200BB deep effective.

I have been having some good results so i've been attacking limpers when i'm on the BTN or CO with hands like k3s and Q4s - say 5 people limp $2 and I raise to $20 on the BTN.

Sometimes every one that limps just calls and i'm stuck playing a $100 pot 5 handed with a weak hand and i'm usually forced to just check fold.

Sometimes I smash the flop and win huge.

Sometimes I hit just a pair - cbet and everyone folds LOL when I bet like $40.


Question is - if People are very rarely 3betting me - which I think i've been limp 3bet maybe once or twice a week - is this profitable to do once in a while or should I wait for stronger holdings. Being deep and playing suited high cards is meh IMO but i've been experimenting with it - and i've had some decent success on most nights. It also helps my image sometimes.

I would assume it's high variance and probably only wise to do if my post flop and hand reading skills are good but is this a viable strategy that you suggest I keep trying?


I mean clearly any one good will realize what i'm doing if I do it every BTN but once in a while I don't think it can be that terrible. And since most players at low stakes don't even 3bet AK these days - at least where i'm playing - I think it may have a merit to be a +EV play.

Your question is too generic to elicit very useful responses (posting a hand would be better), but a couple things to consider:
1) When you make top pair on Q high or K high boards you'll always be outkicked.
2) You very rarely flop those 2pair+ hands.

I do this a lot. My thinking is that I want to play big pots in position small pots oop. This forces the tempo to my advantage and makes my Villain(s) very uncomfortable.

Sample
5 limpers. Hero on Button raises to $25
1 caller.

Flop Q 6 2 Rainbow.

We take this down with a cbet vs every hand except AA, KK sets and AQ, KQ with a profit of $36 (minus rake).
If all fold preflop, Hero profits $13 without rake.

I do this quite a bit but I raise much higher than $20. $20 will go multiway way too much. $25-$30 is much more effective.

I don't know how often you play so I can't judge whether people are catching on or not. The quick answer is that it is profitable under certain conditions. If you play a couple times a month in a big room, you can continue to do this pretty wide for a long time. Nobody is going to see you enough to adjust.

However if you are a regular playing 30-40 hours a week, they will eventually figure out that you aren't getting AK that frequently and will adjust. If that's the case, you want to make sure you don't get too unbalanced. You'll want to select when you raise.

There's two schools of thought on what to raise. One is to raise SC down to 76 or 65. On about 25% of the flops, you'll have a big hand or a draw. You have enough pure equity to make a cbet and not feel bad if they don't fold. The other is to raise hands that can make TP, like Ax and Kx. Based on board texture and a blocker, you pretty much know where you stand in the hand on the turn. Both have their pros and cons.

ya I think raising bigger is probably better.

$20 does really go Multi way just way too often. And multi way just sucks

That's a little wider than I like but if you're getting away with it then why not? It's pretty important not to get carried away post flop if you face resistance or too many callers.

This coming from someone who 4 be k4s last time out so a grain o salt is necessary.

If we're offering generic paint-by-numbers advice, I'd say that in a typical 1/2nl game that is limpy limpy we should be raising from the HJ, CO, or BTN (one of these spots once per orbit) with basically all broadways, 99+, and 10% worth of our favorite middling SCs and S1Gs (suited 1 gappers)

The real answer is it depends on the table dynamics and if our villains play their hands face up post flop and are fit-n-fold (which 95% of them will be).

We also need to be sensitive to the frequency we do this. I've personally found that if we raise just once per orbit, most villains won't pick up on that. However, if we raise more than once per orbit, our villains tend to notice. If we raise 5 times within two orbits, then our villains will definitely notice.

I personally like to have a sliding scale when I'm raising. I like to start off super wide and then with every subsequent raise tighten my range.

Reason being, our first raises generally get more respect, but if our frequency is a bit high then villains start to notice, then they start to verbalize like, "you're raising again? I knew you were gonna raise..." once that starts happening villains are definitely gonna start looking us up.

Obviously we can't control when we are going to get our big hands, however, if we are sensitive to the table mood then I feel the optimal strategy is to hover right at that threshold raising frequency of three times per two orbits (or whatever the table lets us get away with before we encounter resistance). Then when we do get a monster hand we are more likely to get action ESPECIALLY if we pick up that monster hand right on the heels of raising with our more marginal hands. So that monster hand tips our raising frequency over the limit that the table will bear and now they are in call down mode and we get action on our big hands.

This is something that I'm very good at. If we are mindful of that frequency and are hovering "right" at the edge of what the table will accept, then when we get that big hand it will push us right over that edge and we will get more calls when we want them the most.

The last point I'd like to make is that even if our villains do notice, they don't adjust very well. The way most villains adjust at this level is just by overcalling, or limp/re-raising their monsters. The one adjustment that they rarely do is 3-bet light. That rarely happens in LLSNL, so when we do raise and we get 3-bet we can fold with a high degree of confidence that V has JJ+, AK and usually it will be AA/KK 50% of the time and QQ/AK the other 50%.

If I raise with hands that weak (which I don't against that many limpers, but I'm nitty), I'd want to do it against opponents who limp-fold too much and play fit or fold after the flop. I'm mainly looking to steal because you'll almost never smash the flop. Instead you will almost always flop either nothing or a weak pair.

You're way more likely to take it down right there, even against 5 limpers than you are to smash the flop. And winning it preflop is a great result with junk like Q4s.

If you're frequently getting called by 3 or more players, then the raise is just spew IMO and you should be waiting for better hands and raising for value. If I make those raises, I want to win a lot of pots either preflop or against 1 or 2 opponents on the flop who are playing fit or fold. Making a hand and winning with a good hand is a backup plan when stealing doesn't work, and you'll almost never make a good hand with K3s so you need to steal successfully more often than you would with better hands.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily a spew - if you put in 3 random hands that might call your K3s you will see you still have some equity - but problem is you almost always have to hit the flop as it's very hard to bluff 3 people.

i'd say you have at least 15-20% equity which sucks but if you have position it really adds a lot of value to multi way pots.

as long as you aren't getting 3bet or bluffed off your hand - it's not terrible IMO

At the risk of hijacking this thread, I'm wondering if could pose a related question. When you suspect someone at your table is raising light in LP against several limpers, what is your preferred approach to fighting back?

3-bet light: Is it better to three-bet light out of the blinds, or limp with a top 10% hand to try a three-bet?

Call PF and continue throughout the hand with any connected flop: I've given some thought to simply looking people up when I suspect their doing this, but am always concerned about being OOP and potentially having to call multiple bets light myself.

Once again, more of a paint-by-numbers type of discussion as opposed to a specific hand scenario.