty sweet idea if done rarely, I might give it a go because I have a rock image.