Okay this has to do with hands I almost always open in EP which are not exceptionally strong and very vulnerable postflop, but I still open them anyway because "hey, it's bad to limp"... stuff like 22-99, KQ, AJ

The problem I often notice with them is the flop mostly goes 3 or 4 way+ when I say open to $10/$12 (or even $15) in a 1/2 or 1/3 game, which basically neutralizes the power of initiative.

It's like I can't really cbet all that much and all of us are going to play just fairly straightforward postflop. So I don't see the point of investing $10-$15 with these speculative hands when I could have just seen the flop for $2/$3.

It only ends up as a "milking the pot" activity where I'm "hoping" to flop big and win a huge pot, but the majority of the time, this doesn't happen.

yeah nothing wrong with that. id be limping all of those hands too from early position.

I'd open 88+. The rest depends on stack sizes and take dynamics. 88 will be an overpaid often enough. In shallow games I'd fold AJo and broadways. If deeper, I'd consider balancing with SC and wheel AXs

Just yesterday, H opens $15 in a 1/3 $250 effective game UTG1 over UTG limp with 99, get 3 calls (MP, SB and UTG)

Flop ($60): J54hch
UTG donks $15, all call

Turn ($120): Jc
Checks through

River ($120): 6c
SB bets $40, UTG folds, Hero tank-calls, MP folds

SB shows J9ss

Hero feels disgusted

Look, if your pots are going too multiway, start looking for the pain point. In my 1/2 game it's 25-30 to get it heads up.

I know this is one option but I don't like it so much as I have to narrow my pfr range.

Well, all the hands that you mentioned are gonna do better HU than multiway (except maybe the smaller PPs), so I would either raise bigger with em, or chuck em.

I've been flamed for this before, but I really think it has merit to it....
Open smaller from early position, not limping but 3x it with the hands you mention, it allows you to build a pot that you can play for stacks easily if you flop big, but is not hurting you to just give up with regularity on the flop if it doesn't hit....
The problem I find with limping, is if I do limp 66utg and get 4 callers, the pot is no 5bb, flop comes 66x (lol I wish) and I bet pot, get 1 caller, it's now 15bb
Pot turn,and called makes 45bb, and if I start with 100bb I'm left with 80bb behind..... By limping, if you pot it on every street you are still leaving 40bb behind....

3x with 4 callers:
Flop now has 15x
Bet pit get 1 caller, your now at 45x pot on the turn with 82bb behind, easy to gii over the next two Streets if we want...

If we are playing even deeper it becomes even more important to 'juice' the pot for when we make it big....

"It's bad to limp" as a fixed rule at full ring LLSNL is, IMO, hooey. There are lots of bad reasons to limp, and lots of ways to get in trouble by limping (with routinely limp/calling topping the list), but always raising because someone said "never open limp" strikes me as (for live play) silly. It's probably good advice for beginning players, since I think limping too much (and then calling raises) is probably by far the most common problem at the beginning of one's poker journey. But I believe there are lots of situations in which limping with speculative hands in EP is moderately profitable. However, if you're never going to open limp, you should fold most of the hands you'd like to limp, not raise them.

I'll happily limp small PP in EP pretty purely for set mining, with situations sometimes arising where I can make a move for a little extra value. Stacks are usually deep enough that I can call a reasonable raise. Similarly, I'll sometimes limp, sometimes raise, and sometimes fold SCs, depending on player tendencies and stacks. SCs tend to provide more opportunity to make moves and push people around, since they often flop decent equity.

AJo and KQo are usually folds for me in EP. If I raise any normal amount (which is 5 or 6 BB), I'm 4-way or more OOP with a TP-type hand. If I raise enough to thin the field, I lose too much when someone wakes up with a premium, 3b, and I have to fold.

Limping with these hands is also bad: even more callers with even better implied odds while my hand hasn't gotten any better. Even if I play only to flop 2P+, it's hard to make much money because the board will be scary.

I'll play these in EP only if the field is weak and I have some good reads that will let me cut losses or maximize wins.

On another note, we shouldn't be deciding "I'm opening these hands" and then deciding how we're opening them. We should be deciding "Opening this hand in this way will be profitable because..." for each of them. And that should change depending on the players at your table.

