I'm gonna give limping a try

Today in the spur of the moment I open limped AK from the button. I have never open limped anything, it was really refreshing to do something that wasn't standard. The question is can it be profitable? I think it could be.

We don't even have to be that balanced in doing it. Most online tags (at my lever anyway) won't know how to respond anyway. Say I open limp with 78s only 25% of the times I have it but open limp AK 50% of the time, how many hands would the standard over aggressive 50 nl tagg play against me before he correctly adjusted? I think infinity because 50 nl tags don't really adjust anway, they are just following the cardrunners blueprint without putting much thought in it anyway.

I think I can exploit standard taggs with this strategy. I will appear to be a complete noob fish and they will expect me to be turning over hands like K-7 like all the other fish will be limping, but I will obviously never have such marginal hands. I will have an unbalanced polarized range.

This could be retarded too, but I feel my game has become very stale and robotic and feel like doing some experimenting.

an theoretically optimal preflop strategy at a full ring game should definitely involve limping.

However the practice of it is very difficult, so i'd recommend against limping unless you are very very good at balancing your ranges.

'an theoretically optimal preflop strategy at a full ring game should definitely involve limping.

However the practice of it is very difficult, so i'd recommend against limping unless you are very very good at balancing your ranges.'

Renton would you be as kind to explain this in more detail?

I thinking of limping to exploit other players tendencies. I don't see any reason to balance my range unless others are adjusting.

What do you mean by balance? I think limping is best in late position. Would say limping AK 40% raising 60%, raising sc's 70% limping 30% be a balanced range? I'm talking only of opening in late position. Big hands and speculative hands are in my limping range. It's more weighted towards bigger hands, but wouldn't someone have to play a million hands against me and really be paying attention to know that?

Originally Posted by pankfish

I thinking of limping to exploit other players tendencies. I don't see any reason to balance my range unless others are adjusting.

What do you mean by balance? I think limping is best in late position. Would say limping AK 40% raising 60%, raising sc's 70% limping 30% be a balanced range? I'm talking only of opening in late position. Big hands and speculative hands are in my limping range. It's more weighted towards bigger hands, but wouldn't someone have to play a million hands against me and really be paying attention to know that?

To the underlined part, not really.

To your whole idea, you will be losing more value through putting in less money with your stronger hands than you would be gaining value through the "deception" you gain from limping them a majority of the time. A balanced range generally seeks to make the most +EV play the most often, while only switching things up enough so that your opponents can't put you on a definite range by your betting actions.

The following is a massive overkill of an example.

As an analogy, let's consider an open raising range UTG of {AA, 54s} where we are raising/limping AA some portion of the time and raising/limping/folding 54s some portion of the time. Naturally, it makes sense that for AA we will be raising a lot more than we will be limping, since raising is the most +EV play. Then, for deception, sometimes we're going to limp AA. Suppose we have an arbitrary set amount of 14% limps and 86% raises (which is very close to open limping A A and raising all other combinations). Also to add some deception to our raises and limps, we decide that 25% of the time (5 4) we have 54s we will open raise, 50% of the time (5 4 and 5 4) we have 54s we will open limp, and the other 25% of the time we will open fold. So here's how this would break down in terms of what our ranges are with each betting option:

If we raise with the range defined above, then of the six possible combinations of hands we have, five are AA and one is 54s. If we limp with this defined range, then of the three possible combinations of hands we have, two are 54s and one is AA. Now if an opponent sees us raise UTG then he knows that we probably have AA but we might have 54s. If the same opponent sees us limp UTG then he knows that we probably have 54s but we might have AA.

The point is that you want to be doing the "standard" action the most often because it holds the most value by itself, but you should "mix it up" just enough that your opponents are off guard and that the value you lose by playing hands differently than standard is offset by the value you gain with your deception.

In short, don't open limp AK more than you open raise it.

