**** WARNING somewhat theoretical though tried to keep it simple. Also this is not news to any experienced posters, more a general response to a lot of posts i see from new players, regurgitating old advice ****

You here a lot of 'rules' thrown around here such as 'never limp with anything' or ' dont 3bet fold AK' which roughly translates into 'Dont raise to see where your at '

While these are good rules to start with to get you started with they dont apply without a clause.

"When facing an aggressive, competent opponents"

Then these rules work well and should be adhered to. An aggressive competent opponent will exploit the hell out of you if you do any of the above. A lot of people, particularly fish will not.

I will try to explain my thinking with an example

In a typical live 9 handed live game it is perfectly normal and correct to limp utg with small-mid pocket pairs. If you dont agree just think about it, assume a loose passive table.

A lot of online players who aren't familiar with live play dont get this straight away because duh limping is bad, everyone knows that. Yes limping is bad in some circumstances but is also correct in others like above, your rules dont always apply.

Of course if do that online in a 50nl 6max game say goodbye to your money. When you limp like this you are horrendously unbalanced and the regs are able to put you in awful spots, but if your in a hand vs passive fish who cares?

Imo this can be taken further, another example can be 3bet/4bet folding vs fish

Say we have AK and a fish opens, we 3bet. This is easy since they are going to continue with a range we dominate. But if he 4bets and you post the hand in here most people will say is

'Dont 3bet/fold AK JJ etc because your turning it into a bluff'

This is advice from a completely different scenario with different variables to consider. It essentially leaves you with two absurd options. Missing out on huge value by just calling against a very wide range WE crush or putting in more money against a very tight range that crushes US. This is a huge mistake imo, 3bet or 4bet folding can be perfectly acceptable in some spots if their ranges allow for it. It is the best way to exploit THEIR horrendously unbalanced range. It doesn't matter we're so unbalanced because their natural passive nature doesn't exploit it.

Tbh if your uncomfortable with this concept think of it this way, when you bet/fold your top pair all day long its no different. you expect to get called by much worse and only raised by better, a hugely exploitable yet winning strategy... Poker rules limit your range of options and hence ways to exploit the oh so easily exploited fish.

Cliffs:
-fish dont pay attention
-therefore we can play hyperexploitable vs them including breaking a lot of 'poker rules', that are designed to protect us from being exploited by good aggro players, yet only limit our options against fish.
-OP said the word exploit too much

i think your examples are a bit simple, but nice post

Massive +1

I dont play live often so cant really comment on the limping stuff but when you see hands on here where people post stuff like 'So your turning AK into a bluff now...' etc etc it drives me crazy. Same with 'if your not comfortable getting 4bet then you shouldnt 3bet in the first place'. Just random statements that make no sense when you think about it.

I think a lot of the problems arise from the fact people don't acknowledge the different lines villain can take in a given hand. For instance using the example of 3betting AK and then getting 4bet by a 53/2 type player, people tend to analyse the spot as do we 5bet or fold, and come to the conclusing that folding makes your AK a 3bet bluff. Instead we need to look at the whole spot and aknowledge that we so rarely get 4bet, the 3bet gets its value from when we are flatted and doesnt lose any EV to a 4bet because it happens so little.

Probably a lot of rambling there lol. Basically saying I agree with your post. Gotta love it though when you see a reg make this mistake in your games and double up a fish sitting to your right

There was a thread a few days ago where someone 3bet aks against a btn open and got 4bet and didnt know what to do. Everyone said well we should have a plan without detailing what the plan they would addopt would be. It doesn't change the fact we should obv 3bet in the first place.

So why should we?

yeah, you can add "don't bet/raise if you don't know what to do vs. a raise" to the list. its pretty bad to pass up very obvious value bets/raises only because you'd be in a gross spot if you got raised, especially in cases where you won't get raised all that often.

Yay that was me! Still don't know what I should do. In reality I 5b called and got there v KK.

Pretty much falling in the same line is the "don't call turn if you're going to fold this card" in gross spots people get into. Case in point was a deuces cracked vid where a guy submitted a hand in which he called turn, rivered the broadway straight on a paired board, bet, got raised. Someone commented saying don't call turn if you're folding the river, but sort of ignored that we obviously don't expect to get raised all that much. It's usually wrong to say that because we can be missing value for the sake of playing timid, and that it's never right to compound one mistake by feeling obligated to make another larger one.

OP

Good post...I agree with your sentiment completely, although not necessarily with your examples. However, I don't think you have explained the reasons all these conventions exist the first place.

The rise of multi-table grinding in online poker has enabled exponents of the art to deduce largely mathematically optimised plays against a range of expected players at any given stake (in this case micros). Applying these tactics/conventions/whatever, becomes a mathematical necessity. If you stray off on an individual player/hand basis, you are corrupting your own playing model.