The way you phrase OP, it's like you've decided you have to open AJo and are now saying you'd rather limp than raise. But I think you shouldn't open it at all. Similarly, you shouldn't be convinced you're opening 22 UTG and then wondering which way to do it. You should be evaluating limping (which means you're not going to get all-in as easily if you flop a set, but maximizes your IO if you get raised by a big hand), or raising small (which means your implied odds are likely trashed if you get RR, but you can more often get AI against strong but not monstrous hand), or raising larger (which cuts your implied odds if you do flop the set but lets you represent a TP type hand on some flops) or folding (which means you're not going to get set/set as often).

I try not to think of starting hands, but starting situations. And maximizing EV in different situations requires different strategies.

(To be clear, I'm not suggesting every hand requires a 30-minute dissertation before I can fold, limp, or raise; most situations come up repeatedly and so don't require a lot of thought. I am suggesting that modifying my strategy to match other players' tendencies is critical to extracting the most money.)

FWIW I think this is the single most important topic regarding live play. And I think your title captures perfectly why limping is merited.

I've often said that Id like to see what an adaptable AI would do in a typical live setting...and Id believe it would limp alot.

The best live player I've ever seen (by a very, very wide margin) has a wide open limping / over limping game.

Ive seen him limp pps as strong as TT, but imo the most interesting ones I find are his open limping of suited Broadway's (so far I've seen as strong as KJs in ep) and over limping of very strong suited aces (he overlimped AQs the other day in a straddled pot after 3 mp limps)

His post flop play is exceptional. It is clear he thinks about the game at a very high level. I have played with him enough to believe his wr is 20bb/hour. And honestly I don't believe most 10bb/hour claims of wr even from good players.

I'd pay any sum of money for him to coach me.

It is always going to be table specific and geared to your particular skills sets. At a table where players are only raising with monsters pf (where AK is considered a drawing hand) and playing fit or fold, then limping is fine with suited broadways, pairs, etc. if you are strong post flop. The vast majority of players, let alone posters aren't strong post flop in LLSNL. If the average player tries this at a table where people understand the value of position and raising, he's going to lose a lot of money. He'll be unbalanced and mostly be folding or worse, calling with RIO hands that can't stand pressure.

I'll will submit that most people on this forum have no clue what hands in what positions make them money and which ones lose them money. As the founding mod of this forum, KurtSF, said, almost all of a winning LLSNL player's profits can be accounted by holding AA pf and having the button. Everything else is meta-game.

Just about everybody in this forum could improve their winrate by dropping the bottom of their calling range in any position. I'm confident that the majority could improve their winrate by dropping the middle of their range in EP, too.

I would actually drop AJ/KQ from EP altogether and simply fold them.

The smaller pairs things is really table dependent. Lately I've decided most tables I play at (very loose and aggro preflop but not very payoffy postflop) that small pairs probably ain't profitable OOP, so I'm folding them preflop too.

I have pretty much one single goal with a raise: narrow the field (preferably HU), and preferably to a manageable SPR (either a very small one where I can commit or a decent sized one to give me lots of room to bet/fold). If a raise is unlikely to accomplish that goal, then I don't raise. Others will disagree with this idea and think I'm passing up on way too much value, but value is a tricky thing (i.e. if I constantly get myself into disgusting postflop spots OOP where I'm potentially making big mistakes, I'll pass on the preflop value thanks).

GcluelessNLnoobG

This is one of the conclusions I've come to as well, especially as my game becomes a lot less lol payoffy postflop. AA/KK, as much as we'd all hate to admit it, actually makes up a stunning portion of our profit, with everything else lagging far behind (and, as you say, are almost for meta-game so people can't just simply put us on AA/KK when we're in a pot, or at the very least a lot more so than most probably realize). And the importance of position can't be overstated, and is probably the single biggest factor on whether any other particular hands is profitable or not. At least to us mere mortals.

GimoG

Given your quest for tighter and tighter play pretty soon AA and KK will account for all of your profit

cAwhoknowsmaybewisebutnotmuchfunAm

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Are you pot tickling with your entire range? I.e. What are you doing with JJ+?


