well said
I usually start betting different when im beeing followed on bets with a “winning” hand. Make 'em pay hard. (high risk). You cant beat luck though and trying to beat luck with higher bets aint always productive. I noticed some things I do are hated and disliked. Not playing how they want and why should I. Been called all sorts of names and I got dragged in lowering myself to their level ending up with a warning of misbehaviour. Some people just keep calling no matter what you bet. Meaning they dont believe your bets. Now idk about you but i like my bets to be taken serious so i usually always show whatever i win with and fold with. Build a reputation and use that in my bets(semi bluff). One thing is for sure im not going to play someone elses game i play my own game. I like a friendly game but making friendly bets is something else. I think we all go for something better sometimes when we shouldnt. For me it usually takes a while getting into a table and see whats going on. I dont want everyone in a pot on the river. Thats usually bad. I love pre-flop raising if it aint over the top. I would call with 2 reasonable cards. Not 1 and i fold aces easily on pre-flop all-ins if i have a bad kicker. I guess there are so many different levels of players and their skills. There is always someone who makes a mistake calling but might end up lucky on improving. Im sure no pro and prefer playing with people i played before so we aint strangers to each other. After all its Texas Fold 'Em most of the time. Better to fold a mistake than to lose with a mistake. I guess some people dont know what youre doing or dont understand why you would raise. That can be annoying but i would blame my own skills if i didnt understand whats going on.
3 Likes
Do you play on mutliple tables with this strategy? It would be boring to me to fold before flop unless I have good combination.
1 Like
I have been playing for sometime and I use a variety of options playing slow or fast. It depends on my hole cards and the players at the table.
A few weeks ago I was castigated for slow playing pocket aces, I ended up taking her out with my playing. When another player asked what was going on I just said she was a sore loser.
I figure that I am in no way a professional or semi-professional poker player. I am playing with fake chips on a internet site. If anyone does not like the way another plays then avoid them.
Peace
3 Likes
I’m a new guy so maybe my opinion doesn’t carry a lot of weight…and not to question the original posters skill at the game…but I have found most pre-flop bangers will do it on any type of hand. Really not a matter of skill or judgement but just
bull thru and hope lightening strikes. Takes the enjoyment out of the table/game.
3 Likes
there are so many bingo players on this site that i do not even consider it to be real poker.it is just a slightly sophisticated game of snap.the skill factor on here is pretty irrelevant.it is mostly just bingo.there is some strange stuff going on with the dealing.pretty much every time someone has a low straight it is beaten by a higher straight.as for playing AK,just forget it.not much fun really.
3 Likes
Those people usually dont last long enough to ruin my poker time at a table. It does take away my involvement of playing more than usual. Lightning does strike on these people from time to time. I either end up playing tight as a turnip or not at all which also lowers my chances quite a lot if i stop playing until i got something decent. Fun to sweep them off the table but its high risk for everyone.
I guess some people just dont know when to stop pushing their luck on all-ins. You won… now try and keep it! Ive played so many hours here i cant say that bingo is the most used game style at all. Theres plenty of skilled players on the tables and people who make silly but forgivable mistakes.
1 Like
Hello @Boxer65:
You’ll find a lot of posts about Bingo!™ here on the forums and in most cases this is in reference to the always all-in pre-flop types. However, you’ll see every now and then that one of our esteemed colleagues will also lump any type of pre-flop raiser into this category.
It could be that they don’t know any better. It also could be that they play a style of poker that we here on the forums have coined as "Limp Bingo"™ – which is essentially the passive form of the aggressive always all-in approach.
The more experienced and skilled players here tend to stick to their game (sometimes with modification) and can absolutely crush low-mid stakes no problem. And honestly, you may as well since the chips are free and nearly everyone else uses that fact to experiment with strategy or play with reckless abandon.
If you’re looking for a decent game and enjoy tournament play, try the Regional MTTs (red color in the MTT lobby). They offer some of the best poker on this site and you will encounter some very skilled players within them. If you like them enough, you can try to place on one or more of the 4 monthly leaderboards and get some bonus chips.
5 Likes
I don’t understand most of the terminology used on these forums, but the point of this thread seems to be that some players think that if they are dealt two high cards and raise then everyone else should fold and allow them to win. I’m just someone who plays for fun and doesn’t want to learn all the “plays” but a couple of things seem a little skewed here.
Firstly, poker is about making the best hand possible out of all the cards, so it is surely sensible to see at least five of them (those dealt to you plus the flop) before making a decision.