Allow me to give an example of this thesis in action from the world of football (soccer). In the eighties a chap called Charles Hughes, the FA Director of Coaching, wrote a book called The Winning Formula in which he identified The Position of Maximum Opportunity (POM). He noticed that however a team played, most goals originated from a point just outside the penalty area and therefore if you put a big strong player in this position and punted the balll to him from all over the park, eventually your goals will come. It is irrelevent whether or not this is complete cr@p (but for the record many teams, all over the world adopted it, and some still do) the important point was, any team playing this style, had to do it for 90 minutes...no exceptions, no adjustments, no deviations.

Thus for multi table grinders to profitably exploit the edge they have against the range of players at the micro level, they must not deviate from their defined strategies, whatever they may be and even if they think they have identified an individually better position.

Of course, this approach is easily exploited by single table "knowing" regs, but that is of no consequence, since there are way more fish in the micros than any other type of player. And by fish here, I mean as the op says, a player regardless of style, who is not watching and reading the table.

- What you say about 3b/folding to a 4bet is totally right. There are enough fish that will call 3bets superlight and 4bet with AA/KK or even not KK. Therefore when we are 3betting them we are crushing their calling range. If we get 4bet we are beat but that's like 1% of the time...

- I don't agree about the limping strategy you say in live games. I only overlimp 22-88 when I'm in LP and even then I don't do it often. Limping UTG and UTG+1 I think is never ever profitable, maybe if you play against 8 other passive fish but that is never the case. When they play loose-passive you better end up folding those hands in EP (on a FR table).

What is of more interest to me (since I don't multi table) is do multi tabling strategies allow for balanced approaches.

A classic example would be, does a multi table grinder ever limp AA UTG? A good single player would be carrying out this line 10% to 20% of the time for balance (deception). I have never seen a reg 2+2 poster, post an AA hand played this way and if anybody did such a post, they are going to get slaughtered despite the fact it is a perfectly normal play for online single table or live players. I once posted a KK (in the BB) hand that I just called a 3 way limp. I posted because I had a post flop question. I need not have bothered, everybody just queued up to slaughter my pre flop play. Ironically, my pre flop call was accidental, when I explained this, I got slaughtered for posting an "accidental" hand. Even more ironic, that night I watched Doyle Brunson call cowboys in the BB in a four way limped pot in a live game.

I rest my case.

Limping AA UTG only balances your range if you're limping other hands there, which we're not, are we?

In 99% of cases limping/flat calling KK in a m/w hand is just bad for so many reasons.

Balancing your limping range is like the last thing I'd ever want to do. It just sound horrific.

lol @ doyle, he wouldnt beat 100nl 6max

Nice job justifying an accidental play. And how can somebody 'Call' in the bb in a limped pot?

Under the right conditions, limping can be profitable and the optimal strategy, but the circumstances in which that is the case almost never exist in online games (or, for that matter, in most live games). To figure when this might be the case, we need to think about the reasons that limping is not profitable. When the conditions are such that these are not applicable, then limping can be profitable.

The goal of limping is to see the flop cheaply (i.e., for 1bb) with a hand which is weak and will usually not win the pot, but which has the potential to hit a big hand and win a big pot. The reasons it is a bad strategy in almost all cases are:

(1) It tells any decent player that the limper has a mediocre hand that wasn't good for a raise.*

(2) The limper foregoes the opportunity to steal the blinds. Winning the hand preflop with a mediocre/weak hand is a good result, but the limper never has a chance to do so.

(3) It often/usually fails at its goal of seeing the flop cheaply. In just about any online game, even bad regs are going to isolate to 4bb and the limper winds up having to pay 4bb to see the flop. By open raising, the prospective limper actually sees the flop for 3bb instead of 4bb and has the initiative.

(4) Even when it does work, when the limper does hit a big hand, he hasn't built a pot to win a decent amount from his opponents. For example, Mr. Limper limps 55 utg and gets one overlimper, who calls down pot-sized bets on every street after hero flops a set. Preflop bet: 1bb; Flop bet: 3.5bb, Turn bet: 10.5bb, River bet: 31.5; Total winnings: 48bb. If he had opened to 3.5x, got a caller who calls down pot-sized bets on every street after hero flops a set, the bet sizes are as follows: Preflop bet: 3.5bb; Flop bet: 8.5bb, Turn bet: 25.5bb, River bet: 76.5; Total winnings: 115.5bb. The only way Mr. Limper wins a stack by limping is by overbetting one or more of the streets post flop. Very few villains are dumb enough to call big overbets when Mr. Limper starts going crazy with bets after the flop.

* While it is true that a limper can also sometimes limp strong hands like AA or AK to balance the limping range, this makes those strong hands less profitable. The profit lost by foregoing a round of betting with AA is massive (take a look at the difference above) - the limper would be better off open-raising the hands he would normally limp with; even if the extra 2bb is unprofitable, the losses from opening weak hands are dwarved by the extra profit of playing AA and other strong hands normally.

In short, limping makes you so exploitable, in most games even the poor opponents will be able to exploit it. However, based on the reasons why it is usually bad, you can see that it can be appropriate to open-limp in a game where:

(1) All of your opponents left to act are playing level 1 poker and aren't thinking about what you might hold. The fact that you are broadcasting your starting hand range is irrelevant, because your opponents are trying (or aren't able) to exploit your highly exploitable play.