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I don't agree that limping is better just because you don't have much initiative/range advantage in multiway pots. Look, if you raise and you're always getting a bunch of callers with weak ranges, that's a *good* thing, not bad. If it's profitable to be in there as a limp and get 4 limps behind, then I think it's going to be much more profitable to be in there as a raise and get the same 4 callers behind. I just don't see how it can mathematically not be true (as long as we're not often crossing the threshold of playing for stacks).

I think the rake makes this even more important. I want to make the pot big enough so that subsequent bets aren't taxed at over 10% (including tip). Furthermore, I want the SB/BB to relinquish their equity in the pot and give away their blind money when they have a hand like J2o (or pay to play). I want early position limpers with stuff like 57o to do the same - either fork up more money, or relinquish their equity/investment in the pot.

The only time I start limping a lot is when there are some short stacks on the table that are limping. Then I mostly just start raising hands I'd be ok GII with against some of the shorties. This is somewhat of a linear adjustment. Like if everybody has 200BB+ stacks, I'm almost never limping or overlimping (except perhaps times when I sense a limp/rr). If there are some 100BB stacks, I'll start limping a little bit. 60BB stacks, limping more. And 10-30BB stacks, I'll limp quite often.

If we're playing in a 100bb game, raise to 5bbs preflop, and go 5ways to the flop, the SPR will be 3.8. We're going to be put to stack committing decisions almost immediately, no?

GcluelessNLnoobG

What game (including max BI) is this? Are there straddles?

In the games I play, I tend to think that I'd probably be close to 20BB/hour if I only ever played my A game, but I definitely admit to various leaks and spewiness that would keep me well below that. My current upswing - my last 170 hours - is at 25.3 BB / hour, though (and much of it has been decidedly *not* my A game + I feel like I've been cold-decked in this time as much as I've cold-decked others), so I'll see how long I can keep this going. And again, I rarely limp and am almost always opening more often than anybody else at the table.

No, I use it when I have a speculative hand, if I have a decent hand I'll make it 6x usually....
I know this sounds terra-bad exploitable, but it actually puts in the same spot as open limping Imo, but with a pot that we can play for stacks when we do hit a flop.....

There are a really limited number of players in my playing pool that I am concerned woukd pick up on this, in fact I know one reg who I chat to does, but I dont really care...I would say that at least 100% Of my profit comes from fish explotation, I'm sure I am a net loser to the 'good' regs but I beat up on fish better than most...Imo...and this is just a method for doing that.
If you sit down with a bunch of decent players, this is a terrible idea, but equally if you stuck playing with a bunch of good regs, with no table change available, go hit the bar, watch a movie, do something other than reg on reg blind passing and dribbling money to the rake.....Unless your all free rolling a bad beat jackpot of course.....

Who cares if you dont get your whole stack in when you have 66 in EP and flop a set? The only thing that matters is risk/reward. You can bet you're going to have an easier time winning 7.5 times your preflop risk if you limp and hit a set with 66 than if you raise and hit a set.

Mike you play mostly 2/5. Are you telling me you limp in ep with small pps and don't usually end up limp/calling a raise?


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When I play 5/10, its pretty hard to try to limp in like that because most pots are raised, but at 2/5 there are plenty of limped pots. But anyway, if there is a hand you can get away with limping in and calling a raise in EP, a small pocket pair would be the one.

At 5/10 Id rather just fold the small ones in EP. The benefit of raising them at 5/10 over 2/5 or lower is that you will get less callers. So you might actually get it it HU if you raise 66 at 5/10 and be able to take it down on the flop with a CBet, but the problem is that at 5/10 you will get floated on the flop a hell of a lot more and then you are in no mans land on the turn.

So as a default strategy with no reads, I prefer to fold them in EP at 5/10 and limp them at 2/5 or lower. If you limp them at 2/5 or lower and there is a raise, there's a very good chance its going to get called multiple times and now you can call the raise also so its not like youre just burning money by limp/folding them over and over.

Yeah, that's my thinking as well (at least at good payoff stationy tables). Also, in smaller stacked games, the smaller stacks are still in play in a limped pot so all raising does is destroy our implied odds.

GcluelessNLnoobG