Late reg is closed, 31 players remain, paying top 9

Hero is CO with 60k chips
Villain is BTN and covers Hero (~90k chips)

No significant reads on Villain other than he is a young European player who seems to be a good thinking tournament reg.

Blinds 1000-1500 w/ 1500 BB ante

I open-limp from CO w/ AcQ24r, BTN limps, SB limps, BB check

FLOP ($7500) 8c 9c 4d
c, c,...I bet 6k, BTN calls,...f, f

TURN ($19.5k) As
I bet 19k, BTN jams...?

Don't like the way I played the hand at almost every decision point, especially considering I meant to bet 14k on the turn and accidentally tossed an extra 5k chip in (but not sure that 5k difference changes the action). I welcome your thoughts on all streets, but definitely curious how you'd act here, as played.

Yup, looks horrible. I wouldn't have a limping range, but if I did I'd certainly check the flop. Your hand is decent, not great but you can always call if BTN bets and blinds fold. I don't think you can pot-fold a hand like this OTT, so I think you just need to go with it. I'm not sure if checking is better even.

I don't understand the mindset that leads to limping there.

My mindset, at the time, behind limping was that I don't have a ton of nut potential unless the board runs out wheel cards (since I don't have a flush draw). Since the strength of my hand lies mostly on a lo completing, I limped to allow more players and money into the pot so that if i I do hit I'm chopping a bigger pot, and if I don't I'm investing the minimum to see the flop.

Any merit to that thought process? Or would you reserve that mindset more for early position play, and stay aggressive in late position?

Agree with all this.

Given the blind structure and ante, Hero is heavily incentivized to raise pre, and Hero's exact hand values fold equity. Hero is deep enough that its fine if we bleed a few chips here, but not deep enough that he shouldn't be pushing to accumulate more. Focusing on only the lo potential of Hero's hand is a poor approach.

If we change hero's stack size or hand, I'd be a lot more open to limp here.

@OP I tried to explain this to you already in some other thread. Don't limp to try to win half or something silly like that. Raise and you are knocking players out, hopefully all of them.

Limp is awful and I don't like the flop bet

I think you are getting way too much flak for the limp. Solver limps as often as it raises in this spot. The only issue is your hand is not a good limp candidate as these sort of strong hands that have suitedness issues typically fare better raising.

Do you meant that you simulated the spot with 40bb (with or without ICM) and allowed both limping and raising? Or do you mean just in general ~50bb? Frankly I haven't done any sims that allow CO limps, but still I would recommend it only for the people I play against.

40 bb cap with one bb ante (its a common game in my mix game). Sims like limp and pot, if you remove limp its not a huge EV loss but you have to play a decent bit tighter. Have not looked at ICM but my guess is that it would be a positive to play potentially smaller pots in a tournament (artificially deepen your stack).

Cool. Though not sure about ICM implications, raising to win a pot uncontested in an even better result in that case. Playing a 3-bet pot is a bad result, so probably need to play a lot tighter against 3-bets.

I simulated two options:

1: limp or open 4,5bb (though not sure if it's allowed or if the max open is 3,5bb)
2: open 2,5bb

results

1: limp 13,9% open 18,9%
2: open 30,4%



In general in solver land, having more options is better. I'm genuinely surprised that option 2 captured more EV, but it must be because both given lines in option 1 are weaker than the one possible VPIP-line in option 2 at this stack depth.

My conclusion is that while solver likes to have limps in option 1 it's not because limps are great, it's mainly because big opening sizes are very uncomfortable at this stack depth. I'm sure you can capture even more EV by having limps and many opening sizes, but again that is not something I'd recommend.

I would have a limping range, but this is an awful hand to limp. I would check/reevaluate on the turn.

I'm moving closer to defending the limp. It's not that bad really, maybe not a great hand to limp but it's not a disaster to go 4-way and the lost EV should be minuscule. I still don't like betting the flop though. Hand is mediocre but can turn into nl+pair and then you can get aggressive.

Nod, in most games the max open pre is 3.5 and the bb ante is ignored until postflop. Agree both options are very close in EV. One thing that your post reminded me is that look at how it affects the EV of the BB in particular. If the BB is a bad player limping more is likely good.

Overall what I've learned about PLO games is that limping vs raising and what raising size are really just not a big deal if there is some thought behind it. I like limping because I think it makes me look fishier, and my opponents will start limping with all sorts of awful hands cuz "hey we are all limping now so its fine" but in tournaments I would guess there are other more important factors, especially later on with ICM

Everything y'all are saying makes sense...we do better to raise pf here because we want less resistance against our hand that isn't suited. But I wonder...

Does having the nut flush draw change your approach in this pf spot? Would you limp more often because now you have suitedness, or does that actually bolster your argument for raising?

And one more...

What if there is one limper ahead of me (or even 2) in this spot with my AQ24r? Same question. Would love to hear your thought process in these other spots.

I wouldn't generalize that you should be raising rainbow hands and limping suited hands. It depends what you do against a 3-bet. If you think you can call a 3-bet you are not wasting equity by raise-folding a decent hand. Of course with this thinking you can already argue that you should limp nearly all of your VPIP-range... which is obviously wrong.

With limpers ahead your odds of winning the pot uncontested goes way down, so you need a stronger hand to raise. I'd limp behind with most A2r-hands.