more on open limping

consensus seems to be that raising small pairs and strong suited hands from ep is likely a mistake, but that limping many of those is not. however, if we limp them then we need to incorporate all our other hands into that strategy, which most of us do not do so most of us dont limp in the first place.

how do you feel about open limping 100% of what we play in ep and up to the position that we start opening those small pairs or suited hands that normally shouldnt be raised in ep, and then calling raises with a correct percentage of those hands?

so basically waht im getting at is a limp/calling strat from ep/mp and a standard raising strat from mp/lp.

if this provokes discussion then ill chime in with a lot more specific questions/idea if unaddressed

WTF a thread suggesting open limping that actually sounds smart.

nice post, i shall put forward my views tomorrow when im not so tired.

another option could be minraising in ep

hate the idea
Based on my database, playing these hands oop was a major leak for me once i moved to 200nl (breakeven-ish at 100nl)
I certainly cant see itr working well at 2/4, but there is lots more limping in that game (so it seems) However, the 'top' players eg biggest winners arent limping.

Ive seen the minraising thing, not sure about the whole theory behind it (havent really looked tbh) but i dont see any benefits other than calling 3bets with big pairs for deception value.
I think people havent adjusted to this style yet, but will do eventually.

This is a great idea depending on the table.

Aggressive tables are prime spots to be playing this way with the top of our range because we can either 3bet limp raise with our big hand or we can be slow playing postflop if the hand is going to be HU.

Passive tables are horrible spots to be doing this because of the obvious - multi-way hands postflop.

basically what drew said, this merging of our range would definitely help in disguising our hands and not just being obvious that were holding either aa or small pps when we limp in ep. i wouldnt go as far to be limping 100 % of what i play from ep but i think integrating this idea into your game, even if its only for 10k hands or so is a good thing.

id like to see some succesful stats of this range merging, i think were trying to hard to play rubbish hands oop.

I think I might incorporate this for a bit. I'll let you guys know how it goes in like in March

i don't know, but i can tell you for sure that small pairs and suited connectors are the worst hands to open limp in ep.

Prob the kinda hands you should be limping in ep would be something like 88-JJ AQ KQ

i think though that its prob easiest and best to raise like 77+ AQ+ and a lot of small suited connectors utg and just apply tons of pressure postflop, because most of the time their one pair hands will be bluff catchers against your range.

my thoughts

first this isnt something id recommend to try if youre struggling vs your competition. you have to be able to play well oop, in limped pots, and multiway with pairs. i am personally, due to letting my bankroll dwindle, forced to play at a stake below my skill, so i have no problem with these things, and thats part of why im trying to figure them out in the first place.

now what playing these hands will do is let us play them vs fish when normally we'd just chuck them. we're not necessarily looking to play them vs good regs. however as long as we balance our frequencies vs those regs then we will profit.

fwiw, i think it is probable that playing a very exploitable ep strat may still be profitable since the fish wont notice, and thats who we're looking to take money from with those hands. my desire to incorporate balance is to further exploit the regs

there is an issue of not getting value with our big hands if we're limping them. well i dont think its that big if at all. first its hard to get value when ep vs good regs so we're not losing much there. but we are losing value by not building pots vs fish, but theres both good and bad there. when we limp we're playing vs a wider range of hands when they limp behind, and we want that, and i personally dont have a problem with overbetting like 2x pot on limped flops with all value hands and what i believe to be optimal bluffing frequencies. this would build the pot as well, and fish aint folding their hands to a 2x in limped pot.


otoh minraising could be good. this would allow us to steal the blinds, and would probably also allow playing those marginal hands from ep. problems with it tho are that wed be playing vs somewhat tighter ranges, and some other things i dont really care much for since i dont like the strat anyways. i personally would rather to not outlevel myself since i think that would happen when some opponents see that im raising two different sizes. most would assume it had to do with some hand type, not position, and i dont wanna deal with that.

Originally Posted by Renton

i don't know, but i can tell you for sure that small pairs and suited connectors are the worst hands to open limp in ep.

Prob the kinda hands you should be limping in ep would be something like 88-JJ AQ KQ

yes those are the worst because they are the bottom of the 'good' hand range. what im looking for is a way to play them vs weak players, and thats profitable. i really hate there being fish at a table who limp stuff and me having to chuck a hand that i belive to be profitable when they limp behind just because i cant balance my frequencies vs the regs who will try to exploit me

also coming from the standpoint of exploiting regs, one thing they dont want is to not be able to comfortably isolate a limper becasue that limper is trixy and they dont understand his range

fwiw, i am playing at 100nl where theres lots of limping and the best regs there are okay, so this type of thing should work. this is just something i want to figure out now so i can optimaize as i move back up

In Ed Miller's NLHE book, he advocates limp reraising premium hands early in 100bb or deeper effective stack games as a means to better hit your target SPR. Thoughts? What would you do in the alternative to avoid raising aces UTG and getting called for what usually is a HU SPR of about 9-10 at best? Too exploitable?

dont understand your question, but spr in raised pot for 100bb with AA is fine

Originally Posted by wufwugy

dont understand your question, but spr in raised pot for 100bb with AA is fine

I will elaborate:

Ex. 100BB stacks, we are UTG with AA, we do a standard 4BB raise, CO coldcalls, blinds fold. On the flop, pot is 9.5 BB, and we are right at a 10 SPR (Stack to Pot Ratio). A double digit SPR is bad for us.

If we limp, CO raises 5BB, we 3bet to 10 BB, CO Calls. On the flop, pot is 21.5 and we have an SPR of about 4.2. If we 3bet lighter, we could be in the 5-7 SPR range.

So my question is, if we limp reraise more premium hands to get a better SPR in this type of game (deep and aggressive versus short and passive), what do you think? Too exploitable or would it disquise our less than premium hands like low pockets and allow us to limp a greater range?

still dont understand. you seem to be equivocating how many hands we l/rr with how we size our l/rr

fyi, i didnt mentioned l/rr in op. its a fine topic tho