Secondly, if I read one poster’s comment correctly they only expect to get a “playable” hand once every ten games or so. If that is the same for every other player, then the chances are that nobody else will have a “playable” hand so they should all fold to a raise thus giving our raiser a very small pot which equates to a lot of wasted time for a very small reward.
Perhaps I’m missing something here, so I’d be obliged if anyone could put me straight.
Thanks
4 Likes
I’m assuming you’re not talking about bingo strategy. In the course of a hand, the more mediocre hands are allowed in the pot, for cheap, the more the chance for someone to get lucky against you. A 3 or 4 BB open will usually clear those out.
3 Likes
Actually there are two ways to win a hand: Having the best hand or making the others believe you have the best hand. Both are valid ways to win a hand in poker imho.
Nobody will have the best hand often enough to play profitable just waiting for the nuts.
Also the better players will start folding to you everytime you shove, when they notice you always have the nuts. They will also start bluffing a lot more when they see you folding everytime you don’t have the nuts.
I play 6-max ring games only and open a lot more than every 10th hand, up to around 30% of hands depending on position and other players at the table.
30% is quite loose, but I don’t see no specific reason not to defend my blinds when everybody is limping.
2 Likes
I am not sure what type of games you are referring to, but in multi table tournaments, which are what I play, the blinds go up quite quickly so calling any raise and not winning the hand can be fatal and lead immediately or quickly to elimination.
Secondly, whether you call a raise or reraise or not depends not only on cards, but on relative stack size and on position, because if you put another player in a position where his whole stack is in jeopardy, he is much less.
In games played at low blinds, in No Limit poker, you can bet any amount you like, so you can size your bets according to whether you want opponents to fold preflop, or whether you want to suck them in and get them to play.
If you do get two high card, like perhaps a pair of Queens, you usually want to first isolate your opposition to one opponent, and then try to win the pot if the flop looks good for you. On the other hand, if three players limp ahead of you, you may want to shove your whole stack and make them all fold, so you will pick up their 3 big blinds plus another 1.5 blinds from the blinds, without seeing a flop at all.
The math of it is quite intricate, so you are basically right, but there is a lot more to it. On RP many players will call large raises without a good rationale, which they most likely would not in game in which real money was at stake and this can lead to unpredictable outcomes. For example with your QQ and a Jack high flop with three different suits and the cards widely spaced (in the jargon “rainbow, J 6 2 ,”) you might make a large bet and then a player who has 10, 9 calls without having the correct odds to call and then a Queen falls on the turn, and you shove in your whole stack, and opponent again calls without the correct odds and a King falls on King the river, giving them a straight to your three Queens. This would be less likely to happen in a money game unless the hand was a very big stack against a very small stack.
Players get upset when this happens, because although the player with Queens will profit in the long run, in the short term in turbo tournaments, the lucky player will often buck the odds long enough to eliminate you, before an even luckier player eliminates him too.
2 Likes
@MekonKing hit most of the highlights, but I want to address this point specifically. While it may seem counter-intuitive, it’s pragmatic to fold something like 72o pre-flop:
The odds of 72o winning at the end of the game are very low… 37% against any random hole cards. On the other end of the spectrum, having AA as your hole cards will win 85% of the time against random hole cards.
The reason people bet/raise pre-flop is to say to the other people at the table… “I’ve got a hand with a high chance of winning at showdown.” And likewise, people who fold pre-flop realize that their hand has a very low chance of winning and wish to preserve their chips for the next deal.
In other words, it is true you will not know for a fact until all 5 cards are turned up in the middle, but you have a pretty good forecast just by looking at the two in your hand. One of the keys to profitable poker is folding when you get low odds to win and pressing your advantage by betting when you have good odds to win. If you just limp in and min bet, you reduce your capability to win big when you get a monster hand and you’ll continuously leak chips by staying in when you have very little chance to win.
All that said though, these are just free chips and it doesn’t really matter. However, there is plenty of opportunity to learn a few things, play a stronger game, and have fun with that accomplishment.
5 Likes
I’m still learning beyond the basics, but have started limping most hands. I’ve been finding that on most tables if everyone else is limping / calling any “reasonable” bet, the above odds (e.g AA winning 85% of the time) really doesn’t hold up when there are 6 or 8 people seeing the flop, and 3 or 5 seeing all the way through to the river. It has seemed more profitable to consider that if basically 6/6 people are seeing the flop every time w. e.g 2 chip BB, I need to win 1/6 hands limping in.
