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iLikeMary's picture
Playing vs limps

Hey there,

at the 1,50 and 3,50 level almost everyone i play against is limping almost 90% of their range on the button.

If i check, they stab almost 100% on the flop where i often have to fold. When i raise them, they call my raise also 100% of the time. sometimes they show me hands like A8, KQ, 10/9s, 66... it drivers me mad that they limp almost every hand.

Is there a tactic vs these limpers?

 

Best regards

teddybloat's picture
first of all DO NOT GET

first of all DO NOT GET FUSTRATED. their limping strategy is GREAT for you.

 

they are gifting you equity over and over. you have 63o they have A8o, what would you rather they do? you WANT them to limp. instead of auto surrendering your blind you get to see a free flop that you can hit - and even if you only ever put money in on 33x flops you still do better than if they had raised.

  • they play small pots in position with no betting lead
  • you play big pots in position with the betting lead.
  • they play big pots out of position without the betting lead.
  • you play small pots out of position where no-one has taken an aggressive action

you can see who is doing better here.

we make money in poker by playing hands differently to our opponents - even fish probably make as much money with AA as does phil ivey as most people play AA pretty similarly. wherever our edge comes from, it doesnt come from AA KK type hands. we make money by playing marginal hands differently, or more specifically more profitably. the reverse is also true. we can make money by forcing opponents to play marginal hands less profitably.

nowhere is it more true than v a serial limper.

consider the times when we have 98o in the BB compared to their 98o in the BB.

we can check behind, see a free flop in a 2bb pot, have the option of stabbing or deciding to play fit or fold.

they have to either surrender their BB or play a 4bb pot without the betting lead where they will often be check/folding.

sumarry:

dont worry, be happy v serial limpers. even without a strategy we are doinfg better v them than they are v us

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you say "if i check they stab"

dont check so much then, or just check/raise more!

they are limping 100% and stabbing 100%

ask yourself how often a 100% range hits eg:

K49r

947

AK6

flops. not very often. you can stab a lot v limpers.

if you flop a gut shot or open ended draw eg:

56 on 34K / 73T type flops then you have equity but no show down value. STAB! look to take the initiative.

summary:

their range is weak on many flops, exploit this by stabbing, esp on dry flops where it is hard to make a hand.

their stabbing range is weak on many flops, exploit this by check/raising both for value and as bluffs.

stab when you have equity but little showdown value or made but vulnerable hands.

 

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you say they limp/call 100%. raise for VALUE then.

be careful isolating limps. often you'll here people talk of 'punishing' limpers, or "i raise to stop them limping". we have already seen that it's fine for us for them to limp. when stacks are short then it is worth going after that dead money, but in genral we want to be intelligently raising limps to exploit that range.

raggy aces are not good for this purpose. they will call with eg J7, T6s etc and those hands do just fine in position versus our A3. the Ace is a massive part of our percieved range, and when our percieved and actual ranges are the same out of position its an easy game for villain. so much better to raise strong aces, and raise them big too. if our usual isolateing raise is 3x go 4x as we wont get value on Axx boards, so we want our value pre flop. we can also bundle some nice bluffs into this range. stuff that plays well on low to middling flops when we are called. this part of our range benefits from the bigger size in three ways:

  • extra fold equity from bigger sizing
  • credit on A and K high flops
  • we are disguised on low / middling flops. here our percieved range is vastly different from our actual range, so we can do some fun stuff

checking back rag aces also allows us too eek out extra value on Axx flops, as the ace is not a big part of our range.

raise hands that will get called by dominated hands. KQ, KJs, KT etc all fit the bill. J9, Q5 etc can be dominated and are rarely dominating so are probably best checked behind versus this type of limper. raise smaller with the KQ, KT, QJ type hands along with your big pairs. hands like T9s JTs can also be  raised but you do want some good hands that flop well in you check back range too. but experiment with different isolating ranges for sure.

summary:

raise for value with hands that can dominate calling ranges.

adjust the size accoring to your hand [against fishes this is fine, but you can still psuedo balance as discussed above]

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good luck and dont worry about limpers.

 

 

 

TheCleaner01's picture
^^^

Awesome reply. 

Go forth and CRUSH !

cdon3822's picture
Solid post teddy. Persistent

Solid post teddy.

Persistent limpers can be very frustrating to play against, especially when villain never folds and you're card dead.

Playing against someone who limps 100% and feeling frustrated really highlights the power of position.

It is a very common question and there have been other posts about this:

http://www.husng.com/content/how-play-against-persistant-limpers

http://www.husng.com/content/limp-every-button-and-bet-every-flop

 

Probably a good theory topic for a video maker to explore ...

Or could be consolidated in a FAQ article.

I've never been a big limper except as an adjustment vs very aggressive 3b strategies, because it seems to have such a high opportunity cost relative to raising. But I can see how it could be quite effective at taking some players out of their comfort zones, especially when you up the frequency of pots you're playing with villain in position postflop.

iLikeMary's picture
thank you so much for your

thank you so much for your great reply, makes a lot of sense now.

best regards!