I'm a little confused on how to play marginal hands in position. Let's define marginal as K10, KJ, A10, QJ, Q10, J10 type hands and maybe even medium pairs.

I feel like it is correct to limp behind with our small pairs, suited connectors, and maybe even suited aces to get in cheap in position. However, I don't want to limp into too many pots, espcially in position. The problem is if there are a few limpers and I have K10 on the button it's not like I am crushing their range. In my experience they mostly call with hands that have a similar range. Rarely are they a huge favorite (such as trapping super premiums), but rarely are they also huge dogs. My biggest advantage here is position. But in games like 1/2 once you get more than 1 caller its gets pretty tough to win the pot without hitting. So I almost wonder if we can approach the K10 hands example just like a small pair and mostly play for the big 2 pair plus flop and hope to get value or maybe flop one pair and win or loose a small pot. But then I don't want to waste too many $2 calls hoping to hit.

I might as well have 78 off suit because if I mostly have more than one caller, I still have to hit my hand. And even with one caller, say our cbet success is maybe 50-60% (rough educated guess), which is certainly profitable long term. However, we get more than one caller more than 1/2 the time in my experience. No one likes to fold in 1/2 and to encourage that we have to make it like $16+ and now we are inflating the pot with K10 or whatever. Now, of course when we have premiums this is perfect because we are getting our opponent to put money in super bad. But it gets a little tricky with the marginal hands like this.

Now, I do realize part of this answer is due to the players at the table. Who is to my left and right, stacks sizes, etc. If a guy to my left has a short stack and is looking to shove over 5 limpers, then I might just limp or maybe just fold. I realy don't know. But if I raise and then he goes all in for his last $35 or something I kinda have to call and now I am putting in $35 as a coinflip at best.

My thing is I would rather win by outplaying my opponent by having the better hand than flipping coins or gambling or whatever. Once the game gets like that the skill and edge seems to get diminshed.

So I would appreciate some logical thoughts on this subject please and thank you.

I like to go ahead an open with hands like K10+ in position.

The way my game plays, usually if you adjust you adjust your open size in relation to the number of limpers and stickiness of the table, most of the time it gets 1 or no callers. For example, K10o OTB, $1-$2 game - 3 limps, I'd open as a default to $18. If the table tends to limp fold pretty easily, maybe adjust down to $16 or so, if they tend to be sticky, maybe up to $20 or so.

I hear you on the inflated pot with a marginal hand when called, yet I think there's a lot of value in opening some range of marginal hands, with position, with the intention of getting one or zero callers. Picking up the blinds and 3 limps with K10o is a pretty good value, and when they call, you're not in awful shape - especially if it's just one caller who's going to whiff the flop along with you most of the time. Way better than the standard $10-$12 over the blinds and 3 limps that usually has you seeing a flop multiway, and now in an inflated pot and needing to hit a big hand.

If you get called by one or two, decide if it's a good board to barrel, etc. If called by 3, I'd play pretty straightforward - i.e. if we whiff in a multiway pot, I'm not barreling air.

The short stacks can really mess up a hand when they shove. Depending on the short stacked Villain, and the amount I'd have to call, I usually only stick with the hand with 1010+ or AK. I kept track for a while in my game of the limp shove range of short stacks when I saw the cards, and after doing some PokerStove based on the cards I saw from short stack shoves (say $75 or less), the 1010+ and AK had me at a little over 60% against that range. Might have been closer to 65%.

I do have a few thoughts on this topic. You touched on it, but the key is who has already limped in front of you. Is it 3 fish who are unlikely to fold? Then limp-in, see a cheap flop, and go from there. One fish and one nit? Raise it up and get that nit the F outta there.

The key thing to remember is that you are looking to hit 2-pair+ before playing a big pot. Don't get married to JT on a T72 flop. If a passive player from the BB bets into a field of 5, just muck it. Now I know what some people will say "But Koss, if we're playing for 2 pair+ value why not just play ATC? 72o? we're just playing bingo poker" Bingo poker is fine in the right conditions.

1. Our hand has a decent chance of making a winner.
2. When we hit our hand, we will extract value from weaker hands.
3. When weaker hands hit, they will not extract value from us.

JTo will make more winners multiway then 72o. It will also make relatively stronger hands, making value extraction easier. So 1 & 2 are met. We have the button, so 2&3 become much easier. Easy enough to make playing some weakish hands playable.

Or they may say "Why play the hand if we are just going to fold when we hit" Well guess what? Many times we will hit and will never have the opportunity to fold. It will check to us and we can bet it for value or just check it down.

I think that's about all I have to say on this topic. Main thing to focus on is what you are trying to achieve by playing the hand. Do you want to make the nuts against the field and stack someone? limp. Do you want to isolate a bad player and then decide whether to valuetown or bluff him? Raise. Just make sure your iso has a reasonable chance of working.

