Preflop Limping is Bad

Poker Strategy
21

Dayman,
I love how you seem to put words I never say in my mouth, but ohh well.

I never said GTO, and I was going after the serial raiser preflop. I was told point blank if someone raises 4bb every time, you still have no idea of strength because the raise is always the same. There’s no real difference what you do, if you do it everytime, you mask the strength of your hand and mask being read. ( raise/limp/flat )

You totally miss’d the premise of the L2A comment. To start the hand preflop, 1 person has ““posistion”” period, 1 person the BB. A limp or even a straddle, moves ““posistion”” 1 to the left. All the same pitfalls of the orig posistion player does yes apply to the new posistion holder, yet fact remains posistion was shifted.

Warlock said nothing on limping, yet did remark to what I said… different rationals.
( mainly players of different skill levels and thier understanding/playstyles )

1 example, sure… Foosball.
any open DYP ( draw your partner ) at a major tournament. ( anyone can enter )
No different than tables where some players are top 200, some top 1000, and a couple top 5000. If ur a top 200 player and you try a certain play in a certain posistion, … it might really only work against another top 200 player but not the other ones.

Dayman, I never said it got you the most profit possible, or that it was necesssarilly doable live… but I did try to make the case that any play, when used correctly can yield positive results. I think there’s a time & place for everything, limping included.
I’ve watched top 50 players vs other top 50 players , playing so nosebleed stakes… that there really is very little preflop play, its mainly post flop. Its almost like noone wants to tip thier hand too soon. ( pretty limpy )

Absolutely Dayman, conventional wisdom says " come in, don’t limp in " and I agree. I do tho see passive play as a viable option, a limp is the passive-est as it gets.
I also know ppl who treat things like there’s an antee … if given a chance they limp everything, thats if they dont raise… So when noone does raise, they earn free looks @ the flop.
Sassy

22

Jesus Christ… give me an example of where I put words in your mouth @Sassy_Sarah I’ll read the rest of your reply after you do.

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23

I didn’t say you said GTO, I was using a player playing GTO in my scenario. I also don’t see anywhere you said you were going after the serial raiser preflop.

Having a consistent sizing preflop simplifies your preflop strategy, sure. Some players who are very bad can project the strength of their hand with their sizing. Sizing is not the be all end all of preflop play though. Observing an opponents frequencies preflop is going to be way more valuable then sizing. So simply using the same bet size for every preflop situation isn’t necessarily masking your hand strength.

No I didn’t miss anything… in your example or whatever you used UTG position… here’s where you said it…

My reply stands… here it is…

UMMMMM?

yeah, pro’s can play amateurs… I fail to see where pro Foosball players play differently vs amateurs than other pro’s… try again.

yeah, so did I, in my very first comment in this thread… here it is…

It’s not all that hard to get a top 50 ranking on Replay for anyone who wants to… I wouldn’t necessarily have a default feeling about top 50 players on Replay must be really good… some of them are pretty bad, most of them are okay, a few of them are really good.

yep, I know that too, where we part ways is I know these players to be big fish and I believe you think they’re small fish or not fish at all.

Disclaimer: I don’t know this to be the true way that @Sassy_Sarah feels, that’s just the impression I get of her feelings from reading her post. I have in no way intended to put any words in her mouth with this statement and any opinions you the reader might have of @Sassy_Sarah feelings on such matters should be derived from her own writings. Thank you and Cheers!

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24

slow playing AA

vs
taking the money and running, with KK

OK, the backdoor flush is a 33:1 shot, but it’s things like that, or runner, runner straights, and trips that usually crack aces. not much you can do about sets.
I guess i’m what Sarah calls a serial preflop raiser, and relating to dayman’s response, I want to be put on a routine, and remain there, when i deviate
I seem to make more chips slowly, over the long run, avoiding low-confidence hands, and pushing my advantage when i am confident. Like everyone, I pull big pots from having a monster, or exploiting mistakes, but my bread and butter are the small pots, and rarely losing much with the hands I decide to play.
this sounds like really tight ranges, but works just as well heads up, when my only choices from the button, pre-flop, are fold, or pot. the range i use makes my normal LP range look like something for UTG.

this one is to remind me to take my own advice, and that i make my own share of stupid mistakes.