I open limp about 10% of the time, mostly with small-to-mid pocket pairs and suited connectors and occasionally with bigger hands like AK, AQ or KQ. At $50NL, it definitely keeps the TAGGs guessing and the fish swimming.

ive been giving limping a go its so much fun its like going back to your childhood again. ur like "OOOOOOOO IM LIMPING!!!! WOOP WOOP!.

u can hear the whole table go "OH SHIT, he just limped!" after having a near 100% open raise 2.5-4xbb tendency with any hand given the right position.

i even....wait for it.... smooth called aces.....earlier
i know! it scared the shit out of me. i was like this is so bad.
then i earned an extra bet on the button (who later folded) after i battered the shit out of some monkey open raising a blatent OOOO IVE GOT TOP PAIR "I BET", scuse me heres 25bbs down ur throat, oh wait thats your whole stack "OOOPS!" when i flipped the aces i swear i could hear the table spurt expletives at my deception.

slightly passive play with the intent of going absolutely nuclear when u have a clear read is great fun.

having said that the ones that i really love to get revenge on tho are the limped aces reraise all in gimps.
i REALLY REALLY hate those little twerps.
u can almost hear the cogs whiring as they spring their trap and i have them covered 5-1 in an MTT.
i call just to bust em so they allow me to play my agro game.
its harsh, seemingly negative ev, psychologically driven not math driven and all the other stuff. but as far as im concerned the sooner that little git gets off my table and out of everyones hair the better. they make it so hard to isolate weak players, get value from suited broadways, trying to isolate to get heads up with the intent of set mining all sorts of really valuable plays that ur on edge to do and fear for your stack if u do them if that person has limped the hand.

in hindsight having thought about it. ill only raise heavy enough, say KK QQ JJ 10 10 that i put myself in just such a position that its almost always a pot committing call and so close to mathematically correct for me to call a limp raise all in. this almost makes my raise the right play and the call the right play. AHHA thatd be why i have such a good record versus these little monkeys. WINNAR.

I only ran this experiment for one day. I actually limp reraised aces preflop and got it all in. Of course one guy had KK and another guy had AK so I guess I was going to get the money in anyway.

I totally understand the theory and I would limp with A K late in some situations, but maybe not twice in one game. A K is a vulnerable drawing hand and you need to isolate one or two max other players. If you limp with 3-5 players, you are likely donating chips.

Raising here and isolating one player would be the right "value" play. If you limp against 3 other players and hit the flop (31% chance) you're a genius. If you limp against 3 players and miss the flop horribly, you lost the smallest bet possible, BUT may have been able to beat one isolated player. You wasted a good hand.

Or you could hit your A or K on the flop and have either the SB or BB hit some ragged two pair on you and take your whole stack.

LOL - Good point! If you don't take out the trash . . .

Last night I played in a tourney and this lady told me she would NEVER play pocket Jacks again, AND the only way to play Pocket Rockets is to limp or go All-In.

Originally Posted by TheSyphon

Last night I played in a tourney and this lady told me she would NEVER play pocket Jacks again, AND the only way to play Pocket Rockets is to limp or go All-In.

I love pocket Jacks live, hate them online. And anyone that limps Aces needs to be shot in the face because I don't want to hear how you got "sucked out again with Aces".

This Lady was to my immediate right and after she told me about the Aces, she went All-In like 3 out of 5 of the next hands. She had 1 good hand (QQ) and the rest were marginal. She Never had Aces! I folded two raises that would have paid off.

i recall krantz expressing how he thinks a strategy that involves limp/reraising instead open raising would be a very good one. he also thinks it would take a lot of time to develop.

if i was a big balla and felt i had time to fuck around with this i would possibly work it. it would be siiiiiiiick too since nobody would know what im doing.

Originally Posted by wufwugy

i recall krantz expressing how he thinks a strategy that involves limp/reraising instead open raising would be a very good one. he also thinks it would take a lot of time to develop.

And it will put most players on insta-tilt.

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Or you could hit your A or K on the flop and have either the SB or BB hit some ragged two pair on you and take your whole stack.

Yeah, if you can't stop yourself from stacking off with top pair in a limped pot then you should probably never limp.

I need some help from you prosss...