TBH, there's lots more layers to this subject than what you are considering. Just in brief, here's a couple of areas.

1. The Goal is to Win Money, not Pots. If 4 people limp in a pot, a couple things can happen. Someone will hit the flop and most likely take it. If you limp and don't have anything on the flop, you're going to fold. In the rare case when 3 other players don't have anything, you can take the pot by bluffing at it with position. But the pot doesn't have much in it.

2. It Takes Two to Tango. Your goal in LLSNL is to win stacks. In order to do so, you need someone who feels they need and can defend the pot with a weaker hand than you do. With trash like KTo, you're going to need 2 pair+ to start putting much money in. The problem is that if you hit the flop that hard, it is difficult for anyone else to hit it hard enough to put a lot of money in. If you want to put a lot of money in with a pair of kings, you need someone who will respond by putting a lot of money in with hands like K7 and K6. Not many people do that.

3. Catch-22. You're 25:1 against hitting 2 pair+ with KTo. That means the right play is to fold a lot of flops. However if you do, everyone else is going to snack on your limps if they are continuing to play light. If you decide to play much more, you end up trading chips around and the rake sucks all of you alive.

I personally believe that you are better off raising SC in late position than calling in a limped pot. Mpethy pointed out a long time ago that SC will flop a hand or a good draw 20% of the time. With the FE, you're not in bad shape, especially if you have narrowed things down to 1 or 2 additional players. If the flop is going to go 5 way or more, limping small pp is fine. Hands like KTo I'd rather raise than fold. I'm fine with dumping JTo.

Should be a good discussion. I'm going to sub and make an analysis later as I am at pizza hut!

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Please don't fold JTo in position in an unraised pot.

I think table image is important here, just not villain ranges. An OTB raise ought to knock out a lot of limpers, depending on how tight you're viewed. If it's checked around to you OTF, you might be able to take it down without hitting.

Some decent advice already in the thread here, but a few things to consider:

You mention that it depends on the players at your table sort of a side comment, but this is very important. If 3 - 5 people limp, and you can raise and have a sizing that routinly gets 0 - 2 callers, and these callers are very fit or fold and lay down second pair / botttom pair to a flop bet you can often make a profit raising with almost ATC barreling the flop for 1/3 - 1/2 the pot and winning out right as they will fold a combined ~40+% of the time.

The reason however that we'd rather have KTo or JTo than 87o is that while they are both going to make two pair + about the same % of the time, when we make top pair with KTo we are more likely to have a better kicker than our villain than we did with 87o.

This sounds wrong.

Assume for argument's sake that there is a raise size R that 2 people will call, and then you cbet 3R/2 into a pot of 3R and you get 2 folds 40% of the time.

That means 60% of the time, you have put in 5R/2, in order to win 2R the other 40% of the time.

If you are comparing bluffing this way to folding preflop, folding preflop is a higher EV proposition.

I'm almost always raising K10, KJ, A10, QJ, Q10, J10 in POSITION. I'd be more apt to limp with small SC and small PP. By raising you take the initiative and you can control the pot size with position. You need to raise enough to get 0-2 callers.

If playing with typical loose passives we can raise IP with Broadway cards because we can get 2 and even 3 streets of value by bet/folding TPGK. They are calling with all kinds of true junk like J7o and Q4s.

Waiting for 2p+ is only needed with SC, SC1, and Axs.

Winning a lot of small to medium pot also adds up and and with low risk. Saying we are mostly or only looking to stack oppoenents isn't the only goal and anytime I am all in unless I have the nuts there is always the risk of going broke. There are many sessions where I never won a big pot all night but won a good amount just by taking down a lot of little pots. They add up.

There is also this idea that certain hands play better mutli way like a suited connector or small to medium pocket pair. But when we start talking about what I define as the marginal hands its gets sketchy. We still want to see a flop because we get such massive value from flopping well. Even if we have K10 and flop top pair we still often get 1 street of value from draws, weaker kickers, etc. People often limp with suited kings too, so if we raise to like $17 with K10 we usually fold out the K7 suited stuff, but if we limp behind we can get some value. So I guess it depends on how you want to look at it and thats why I think it makes for an interesting discussion. Good thoughts so far.

Your math is correct.

It was an over simplification, but a few other factors:
A) we have equity in the hand a significant portion of the time
B) we can barrel smaller and need to get folds less often
C) they only flop a pair 33% of the time let alone second pair or top pair, so I think they fold a >40% of the time.

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This.

Plus, in those infrequent but still valuable occasions when two players make two pair, larger cards are more likely to dominate smaller cards (duh), which is why I like limping in position with any two broadway cards. JT or KT>>T9