25

@WannabeCoder ,
Can I assume all this time we were talking about NL and Hold’em??
In PL games, regulating the pot size does include limp’n.
In Omaha, especially HiLo … most play is postflop, limp’n preflop
seems to be the norm, altho some potbuilding does occur.
Sassy

26

If anything, this demonstrates how much more important it is to raise preflop in pot limit games. When you have an edge on your opponents, why would you want to keep the pot small? Raise with your strong hands, both to get opponents to over-commit their equity and to fold off their equity, and fold your weak hands instead of paying bingo and hoping to hit a flop. Better to build a pot by betting strong preflop than to hope your opponent catches a strong enough piece of the board that they’ll bet/raise into your nuts postflop.

Also, as a wise man once said:

27

I made a fairly deep run in yesterday’s Bust the Staff tournament, coming in 13th out of nearly 450 entrants. Generally I played very tight, often folding hands that other players probably would have limped or raised (A9o, A6o, some low pocket pairs). By doing so it helped preserve my stack for and get more value from the times that I got much stronger hands. People also seemed to respect my presence much more than they did other players’, resulting in a handful of “walks” where I won a pot preflop because it folded to me in the big blind - huge when you’re sitting on 10BB or less.

Yes, there were times I got lucky. I think I won about as many “coin flips,” when my opponent and I got the chips in the middle with roughly even equities, as I lost. That said, I was able to parlay my aggressive preflop strategy into garnering competitive folds, and picked up some very healthy pots with continuation bets that may not have worked if I played more passively preflop.

Did I limp? On occasion, yes. As others have mentioned, there are isolated instances when it makes sense. With relatively short stacks (15-25BB effective), facing earlier limpers, and antes in play, it can be the most profitable move, rather than trying to raise half your stack or jam with a holding that’s too weak. I kept that to a minimum, though, and for good reason - while I have to go back and analyze the hands, I can’t recall one instance where I did this with a marginal holding and scooped the pot.

Yes, this was only one tournament, and I shouldn’t infer too much from a very small sample. However, I think it helps illustrate the points I made in the original post. It was a tournament open to pretty much the full RP player pool and featured a wide array of competitive styles. The style I advocate in these forums managed to result in a very deep run, nearly making the final table after battling for over two and a half hours.

Also, shout outs to @bahia7 and @will_lira, who had the unfortunate luck to be seated two or three spots to my right for large segments of the tourney, yet still managed to hang. Having directly played against me in this particular tournament, do you think I’m fairly characterizing my play? Did you adjust at all to my playing style, and/or give me credit for having a stronger range than others at the table, based on how infrequently I limped?

28

Yeah fozman was right in their first reply to this post.

It’s silly to make sweeping statements like this, especially at Replay. You have people who buy chips - blow them in 5 minutes and then buy some more - and who play like it. Those chips are going to go to you or someone else at that table. If they go to someone else who is going to play properly, your odds of beating that player are greatly lessened. If you’re sitting with a player like that (I know those players tend to raise pre-flop… every hand, but not always) just giving their chips away, and letting you limp in, you should do it if the blinds are small.

Also, if you win a big hand early and have say 10K chips or more when the starting count is 3K, there is absolutely no reason to sit out hands when you could see a flop for 30 chips. If you can’t win your blinds back out of over 100 hands with the big stack maybe this isn’t the game for you.

I have a joke I like to repeat here, it’s not really a joke but I say it at tables now and then after I forget it: You can’t bet people off here don’t try

But obviously this doesn’t apply to high level (not high stakes, I mean a high level quality of play) games - where limping in isn’t a sound strategy.

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29

Yes, that’s a good point that seems often missed in these discussions: stack depth matters when trying to decide if a hand at the marginal end of your range might be profitable for a limp in a given situation-- both the depth of your own stack, and those you think are also likely to be in the pot.

