I apologize for posting three threads in one day - this is the last thread for the day, promised. I just had three ideas in my notes that I was looking to get answers to.

In the same way I have no clue when to 3 bet from BB, I have no idea when to raise from BB with one or more limpers.

For example, should we be raising from BB when there's four loose passives limping to us in BB and we have ATo? KQo? 77? Should we be raising rather liberally, expecting at least one call, then c betting any flop that we have a range advantage on?

Thank you in advance for your responses, this is a spot that has been giving me serious trouble and something I need work on.

Imo position matters most in exploiting weak limpers, I'd rather play a random hand against them from the button than AT from the bb.

I'd probably raise all three of those hands, they're all pretty borderline though.

Personally don’t think it’s necessary to apologize for three threads in a day. Posters should easily be able to ignore a thread if they want.

I try to pay close attention to what people’s limp/calling range is, and that makes this question a lot easier to answer. Some super nits limp hands as strong as A-Qs.

For your three hands though, I agree with mdelore. Only thing that I’ll add is that I take my current image into consideration as well.

Also, of the three the one that I would be less interested in popping to $30 is the A-10, because I find a fair number of players limp A-J. KQo has more playability multiway OOP imo. Also, even most nits think A-Q and A-K are raising hands so KQo is very strong when it limps to you in the big blind because of this.

So I’d punish the limpers most often with 77 and KQo, and about half the time with A-10o.

So we're going $30 here? I never raise pre that big, I always do $10 + BB/limper, though I do go slightly larger from SB/BB, so in that situation I would be going $20-$25. Even though I don't open that big normally, would you still recommend going $30 in that spot?

Playing out of the blinds sucks.

I probably never raise 77. Against 1 or 2 opponents I'm not thrilled about playing this hand OOP. I usually like having a slightly larger field with these hands so that if I hit a set there's a good chance someone else caught enough of a piece to pay me off.

KQo is almost always a raise. Even against 3 or 4 opponents TP2K is going to be a pretty strong hand.

ATo is the borderline one. T high flops connect with a lot of limping hands, and A high flops you risk running into kicker problems or someone else pairing their Ax. If I think I can knock out some limpers and get it heads up or 3 way, I'll raise. Otherwise, it's a timid check.

So I assume you're not raising hands like A5s because of the kicker problems outweigh the strength of the hand? I also have to assume that you're probably raising 88 in these scenarios, correct?

Huh? If I'm raising A5s it's as a semi-bluff. But I'm not thrilled about getting action on a A high board with either AT or A5s.

I'm also not thrilled with 88 either. Pairs lower than JJ get tricky to play postflop in multiway pots, because the number of good flops where you can play OOP drops exponentially as the pair gets smaller. 99/TT fall into the same grouping as ATo. If I can knock out some limpers, great. But in multiway pots they become setmining hands, and I usually don't want to bloat the pot preflop if I'm setmining.

I'd check every one, but I'm passive like that. All the hands are very mediocre, they rarely want to build a large pot, a large raise will likely be needed to have any chance at thinnig the field after 4 limpers, and we'll be OOP to boot.

GbutI'msuperpassivelikethatG

If you're proficient enough you could raise them, but if you have to ask you're probably not and might as wel check :P.

yeah, I think checking all those hands are clearly better than making a huge pot OOP with trap hands that will have kicker trouble

The importance of this point can't be overstated. If you're a wizard, you can obviously do whatever you want. But otherwise, you can't just raise preflop cuz the forum tells you to cuz they ain't gonna be there to hold your hand thru the postflop action.

GplaywithinyourskillsetG

When I play online for 1/10th the stakes I play for live, I get sucked into the trap of saying "I'm better than these jamokes, I can play trap hands out of position because of my SUPERIOR POSTFLOP SKILL"

...Forgetting that a big part of the profit in poker comes from playing better starting hands in later position than your opponents are playing most of the time

So no, don't bomb it with ATo from the big blind when everyone will lol cawl

In two sentences you've summarized a very large reason for why most losers lose and most winners win, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

In $1/$2 NL likely go $20 with KQo since it blocks more nutty hands than the other two. More often than not, tapping the table with ATo/77.