limping on the button? what do you think?

Sklansky and miller argue that it can be a good play with certain hands.
Most ppl think of it as a bad play.

I wont take any sides being fairly new to poker.

What are your opinions? please elaborate the answers if possible.
i.e. dont answer "i never do it" or "its a donk play" or "its ok sometimes"

Just saying cause i'd like to learn from this discussion as much as possible

thank you

Is it folded around to you, or are there limpers in front of you?

folded to you, u are on the button

Sklansky argues that with suited connectors and gappers (i.e. J9s, Q10s, 10 8s) it is better to have a smaller pot on the flop so there are smaller bets on the flop, when you are mostly drawing if you hit a draw, and bigger turn and river bets, when you know if u've made it.
He also argues that by raising, most of the time u'll just win the blinds whereas if u limp, with some profitable hands, u can play pots in position with them, possibly generating higher EV by winning bigger pots.

Of course, only applicable to deepstack nl poker.

*Bump*

I want to hear some of the better players' responses to this too

if it is folded around to me on the button, i will raise or fold, never limp. i will raise a fairly wide range, and be happy to take down the blinds with SCs and one gappers. why would you let the BB see the flop for free when you have a decent hand? take the blinds when they fold or play a bigger pot with position on the caller(s).

heres why that theory sucks. if you limp suited connectors (which is what your saying right?) then you have to start limping your betting hands so you arent totally predictable. its better to raise because you steal blinds a lot and you have a very likely chance of taking down the pot, especially if they are bad, because most bad players c/f most flops.

as papal said i would be interested to see if my reasoning seems good to the better players.

Originally Posted by will641

heres why that theory sucks. if you limp suited connectors (which is what your saying right?) then you have to start limping your betting hands so you arent totally predictable. its better to raise because you steal blinds a lot and you have a very likely chance of taking down the pot, especially if they are bad, because most bad players c/f most flops.

as papal said i would be interested to see if my reasoning seems good to the better players.

If they are bad, they will fold most hands and u'll take the blinds, and calling, they will mostly c/f most flops, correct.

But isn't it theoretically better to allow those bad players to see more flops against you, when you are better and have position, thus allowing them to make more 'mistakes' in different streets?

Allowing them to get married to top pair weak kicker when you flop a straight, etc.... may give more profit than just winning the blinds?

By raising, you almost force them to play correctly? folding most hands, reraising with big hands...
The only mistakes you get from them are when they call oop with marginal hands and then fold to your c-bet.

Of course, this strategy would need to be balanced so as not to give up your hands, occasionally raising w those hands and limping with others.

I don't know, Just wondering out loud

Originally Posted by asdpikas

But isn't it theoretically better to allow those bad players to see more flops against you, when you are better and have position, thus allowing them to make more 'mistakes' in different streets?

wouldn't you want those pots to be more than 2.5 bb?

Allowing them to get married to top pair weak kicker when you flop a straight, etc.... may give more profit than just winning the blinds?

you rarely get into those situations, and the goal isn't solely to steal blinds. what i was saying was that its worth it to raise because most of the time we either win it pre-flop or on flop with a c-bet

By raising, you almost force them to play correctly? folding most hands, reraising with big hands...
The only mistakes you get from them are when they call oop with marginal hands and then fold to your c-bet.

wrong. they play incorrectly reguardless. the only difference is they don't call with 9 2 off.
that is also very wrong that the only mistakes you get are them calling oop and folding to a c bet. are you serious?

Of course, this strategy would need to be balanced so as not to give up your hands, occasionally raising w those hands and limping with others.

finally, this is my main point. by raising our sc's and pp's and top 10 hands, they have no way of knowing our holdings based on pf raise! and if they fold most of the time to our c bets we take down a lot of small pots, along with getting paid on our bigger ones. i realize i didnt put that well but i dont really know how to without writing 1000 words.

sklansky argued that against some really bad players of a certain type it would be better to limp and let them see a flop while you have position, although I believe he suggest doing it with a J9/JT type of hand.

against someone that is just going to check-fold a lot of flops, raise it and let them fold in a bigger pot. if they are going to routinely go too far with bad hands then it might be alright. the more money you have behind the more of an advantage position should be.

Originally Posted by will641

By raising, you almost force them to play correctly? folding most hands, reraising with big hands...
The only mistakes you get from them are when they call oop with marginal hands and then fold to your c-bet.

wrong. they play incorrectly reguardless. the only difference is they don't call with 9 2 off.
that is also very wrong that the only mistakes you get are them calling oop and folding to a c bet. are you serious?

Could you please elaborate on this? do you mean they always play incorrectly when you say 'they play incorrectly reguardless'?