30

Hi guys, maybe I’m missing something?

This discussion seems to be about people who “know what they’re doing” as, I think, Sassy said.

The discussion is “Preflop limping is bad”. We’re talking on Replay so a valid assumption is that we are talking about the games on Replay. Nothing to do with $ games, nothing to do with playing with your buddies. The discussion is, “Preflop limping is bad when you are playing on the Replay tables”.

I think I’ve tried altering my play in every way possible and the only way I can get, maybe, 6/8 (I’m the 9th) to fold is by going all-in against similar sized stacks. Small stacks, 20-30BB!!!, seem to just not care and ditto super large stacks.

Preflop all-in is just stupid except, I hope we agree, in some very small number of circumstances - on a “normal” table.

Playing Replay, I’ve limped and raised from every position. There is no way of getting rid of these guys unless I go all-in. In a ring game, sometimes, you can go clean the house, cook dinner etc and wait for aces but in a tournament or SnG? No way!

The only thing that seems to work, sometimes, is limping preflop, limping or calling a small raise (2BB max) on the river and turn and then making a bet after the turn. Even then, I don’t speak for other people, I still get clowns calling at 1:1 odds or, even worse, going all in. If there’s a pair on the table, 22, and I have a top flush - what am I supposed to do?

I’m sorry, I’m rapidly joining the limping camp and just playing bingo!

Ivan.

31

^^THIS^^

Could you elaborate on this? How does stack depth determine whether or not it is profitable to limp or over limp into a pot pre flop?

This is not stated anywhere in the OP. When in Replay’s forums discussing concepts such as this one I would just try to make distinctions in my reply’s as to what format/stakes I’m referring to. I will almost always distinguish whether I’m speaking from an exploitative or theory based position and whether I’m on Replay, live low stakes or GTO at higher stakes.

FWIW, all the points that @WannabeCoder makes in the OP are very valid and correct. That being said you can deviate from raise or fold pre flop strategy on Replay as an exploit. You can even mix in a limping strategy in higher stakes games. For anyone here who goes to the casino to play live low stakes 2/5 or lower having a limp in range from any position for any amount is losing heaps and heaps of money. The only small exception to this is on the BTN where you have absolute position post flop and there are weak players in the blinds you can over limp with suited A’s and some small to middling pairs. And of course you can x your option in the BB as you’ve already put them $ in the pot.

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32

Absolutely no argument from me :slight_smile: And, yes, your exceptions seem to be perfect for assisting the fish with their “got too much money” problem. I hadn’t thought about this previously but it makes perfect sense to me.

Now, if you have the bankroll to handle the variance and you have live tables full of people throwing money in the pot, I totally agree with the OP and, of course, with you @dayman. To be honest, I thought that raise/fold preflop was so obvious that it didn’t merit discussion except in the context of playing Replay tables.

^^ This and some comments from others lead me to believe that most of the contributors, so far, agree with the OP except for some “fine tuning” regarding $ games and, perhaps, high(er) stake Replay tables.

I’m sorry if I misread the nature of the discussion. I’ll go back to my little Replay cave now :slight_smile:

Ivan.

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33

Don’t give up yet! You have just started on the site and you have a million chips. I started wth 5000 chips 18 months ago and now have over 150 million, all won in MTTs. So it can be done, but it is hard to describe exactly how to beat these games, because it is a combination of so many things. You are talking about the preflop strategy. I mix it up all the time, depending on what I perceive to be the playing strengths and weaknesses of the other players. Some big blinds fold all the time, some call everything, some will reraise with aces, they all have their way of playing. So at the start of every hand I will look at who is in the BB, how large their stack is, how likely they are to shove back at an attempt to steal, and so on. And above all, you have to be flexible. Sometimes I will pick up a nice shiny hand like A T suited in middle position and think, yes, I am playing that sucker, and then moments later I wil be folding it preflop when a tight player under the gun with a large stack raises high.