(2) All of your opponents left to act are loose, so that your chances of stealing the blinds are low the foregone value of attempting a steal is insignificant.

(3) All of your opponents left to act are very unlikely to put in an isolation raise. You can actually see the flop for cheap.

(4) Most importantly, your opponents are deep and clueless enough to call overbets and stack off in a limped pot with a TPGK type of hand. Therefore, you still get paid just as much when you hit as when you had open raised.

The foregoing conditions are pretty much never all met in online poker, so open limping is pretty much always bad. Even at a juicy table, there is usually at least one reg who is going to isolate a limp. More importantly, any whale willing to call down overbets in a limped pot will go broke lightening quick online (they go broke live as well, but at a slower pace).

In my (limited) live experience, I generally haven't seem games meeting the criteria in live poker either. About the only time I have seen them all met was at a home cash game after a charity poker tournament for a private school with plenty of booze going round. <Sniffle> Thinking about that night still makes me misty-eyed with nostalgia.

You mean he checked behind? Was he very short? Otherwise I just can't get it. I understand EP limping in FR loose games, but checking behind KK is ridiculous.

ill admit i chose simple examples, in a previous revision of the OP i had a couple more but the post got really long ill try and rethink some more. However i think people got the point im trying to make.

Also im talking about a lot of players at the mircos not just 'fish'. say the worst 40% of players at 10nl the worst 30% at 25 nl. Basically the players who dont play aggressive enough in certain spots allowing you get away with this. The number of players drops of quickly as you move up. I havent really played 50nl but i suspect a lot of the playerpool wouldnt let you get away with this.

*those number are guesses btw just trying to make the point that it all depends on however aggressive your limit is

I might open limp very strong hands if there's one of those guys behind me who's open-shoving every hand. Shoves McGee is a lot more likely to once again shove ATC it if you act weak and limp but I've found he will generally tighten up his shoving range a little behind a raise, and often just call.

But that's about it for limping in EP. I'm never limping with weak/speculative hands in basically any scenario (except maybe at the most loose passive table possible), and I'm only doing it with strong hands as an exploitative move, where there's an enormous chance a fish behind me is going to raise, and is either shoving or won't fold to my limp/3-bet.

It also helps that other players will have wider calling ranges if I limp UTG and fishy shoves, than if I open UTG and fishy shoves, so I can get all in 3-way with AA or KK for even more equity.

Obviously any really decent player at the table will see right through this strategy. However, if the idiot does what I expect him to do and raises, my strategy can't be exploited. Its exploitable if players limp behind me with speculative hands knowing I'm strong and they'll get paid a couple streets if they hit... though frankly, playing against standard players, even if the aggro-fish surprisingly folds or limps behind, there's still someone who's not paying attention and is like LOL LETS ISO THE DUMB FISH LIMPER and they fall into the trap.

Anyway, obviously a super-narrow scenario... but important, because maximizing your chances of winning the stacks of the Shoves McGees of the world adds a lot to your winrate.

Open limping speculative hands like 33 or A3s in EP in FR game where the opponents are very passive and loose is IMO ok. You make money when you hit, because they will not fold even second pair.
You can't really openraise them because 5 people will call and you won't have a profitable cbet.
So when it's a question whether to muck or openlimp, limping is sometimes ok.
In 6Max online games even at NL10 it's hard to invent a scenario where limping is profitable. Maybe openlipmping some crap once and c/r a reg on most boards (you are repping a fish that openlimped a PP and hit a set), never done that though.

There's a lot of merit to what I gather to be OP's main premise, namely, that the general "rules" are good for generating a default gameplan, but that, ultimately, we should be more concerned with playing in the way that yields the most value. So we shouldn't just play by the rules, we should strive to understand why the rules exist and thus we can decide when to deviate from them under certain circumstances.

WRT open limping small pairs- I have struggled with this quite a bit in the live arena... On one hand, because live three betting ranges are generally pretty narrow, being first to raise can actually help us set our price for seeing the flop and help build a pot when we flop a set. On the other hand, when we do get three bet, our opponents often make the three bet so big that stacks are too shallow to profitably set mine. It seems pretty devistating to set up a scenario where the only time we get blown out of the pot preflop is when we are facing the exact type of hands (big pps) that we most want to flop a set against...

Nice post and comments. Here is another 'rule' that I'm having trouble with.

'Small hand Small Pot, Big Hand Big Pot'.

I just dont get why this is supposed to be opptimal play. Here is senario

On btn with KQ, open raise and get called by calling station in BB. Flop QJ8 rainbow. Hero bets and gets called, so slows down and checks turn and river (assume blanks hit) to pot control with a medium strength hand.

WHY? The calling station MIGHT have AQ, but likely has Q4s, J6s or some other marginal hand he will call me down with. So I am better off NOT playing pot control - sure I might lose a big pot, but more likely will win a big pot.

Bottom line - more hands will call that I beat than beat me, bet.

Ofc. But KQ is a huge hand on Qxx against a station.