I have two questions regarding limping:How often are we limping from the button? I think perhaps I'm being too aggressive from the button maybe using a raise or fold theory and perhaps I should be limping more often. What kind of range are we creating these actions in general (I realize it depends so much on blinds and opponents)? Is it raising 50%, limp 25% and fold 25%? The second question revolves around my opponent limping his button WAY too often. It seems like at the 11.5s and 23s on Stars they seem to limp a ton. This tilts me!! LOL I don't want to open from OOP that often but I hate seeing flops with 62o as it usually just wastes valuable time. Should I start raising their dumbass limps until they get a clue or is that just a formula for spewing away chips in the long run? It's irritating that they limp button, then I check flop they check flop, air comes on turn, then just check...should I just fold 62o just to get to a different hand or bet just to see what happens?Thanks
I would discard the idea of there necessarily being a formula for the idea of limping vs. raising vs. folding (i.e. you 50% raise, 25% limp, and 25% fold.) Instead, focus on your opponent like you said. In general, if your opponent is tight, raise a lot preflop. If he's a station, either limp a lot or tighten your opening range. If he's a station and also very bad/unaware, open your good hands, limp your mediocre ones, and fold your trash. So you should be limping because it makes sense to, not because of what seems standard.As far as attacking limps, it works the same way. If you're sitting there with 62o in the BB and he limps, my course of action would depend on what kind of player he is. If he seems to be a station, I'll just check it back and check/fold the hand unless I hit or the board texture warrants a stab or two. On the other hand, if he's a tight player limping a lot, I'd raise the 62o for fold equity and if he does call I may or may not c-bet, depending on what I deduce his calling range to be. Regarding how annoying it is when villain limps the button, I personally love it. Think about it, when you have 62o, even your just checking down OOP with him like in your scenario, even if you decide not to stab at the pot to take it down, you'll still win a decent amount of the time, when you'd otherwise just be folding preflop and losing your BB. Let's just take this example to look at the math: Suppose your opponent limps 100% of his buttons and never bets post flop, whether he has AA or 72o, 5 high or the nuts (this is obviously extremely unlikely, but for the point I'm trying to make it'll serve it's purpose).62o's equity against a full 100% range is ~34%so if the blinds are 25/50 and you each have 1500 in chips, the pot every hand would be 100 chips (he just limps and you check down)100chips(.34)=34chipsso every time you just sit there and check down your 62o, no matter how boring you think it is or how much a waste of time it is, you are, in theory, making 34 chips that hand! Think about this next time a player limping all the time and not betting tilts you. If any of this doesn't make sense just let me know and I hope it helps
Yeah that's cool thanks for the thorough answer! Since I posted that, I have started limping a bit more as before I was pretty much raise or fold and after watching Primordial's Intermediate powerpoint he pointed out that players know they need to be aggressive and sometimes they just don't stop firing and that struck me as well...me LOL. I've seen better pot control just by putting limping as an option and also I am working on folding a lot more.