Overall the key is not any particular formula, but observing what all the other players at your table are doing, what hands they play from what position, what their bets mean. For example, many players on RP will bet the pot for top pair on the flop, half the pot for second pair, and call a bet from late position with third pair. You have to shake them up. Check-raise sometimes when you make top pair from early position or the blinds, it stops them in their tracks and confuses them or if they are ahead it slows them down and gives you a chance to suck out. Raise high when you have the nuts, and make small bets when you have the nuts. Show them a bluff sometimes. You have to try to mess with their heads.

34

when i’m in the blinds, i consistently get good pot odds, and usually can bring in anything with no, or 1/2 BB chips. this is when someone else has a hand. when i have a hand, the blinds usually have to add chips to defend. doesn’t this give me an advantage from go?

recently i played a string of hands where i kept folding junk, only to watch one after another develop into would be, winning hands.
It kept happening, and i finally gave in. Second flop i limped in to see was T7o, OOP, which flopped top pair and turned trip tens. I ended up shoving into AT. If i posted the hand for review, folks would be asking what i was doing in the hand to begin with, and they’d be right.
I’ve picked up some hands, limping, to see a flop, but for me, it’s usually a bad leak, and not in line with the table image i’m shooting for…

35

Thanks for the encouragement Mekon :slight_smile:

I’ve been doing well until I was “under the influence” :slight_smile: which increased my existing strong tendency towards over-confidence! Having dropped 300k playing in the “big league” I actually bought the chips. Prior to my big loss, I was only about 600k - freerolls and SnG mostly.

Bringing it back to the topic, maybe I should start my own thread if there isn’t one already, limping preflop. I’m happy playing up to the 25/50 ring games, 9 player SnG up to 5k and MTTs up to 5k. My experience is that nothing except, sometimes, all-in makes these guys fold preflop. Off-topic, a little bit, it’s nearly as difficult to get them to fold after the flop as well. I’d say that 35%-50% of the players that I’m coming across are determined to see the river pretty much regardless of cost.

So, with that experience, I challenge the OPs assertion that preflop limping is always bad. I have agreed that in $ games and high stakes on Replay, there is a lot of merit in that position. No question.

At my level, preflop limping and playing bingo really seems to be the only way to stay alive.

Your last paragraph pretty much sums up my strategy but the only way that I get to play that strategy is to limp into the pot with nearly any 2 cards! Obviously I’m not that loose but my raising range is very tight and my limping range is extemely wide.

Preflop raising, at my level, simpy thows perfectly good chips in to the void! Let’s say I’ve got QQ and raise 6BB preflop. Pretty much everyone will call or raise with air. The flop comes 4,9,3 rainbow. I’m at least 6BB down (more if someone re-raised) and should c-bet here fairly strong. Except that against, say, 5 players, my QQ really isn’t very strong.

It’s about 7:1 on the turn and 7:1 on the river that I’d make a set. I’m getting really good odds to stay in the hand with a 10BB raise. 50% of the time someone will raise that and some or all of others will call. Maybe with air, maybe with AA. Now most of us are in for nearly 1/2 stack or maybe more. You can see where this is going!

OTOH, if I limp in, nobody is challenged so, mostly, nobody will raise. There might be a 2 or3BB raise on the flop, probably with air, but, quite often, it’s just checked around. The turn shows a 4. I, quite sensibly in my opinion, didn’t raise preflop, there’s nothing on the board suggesting a strong hand, so I check, if possible, or call a min-raise - 2BB. Anything higher and I’m folding with no great loss.

By limping around, I’m saving my chips for a big call after the river or folding and waiting for the next chance.

Against reasonable players, this would be, at best, leaving chips on the table or, at worst, a big leak. At my level, against Replay players, limping preflop is, I think, the only sensible strategy. Followed up by limping through to the end, looking at 7 cards and then deciding on a bet or fold.

