Is limping a bad general tournament strategy?

My philosophy is if I'm going to play a pot and I'm the first in, why NOT raise it? There's some chance I'll win an uncontested pot preflop and if I limp there's no chance of that. Say it's late in a MTT and your M is about 11. You are in middle or late position with something like QJ offsuit or King 10 suited, is it a good idea to limp?

I think you've got a good approach.

There's nothing inherently wrong with limping. If you've got limpers ahead of you hand you have small pocket pairs or suited connectors.

The problem is that it's cheap (if no one raises) so people who are afraid of raising overoverover use it. And minimum raising isn't much better.

It's all going to depend on the table, and your image on the table. So player will call you down no matter the 4 or 5x's bb raise, they will play lose, and catch, and then put you in for all your chips, just depends on the table and your image.

If a hand is good enough to play, it's good enough to raise with. Deciding when, not if, to raise is the hard part. Just try not to become predictable.

All generalizations are not worth a darn, including this one.

Heres a generalization you may enjoy: "If you raise it you should have limped, if you limp, you should have raised"
It works every time

I don't agree with this because limping has its place. Certainly in cash games but also in tournaments.

There are hands that like multi-way pots, such as suited connectors. Sure, you can raise those hands, but you're gonna chase most other players away. It makes more sense to see a cheap flop with them and get paid off big when they hit.

Like so many strategic questions, thereis only one pat answer to this.......it depends As a general rule, limping is not a great play, BUT, times, places, situations will come up where limping is a good play. Eg, late position, small pocket pair or suited connectors, other limpers in front, yeah, why not? If you don't catch, run away, didn't cost much.

Exactly. I agree with both statements above. To only limp or only raise is to artificially restrict your options. That cannot be good for profit.

I like limping with SC and small/medium pairs. The more players, the better. Small pairs are the best for that.

If I am first in the pot in late position, I may raise with medium pairs or high SCs because if I get called, I have some high-card value as a backup. But if the blinds are small, I prefer limping to invite the blinds in the pot. With small blinds, I would rather stack someone when I hit a big flop, than get a few chips from the blinds.

If there is one or more limpers in front, I tend to limp with hands I would otherwise have raised if first to act. It is hard to get rid of limpers because they are getting good odds to call(or so they think sometimes). If I don't have a huge hand, I don't want to re-raise huge and risk getting called or worse, re-raised.

Also, I almost never limp when my stack is less than 10-15BB, especially in EP. In those situations, that maxim applies: either raise it and try to get the blinds(or go all-in if necessary), or don't play at all. I have seen many players limping with stacks as small as 3-4BB. That's a huge mistake IMO.

The most controversial limps I make are hands like AK, AQ in early position when the blinds are small and players very loose. If I know I am going to get called, why raise with a drawing hand, build a big pot, and then have several opponents behind me?

And finally, against observant opponents, you sometimes have to limp with clearly raising hands, and vice versa to avoid becoming predictable.

i play smart and don't like to power bet and even if i have pocket aces or kings or something to that extent i'm not an all in kind of guy. i'll call if i'm in the blind spots and there isn't crazy raising or i'll call if i'm 2 suited or got like 7 8, 9, 10 stuff like that

Firstly if your not willing to go all in with As or Ks pre-flop then I don't think that is playing smart, and secondly I'm confused as to the last bit: do you mean you'll call with any suited hole cards and with offsuit connectors? I'm not sure how to read it



Anyway like a lot of people have said an instance of a good time to limp is in a multi-way pot with suited connectors or a small pair, but I will sometimes even open-limp with a small pair OOP or mid-position (obviously depending on how the table is playing). I'll also open-limp OOP if I'm on a very LAG table if I have a big pair knowing that I will probably get raised and can play back. But of course you don't want to get predictable so mix it up.

limping can be bad when u cant recognise that you're beat or you're just too stubborn to give up your pocket pair and keeps betting.

anyway this happen to be one of the hands i played in a freeroll,
eg, 88 on a 2d-5d-7c board? do u give it up if your opponent bet pot size here? it was a 5-way pot and since its a freeroll, i pushed all in, the guy who bet pot size show 2-5 for two pair. i kinda think i played my hand bad here.

what do you guys think?

I think any strategy is wrong if you over-use it. It is always important to mix your game so people can't get easy reads on you. Occasionally I limp with premiums and other times I will raise with junk, what is more important is having an idea of what your opponents are likely to do. There's no point being too clever with certain types of player.

I'll say one thing though, its a hell of a lot easier to throw away a premium that you've limped with and that you know has turned bad than one that you've already put 3-5BB behind (which is gonna cost you even more because, well, you have to c-bet doncha!)

This depends mainly on the stack sizes. If "pot size" is 100 chips and you pushed all-in for 2000 chips then you played it terribly.
If "pot size" is 100 chips and you had 320 left then the push is fine.

I almost always stick to the strategy that the OP mentioned: no open limping: bump it or dump it. There are exceptions, of course, one being stack size of 11-15 bbs range: here I am looking to see the flop cheaply with a hand in the JT-KJ range: we are not in shove mode yet, but a raise is going to commit us to the pot prematurely. Another exception would be the character of the table or another player being very aggressive, where we can look to make a limp re-raise type play.

like AG said bump it or dump it. in a late mtt tourney you'll end up limping, and I would say more than 65% of the time your limp is gonna get raised, and your hand is marginal to begin with, so its better to look stronger than your hand actually is by raising. If that doesn't happen someone in later position will limp, than when you miss the flop which is more than likely going to happen, he's gonna bet and your gonna fold.

In late situations you want to avoid putting yourself in positions where you've got a good chance to lose some money, so unless your sure you won't get raised and you'll be last to act, your going to more times than not lose money. The situation you explained is one you need to stay away from.