I pivoted a bit to that approach when I found that most of the time folding junk hands and raising 2-4 BB pre-flop just gets called and beat out by a lucky flop. Seemed like better odds to just see every flop for 2 chips and then gauge it after the flop. Seemed like raising 3BB just to get called by more than half the players tended to work out worse than limping in.
I feel playing tightly only works when people fold hands they “should”.
As I mentioned, I’m still learning, so would be curious to know if my logic is sound. I’ve tried to keep track (“with this strategy, am I winning 1 out of every 6 hands I limp in?”) and it’s seemed to work out.
I’d certainly rather be able to play/learn a more “realistic” strategy, but seems the odds don’t work out when everyone calls/limps.
2 Likes
Fozzy,
Per your chart, do you have a list of critera used,
and is the top 1/2 suited vs bottom 1/2 unsuited ???
Not sure otherwise how KQ is different than QK.
Why is 2-3 thru 2-6 not higher than 2-7 ??
They atleast are connected in a way to a str8.
27, 38, 49, 5T, ect ect seem to be the same.
Sassy
1 Like
I used to be a non-limper like you, then I took an arrow in the knee.
it just makes it so hard to put anyone on a hand. other day I had 10,10 and everyone limped in. I remember a ace on flop and not the other 2 flop cards. everyone checked and if there had been any action I would had folded, but turn brings me a 10 giving me a set. thinking I had best hand I proceeded to make bet and get one caller, don’t remember the river card, but it made no straight or flush draw so I continued to bet, get re raised and I jammed all in , get called. player had limped in with A,A… I try not to cause I know how it makes me feel. I might be wrong, but there was noway put someone on AA
yesterday had someone just limped in with a hand and I had flopped top pair with a 7 kicker and no over cards. player made a min bet and I folded for having a small kicker. they showed and was KK.
it just gets annoying
2 Likes
I like to see as many flops as possible mainly cause i dont like being a spectator most of the time and you will always win here and there limping in now and then if its just for the blind to see the flop. Its really not about how much you limp in with cards you should fold but how profitable are you on those hands when you do win that you limped in. Its really not that hard to just break even or double up or triple up from a profit stand point to cover all your paid blinds if you build and take down a very nice pot on those now and then limped hands so long as you hit a decent flop and dont chase if you dont and then just fold. Example would be if you are playing 2k/4k rings ( im not talking about doing this in tourneys that much at all unless its 1st 2 or 3 blind levels ) if u limp in lets say for 8 hands and you just win 1 of them then it shouldnt be hard to bring down a 32k pot just to break even but if you play and take it down right then you should double or triple up because you will be up against AAs Aks KQs etc. that you know will prob call your appropriate bets and they wont expect your low card great hands that are the nuts or close to. It beats sitting around waiting for hole card nuts for a long time til u get them ( and u still might lose even more on those hands cause u will play those with stronger bets) but only if you know how to be profitable at limping and cover your blinds paid and when you do take down the pot on those then make sure you play them to take down a decent sized pot to cover the next limps and some. This is my opinion because some of my biggest pots came from limping and the monster hand wasnt expected as much by the opponents. Of course you dont wanna do this near as much in tourneys as in rings and you dont wanna do it too often but you have to make sure you are profitable taking down big pots when you do know you have the winning hand now and then and only limp in with anything somewhat close to or near your range. I truly believe their can be certain strategies utilized on limped hands that can add to your skill level but you need to practice and learn them to make them profitable and worth playing.
2 Likes
I’ll limp anything, and I’ll bet out anything… both in general and in practice.
Far to often ppl can’t get away from good cards gone bad, cause they have too much invested in playing them. You limp AA, KK, AK, AQ, and the flop comes 367, its much easier to drop the AK when you only have the blinds in the pot, plus noone knows you just played/folded AK either.
By limping/flatcallling you limit the information you give off and limit your exposure to the hand. You take your chances with how many ppl see the flop tho. Some players prefer postflop play or see’n as many hands as possible ( like FJetSki ), thus try and see hands as cheap as possible. In PL games limping is also a way to limit any future raises.
Top players usually never limp, its a 3-6x raise, so 1 reason to limp is a way to see how much its gonna cost ya before the fact, giving you the option to call. Kinda like paying 1bb for posistion chg.
It does fall down to aggressive vs passive. I think both skillsets are important to learn, and learn to defeat.
@wildpokerdude ,
Players limp for many reasons, most of all cause ppl let them. Beware those players willing to limp monsters, should they still be in the hand. Either try and bet limpers off thier hands, or take your chances.
Sassy
Yeah, I was trying to find something quickly. The upper right is suited, lower left is unsuited. As far as the rest, I’m unsure.