It’s a contrary opinion, I understand that and I’m very interested in the ongoing discussion. The reason that I think limping works is because, at my level, play is not overly sophisticated. Big hands are normally a big raise so I fold. Bluffs are a big raise or all-in so I fold. Small bets and checks are worth following.

Having said that, if I have AA or KK preflop, I’ll wait for a raise post flop and, most times, go all-in just to grab the pot then and there. Limp, limp, all-in. Bingo!

Thanks again,

Ivan.

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36

No limping is OK. In those kind of games you want to limp with hands that have the chance to make the nuts by the river, being suited aces, suited broadways, and pocket pairs. If the flop does not fit, just throw them away, but if you get a good flop, then you need to build the pot. With those kind of hands a raise preflop is also good, because you want the pots that you play in to be big ones and, for example if you have three limpers and you are in the BB, you can get good leverage by raising, because by putting in just another BB, you will almost certainly get three more BBs into the pot, so now you have 8.5 BBs in the pot. Now if you bet half the pot with a flush draw and they all call again, now there are 25 BBs in the pot, and more to come if you hit the nut flush and there is no pair on the board.

Remember there are two reasons to raise, one is to narrow the pot to one opponent, and the other is just to get more chips into the pot.

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37

Your advice is very much appreciated, thank you :slight_smile: :smiley:

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Hi dayman, I like a lot of your posts that I’ve read.

Stack depth determines implied odds against the bet you are facing. People normally probably think of it in the context of set mining facing a raise, where you often hear you should have a stack in reserve 20 to 30 times the amount you’re calling if you are in position and think the opponent will often stack off if you hit your set. But it applies to every hand, and when you limp, with many of your hands you can think of it like set mining…evaluating the frequency with which you will make a monster hand against a good enough opposition holding that you can stack stack them, against the frequency you’ll have to just toss the cards post flop, or face situations that aren’t very significantly +EV. If I have a short stack, say 5 to 20 times the amount of my limp, then limping is a -EV play in a pretty high percentage of situations, and even where not -EV, you’ll usually improve EV with a raise. The same is true if the opponents stack sizes are small, as that places the same limit on the ratio between the amount you are investing, and your maximum return.

As stacks get bigger relative to that limp your implied odds improve, and limping becomes more playable in more situations, especially if you have a post flop skill edge over some of the players at the table.

But just because limping can be playable and +EV, doesn’t mean that raising isn’t better in many of those same situations. The principle used in black jack by card counters of raising the stakes when the odds are slightly in their favor is a powerful tool, and if you’re constantly playing larger pots when your hands and position at the table are favorable, that makes a profound difference over time. This doesn’t mean that limping is never the best play possible: it can be. But I think the most frequent leak I see on this site is too little pre-flop raising.

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39

Bingo! In a number of posts in recent weeks on this forum, I have mentioned the books of Arnold Snyder and one of the most important points of his tournament method is that in tournaments you have to think of your stack as a weapon and therefore it is often desirable to think of your bets as a function of their proportion to your stack.

For example, you are the tournament leader and have 50% more chips than the next player. You pick up pocket 2’s under the gun. Normally I would fold this hand in this position, but here I would limp it, and call almost any raise, knowing that my stack cannot be badly damaged, but that if I hit a set I may well be able to stack an opponent. If the flop misses me, I am probably out of there, unless there is only a small bet on the flop, which I might call to take another shot at the jackpot.

That’s an extreme example, but it applies to some extent every time you pick up 22. In what circumstances will you raise it, limp it, or fold it preflop? And if that applies to 22, then it applies to almost every hand.

Is there ever a circumstance when you would raise with 72 preflop?

