I'm playing the $50 or $100 local live Tourneys. (20min levels, starting at 100bb)
The field is 80% incompetent players, limping every other pot, snapping preflop raises, overcalling with 98o, etc. I do well in the early levels, but does it really matter a lot? The later levels are so much more important.

When the average stack gets to around 10-15bb, play just gets ridiculously passive, and I don't know how to adjust. Every strong hand seems to be limped. Everybody seems to know that an open means QQ+, so nobody can open anymore, because everybody would know what they have. So everybody limps everything.

On the other hand, there are complete donks limping along with garbage. Others will often limp-fold up to TT and AQ at 10bb. So it seems like jamming should win big-time. It continues to amaze me, how many times they limp in EP and then need 2 minutes to decide if they can call my jam.
Still, my jam/fold strategy is not working out too well. After all, they are not totally ignorant and start to notice that I am capable of jamming e.g. A8s over limpers.

Of the last 60 attempts, I busted about ~20 times against JJ+, half of the time limped, half of the time the button or blinds found a monster. A grandpa in his 80s busted me twice with limped AA and once with limped AK, but I also have seen him limp Q8o UTG.

So, how do I adjust???
How do I play hands like A8s if two or more idiots limped in?
Is it possible that the best strategy is to also limp along a lot?

I drives me crazy, that the combined errors of idiots limping JJ+ in EP and other idiots limping along with anything cannot be exploited. From a birds-eye perspective, it looks like the EP Monster-limper is giving away equity to the blinds and all the along-limpers just give some back to him, so the idiots as a group cannot be exploited despite everybody playing rather suboptimal.

I still have ROI of 30+%, most online players would probably die for that, but live it boils down to about $7/hour. Just sad, I cannot play 20-30 of those per day.

live donkaments are dead, go online

Isn't it the other way around?

Yesterday, right after posting this, I played. Oh boy.
Of 6 hands I opened in the first levels, I was limp-raised 5 times.
I had the bottom of my range 4 times (like A9o, KJo) and let it go, only to realize that this time an unknown donk had limp-jammed with A6s and KTs, which I dominated both times.
The 5th time I had QQ and obviously called the limp-jam of UTG who had KK.

In the later levels I was down to 6bb after allowing the SB to see a flop instead of jamming.
I then jammed 6 hands in one orbit (legit ones getting better every time A4, A6, A8, 66, TT, JJ) and nobody was even close to calling. They are so afraid of flips at this stage! Even though it looked like I was jamming anything, one guy opened AJo and folded to my 14bb jam.
In this one orbit I went from 6 to 19bb (due to ante).
Unfortunately the last jam with JJ was happily called by AK and I went busto instead of taking the chip-lead.

To answer your question:

VALUE BET

To question your answer:
Is A8o in the HJ a value bet (raise) over 2 limpers?

I would tend to say yes but depends on their post flop tendencies. If they are passive fish then absolutely.

It's impossible to say... Assign ranges and profile the limpers (honest limper, tricky limper, passive limper or aggro limper) then check equities on Equilab (vs 1 or 2 )

That's exactly my trouble. Categorizing the limpers. Especially with 2 or more at the same time. Most are honest,passive and tricky. It is considered a valid play to limp-jam KK in this player pool.

YES

It's called isolating the limpers. You want to get hu ip versus a loose passive players. It doesn't really matter what you have really. It's what you do and if you have position.

You want to take initiative with these passive folks. You see in their mind you couldn't possibly have A8 ... you're strong! So you isolate and the flop comes x x x and they check and you bet and they fold because most of the time they whiff.

You dig?

If they limp jam they are turning their hands face up and they get to win an 11bb pot ... whoopie for them

Nice schooling, assuming that I never heard about isolation. I automatically try to isolate, but the problem is that in these games I just cannot succeed, 80% of times at least one idiot behind is calling, which also makes the limpers call.
Strangely enough, it also happens that the blinds call and the limpers fold. It is just pretty unpredictable.

Yes, there is the nitty type of idiot, who will have QQ+. I think I have those booked. But on the occasion, I had my A8 limp-raised by A6 and my KJ by KT. Different kind of idiot. Now also in database.

I think you are just feeling like you should win every time because they are playing so awfully. A 30% ROI in a tourney that probably has a 20-25% rake is a very solid result.

Exactly. Entitlement Extreme.
30% over ~100 starts is not very reliable, too.

I just feel I run bad on flips and vs limpers.
I ran like god in one, interestingly enough it was due to excessive limping, too. I made hands in the BB multiple times with holdings which I would never defend.

If I could dodge more of those limped monsters, I should be totally crushing it.
On the other hand a lot of my chips come from the limpers...

Umm if I win 11 blinds pre uncontested I'm pretty happy with that except for KK/AA. That's a large chip up to most stacks in most structures.

Especially when average stack is 10bb

No.

Raise hands with more playability such as suited hands and fold this.

You've shown up with a worse version of the hand then they expect you to have (AK). That'll show 'em.

Hey Sparky do you feel like you've learned something?

Raise your best hands (AQ+, 99+), polarize it when they noticed the tendency.

Limp you most playable hands (suited connectors, small pairs and suited ace) and play postflop.

Fold your garbage A8o. If you raise and get called or limp you risk being against hands that dominate you and when you get your ace you don't really know where you're at. If you raise and get jammed, you loose your raise.

And finally play position.

When you get 10BB deep, play Nash, you can't limp fold anymore.

im just saying - if u openly mark you fellow man as an "idiot", maybe you could consider working towards your EQ improvements - empathy and stuff.

How to adjust to a bunch of idiots? = underbluff and over value bet

I played in some live games (lower stakes) like this and managed to do fairly well in them.

What I done was;

Accepted much of the play would be post flop and focused on players I can spot clear post flop weaknesses.

Made my most played hands in the suited connectors sort of range (dropped rag aces etc, they play terrible multi way, often) so I am looking for killer hands (straights/flushes) or easy folds to aggression.

Accepted at some points I was going to have to take all in risks. Rather than doing this blind PF, I'd look for spots I could make small bets flop/turn and large river (perhaps shove) bets. Obviously semi bluffs were most favorable for these load up and push bluffs (sometimes backing into strong made hands).

When I did have legitimately strong hands, I'd play them far stronger vrs limpers, in case they'd come in with JJ vrs my KK or something of the sort, I was not worred about burning my strong hands since I'd rather not play AA vrs 3-4 people anyway. Give me a 56s over aces 4 way.

If iso raising works, then that is a great thing to do but I found iso raising actually just meant I ended up in a larger pot hating the flop 80% of the time because too many tagged along, too often.

In short, I adapted to mainly playing straight/flushes sort of hands and acted passively but aimed to pick up bigger pots by playing far looser turn/river, as the situation suited it.

I thought i probably had a bit of a technical skill edge over the other players and, as such, I took advantage of the chance to get cheap infomation in limped pots. If I was right that I had a skill edge, seeing more cards may often benefit me more than the other players.

An added benefit of this style of play is that your big river bets can often get hands like a limped JJ and certainly AK off the pot. I know I for one certainly rarely want to call a river shove vrs a barrel better when I limped with JJ. Mnay boards are ugly for JJ on the river.