BTW, seeing how you ask "are you serious?" I think you may be thinking this is my opinion.
I don't really have a clear opinion on the matter and i am just trying to get some more experienced players to elaborate on things that go through my mind after reading a book. I am a new player and trying to learn, so i would kindly ask for your patience. Thank you.

On the other hand I may have to rephrase. i meant big 'mistakes'.
They surely will play incorrectly, for example, folding hands that have a better showdown value than what we are raising with (where pushing all-in, reraising, or other moves may be higher EV) but that is not a very costly mistake (i.e. 1blind)

If i understand the theory correctly, it is profitable for you when your opponents make 'mistakes', but it may be even more profitable for you to trade a small mistake (i.e. limp in some situations) for bigger mistakes by your opponents.

Thank you all for your posts, i hope there will be some more ideas coming, and a lot for me to learn.

Originally Posted by pgil

sklansky argued that against some really bad players of a certain type it would be better to limp and let them see a flop while you have position, although I believe he suggest doing it with a J9/JT type of hand.

against someone that is just going to check-fold a lot of flops, raise it and let them fold in a bigger pot. if they are going to routinely go too far with bad hands then it might be alright. the more money you have behind the more of an advantage position should be.

So, i understand this is totally dependent on the kinds of mistakes your 'bad' opponent makes.
Too weak postflop, but will call raises----> raise and c-bet
goes too far postflop with weak holdings, but doesnt call so many raises-------------> limp and try to get him to hang himself

How about aggressive blind defenders that will reraise light?
is limping w scs a better strategy than raising?
if they reraise us we hardly ever can call the reraise with that type of hands.

Could it also give for profitable trapping situations, mixing it up w limping w strong holdings if we see he raises most of the time to chase us away?

Is it better to just fold to their reraises and give them confidence for that time we raise on the button w a big big hand?

I dunno, just trying to learn

the reason i said "are you serious" was because of the notion that our bad opp will play well. bad opponents will be bad opponents, and i didnt mean to offend you. i dont really know how to elaborate on that much more.

what I'm saying is, raise or no raise, our bad opponents will make post flop and preflop mistakes anyways, so letting them see a free flop doesnt help the cause really. and also by raising you get some better idea of where they are at.

sorry, i only skimmed most of the responses.

i wont do it at small stakes. i can see reasoning for it when you are playing a table full of high skilled regs, though.

but, online and at lower stakes, i think you are better off raising the button and cbetting the flop.

at lower stakes, the only time i see doing it is on an extremely loose table with loose aggressives in the blinds. too easy to set them up by limping and encouraging a flop steal when you connect, you can make a relatively big pot easily. when you dont, you fold and only lose one bb as opposed to 4. therefore, you can trap 4 times as often, which gives you quadruple the times to hit a flop against a spewy aggro.

but even then, i just fold the trash on the button and make sure i'm raising decent stuff. at low stakes, i just dont see it being worth fancy, non-conventional plays. the others simply dont understand what or why you are doing things.

Originally Posted by will641

the reason i said "are you serious" was because of the notion that our bad opp will play well. bad opponents will be bad opponents, and i didnt mean to offend you. i dont really know how to elaborate on that much more.

what I'm saying is, raise or no raise, our bad opponents will make post flop and preflop mistakes anyways, so letting them see a free flop doesnt help the cause really. and also by raising you get some better idea of where they are at.

I understand what you mean, and no offence taken on that sentence, dont worry, just a bit confusing for me.
I think we are using different meanings of 'mistake'.
I was reffering to the meaning that Sklansky/Miller define as playing a hand differently than how you would play it if you knew your opponents cards. As per the theory of poker.
This is not the same as a bad play.
They use the example of being shortstacked in a tourney (stack 3-4BB) on the button, everybody folds to you, you push and the BB calls with AA.
This is a 'mistake' by the theory of poker, but definetely the good (and only) play.

What i meant was that sometimes, by making a certain play (in this case raising on the button) you encourage your bad opponents to make the correct play as per the theory of poker (i.e. folding most hands) whereas if you limp, you may induce 'mistakes' (and maybe bad plays) by getting them to tangle with you oop a bit more.

Certainly, bad players will continue to make bad plays, and 'mistakes', but i was wondering if you could get more, bigger, 'mistakes' from them by sometimes limping.

Originally Posted by Chopper

the others simply dont understand what or why you are doing things.

Isn't that a good thing here? I understand most fancy plays wont work/show profit against straightforward level 0 opponents, but here you dont need them to think anything of your play (as you would in complicated bluffs, traps, etc...). Here you just need them to play those pots oop with you.

Over time the amount of blinds you will take down far outweighs any other line of play. Unless the two people to your left are extremely strong players, I'd advise never limping the button.

O

open raising your button and having the blinds fold is a great result.