Nearly all of you would say no, but would say yes, occasionally. For example, you are in the Big Blind with a biggish stack. Preflop it is folded to the small blind who had a medium to small stack. The small blind is a player who likes to limp in to see if the flop will hit him and has done this several times. The blinds have just gone up. Hell, yes, I would smack him with a 3BB raise with any two cards to see if he really wants to play this hand when I am in the BB with the power to stack him. Post flop he will be out of position and if he misses the flop, I will take the pot, so usually he will fold preflop. Occasionally he will call. If the flop comes Ace high, he is going to take a shot at the pot if he has an ace, but if he doesn’t he will check back and give up the pot, since it is likely that my raise indicates the presence of an ace. Occasionally, the flop hits me hard, say the flop is K 7 2 and opponent who has K J gets stacked when I make a boat on the turn and he makes 2 pair on the river. So now I am a maniac and a lucky donkey in the eyes of the beholders.

People say, “but Mekon, you are making bad EV- plays and in the long run you will be a loser.” This may be the case in certain other poker environments, but at time of writing I have won three consecutive 1-million chip buy-in MTTs, each with more than 20 entrants, which strictly speaking is a one-in-eight-thousand chance (assuming that each player has an equal chance to win.)

So to reiterate. You can raise, limp, or fold with ANY hand from any position in a MTT, but it all depends on the game situtation, the relative stacks sizes, the playing proclivities of the table members, and other factors.

If you just stick to the book and raise 3 BB with AK or better from under the gun or raise 3BB plus one BB for each limper from late position, you will be very predictable and easy to beat since your bets will telegraph your hands. Sometimes you will win or end up in the money when you have a run of good cards, but you will find it difficult to dominate opponents and force them into errors or make them go on tilt.

What is no good is just limping pointlessly with no game plan. Let’s say you started a tournament, and you have limped several hands and gone through a few blinds and you have not won a pot and your stack is dwindling, and a blinds raise is imminent, and you pick up QTs or even J9s in middle position after one limper. Now don’t limp. Shove your hand and hopefully this will eliminate the blinds,and the early limper will fold, giving you a profit of 2.5 BB. But if he calls, you are a favorite against many hands he might have limped with, and even if you are an underdog, underdogs win sometimes. And if you double up, you are probably now in the middle of the field, maybe even in the top half.

40

While I understand what you’re saying I will just respond with this… Limping preflop to set mine or with hands that can make strong disguised holdings like small/med suited connectors is profitable on Replay, I have said this in my first comment ITT. When it comes to live poker for $ it has become increasingly less profitable and thus less desirable to set mine. In low stakes games you’ll be facing too many shorter stacks on the table to set mining profitably, not to mention you just can not make up for the extremely high rake in these pots. When you’re playing 1/2 1/3 and the casino is dropping 10% up to $50 plus high hand and bad beat promo’s they’re taking $7 off the table per hand that gets to $50 pot. If you’re on a table dealing 25 hands pre hour that’s going to mean the casino is making $150-$175 per hour and the winningest players at the table will absorb most of that cost. When you win pots you are in essence the one paying the rake. That is why it is imperative when playing low stakes live or micro on line that we are raising and 3! pre to get the pot size to that maximum threshold where every dollar put in over that is essentially rake free. Furthermore, playing higher stakes even as low as 2/5 and I know of 2/3 and 1/3 games even where I see a lot of “set mining” in unprofitable scenarios from OOP. In todays atmosphere it is increasingly tougher to get max value for flopping sets… it’s a much more defensive game where good players protect their ranges with x/b’s and x/c’s. We just aren’t stacking off to sets nearly as often as even 3-4 years ago. This is being said their are tons of exploitable players at the lower stakes, and paying attention at the table to opponents is more important then ever. Who c bets too often, who raises and never folds to 3! who raises and always folds to 3!.

While Snyder is primarily a black jack pro and writer from way back in the day I found his Poker Tournament Formula books to be very informative when I was studying more tournament strategy. So I have read both his PTF and PTF2 books and they’re very good books imo. Though these books were both written over 10 years ago I think a lot of the concepts and information is still fairly applicable today. I just don’t see a lot of what he teaches being correctly interpreted in your post reply’s. Just my humble opinion.

tl:dr It’s becoming increasingly harder to set mine profitably in todays poker arena as it’s become more defensive and players are concerned with protecting ranges, the game has moved in a much more passive direction.

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