Was wondering if you guys have any minimum requirements to limp along in the SB.

My current strategy is: "What hands can flop quads? That's right, every hand can flop quads!"

must have 4 cards

I try to fold a alot. SB is the worst position. Calling with any 4 will get you in many difficult spots postflop.

[x] the sarcasm police

In all seriousness, if you aren't going to raise with it, why limp with it? You will just get into alot of difficult situations with alot of bad draws. Not to mention you are playing OOP. If you must limp, limp with coordinated, suited hands.

i think its ok to limp the sb alot at the micros as the BB isnt going to punish us asmuch as they willat higher stakes. It also avoids us getting into awkward positions and bloating pots OOP when 3 bet if they BB is aggressive

i only overlimp SB with hands i'd raise in the CO. bajunky hands are just asking for trouble.

As a rule of thumb, you should probably never openlimp from the SB. If you're gonna play the hand, raise. Obviously, if BB is giving you a hard time, 3betting you alot etc, there might be room for adjustment. However, if the dude on your direct left proves to be a tough player, the best thing to do is simply change seat/table rather than coming up with a high-variance plan to counter him.

Regarding overlimping, I only have 1 piece of advice: Look for reasons to fold rather than to call. For example, people complete hands like K886 with a suited king. This is pretty horrible. You'll always end up hitting a second best hand, in the worst position possible in a multiway pot. Hold'em principles don't apply here. It's not because you only have to call $1 into $11 that you have to call. A recurrent statistic in a lot of solid players' game is a low SB VPIP.

The latter applies to today's standard games. If people on your client stack off with bottom two or the 8 high flush, by no means should you fold a hand like K886ss from the SB. On most sites however, people aren't this bad anymore.

Here are my general rules of thumb:

Overlimping: If the pot will be multiway then I'm ok overlimping with: raggy pairs from about 99-qq, and maybe even the worst combinations of kk and aa. If I had aa72r I don't think I would raise at small stakes with more than 1 limper, because nobody will fold, they'll all instantly put you on a big pair or high cards. I'd probably also limp along with stuff like medium gappy rundowns, 5578 type hands, and maybe 3 middling connectors with a suited king or queen and pretty much any double paired hand with both pairs lower than a 10. I hate raising from the blinds without a really strong hand, because you just end up oop in a pot with difficult SPR multiway.

If it's folded to us in the sb there are some situations where I think it's fine to limp. Say the BB is a passive 70/5 or something, I hate raising loose here because we never steal the blinds. However since we hardly ever get raised I'm probably open-limping most of my overlimping range and looking to hit a nice flop and get value from the calling station. However if the BB is a decent aggressive player, 27/18 or something, I'm going to play really tight and fold lots, and only really raise with like my UTG+1 range or so, since if he's any good he should be calling our open 80% of the time and making our life hell post flop. If villain is somewhere in the middle then I tend to play more in the middle. Obviously if he's a nit at like 10/2 then I'm open-raising almost my button range and c-betting quite liberally.

and at least half a big blind remaining in your stack

I play quite tight from SB, so i limp with hands that have bigplay potential when multiway.
AArainbow, KK, QQ, stuff like A875suited ace, A99xsuited ace. Thats about all. Try to avoit hands without a suited aces.

how big should sb vpip be compared to overall vpip?
someone post their positional stats please?
i know this depends alot how u play bvb and how passive the games are and stuff but still...

Personally I limp the SB pretty tight on small stakes (25PLO/50PLO). At the flop you play the worst postion possible.

Assuming there are one or two callers at least I limp with descent pair (TTxx and higher), all suited ace hands (Axxx single or double suited), and higher rundown like hands (6789, 889T).

This is assuming you are not in the position to bluff. Pots with just one limper (on full ring sometimes two, depending on the players) are ideally to bluff and win small pots in my eyes, however it depends heavily on the villains and their way of playing flops/turns.

I agree with the sentiments of playing v tight from the small blind and 'looking for reasons to fold'

I'm not sure about open-limping in the SB tho.
Because if it's folded round to SB and SB raises, then BB has to call 2~2.5 bb with 4 already in the pot and he is guaranteed position for the rest of the hand. The combination of pot odds and position makes the BB's call very attractive. So we will probably be v rarely stealing the blinds unless BB is a total wuss.
On the other hand if we limp, BB will usually raise and we have to play the pot OOP and without the initiative which also sucks.

2222 - AAAA can't.

touché.... didn't think about that. Obv. 222x can't flop quads either. I do fold trips and worse though so I guess my personal requirement is: if it can flop quads I'm in!

But on a more serious note: the danger of limping along (not talking about open-limping) is being dragged into pots with non-nut hands/draws. But if you think you're capable of recognizing and folding the "trouble-hands", and occasionally open-bluff the flop, shouldn't limping along with any hand that can flop quads be fine?

BTW, quite surprised to see so many play this tight, so I'm definately having 2nd thoughts about this strategy.

I agree with some of the tighter limping ranges that people have already suggested.

My VPIP is 26.2% from the SB and my PFR is 16.7%. I am limping the top 74%-83% of hands from the SB. I think I play way too loose from the SB and I'm burning a lot of money here.

I also 3bet 7% from the SB. My overall stats are 25/19.4 3bet 7.5

So you play more hands from worst position than you play overall. That cannot be good. 3 bet of 7% seems very high, too.

One reason for me to play tight from sb and bb is the fact that whenever i play 9 tables, which i do most of the time, i just check the "auto fold button" whith most of the sb holdings. So i can focus on hands at other tables. I dont really care if a button is stealing my blinds. I am sure i make more money from people who defend their blinds way to much than i loose to blind stealers.

+1 for the autofold button. PLO is so different to NLHE in this aspect, you can't add random total junk hands to your range when you 3bet a very liberal BTN opener from the blinds, since they'll call most of the time and you'll find yourself in atrocious spots postflop.

Totally agree that profit in PLO doesn't come from targeting loose BTN openers.

[QUOTE=realsheesha;17823864]Obv. 222x can't flop quads either.
QUOTE]

What about a flop of xxx?

Also, I think it's ok to limp wider the more players there are in the pot as a general rule. And I still advocate open limping certain hands vs a passive BB. However multiway limped pots are a rarity in 6-max so i usually just fold.

I complete most playable hands but I also donk on a lot of flops like 336 or when I have some good backdoor potential.

I isn't good

Average players = 5.4



Players equal to 6

i also have sb vpip higher than overall, although the numbers from blinds are "positive" if i discount the blinds i think theres some leaks....
i mean at plo25 iwe lost ~1100$ from sb in 25k hands or so, doesnt this mean that if i never play sb i will lose 2500$?
its quite confusing to me since it seems im playing ok from blinds, all other seats are positive and am still only a marginal winner...

@ alea: Which limit are you Playing ?

If it is a multi way, unraised pot, i usually limp from the small blind with a higher range of hands, when compared to a short handed (4 or under) pot. The only reason to play a hand from the small blind is the big play potential, straight and flush draws. If you flop a straight and flush draw, there isn't too much to think about, just get it in. Where it becomes complicated is when you put yourself in the small blind with a hand that is difficult to play multi way, i.e. qq28 raindow etc. When you flop a set you have the best hand, on the flop. The goal is to make the best hand on the river, especially in PLO where you are playing for stacks, not value. Heads up I tighten my range, no reason to play a hand in that position. Think of hands that play well multi way and try to find spots to play them in the small blind. VPIP from SB should be definitely the lowest out of all the positions.