Micro FR Group: Isolating Limpers

Hey guys,

So first off, if you have just stumbled into this, this idea has came from the Micro FR Study Group thread. This is something that I thought would be good for all of the micro fr grinders on here to kinda hang out, discuss strategy and ping ideas off each other, hopefully progressing up through the limits together and crushing souls using a foundation of good discussion, sweats, HH review etc etc.

One idea that came up was to use 2p2's concept of the week to stimulate discussion, i'm not trying to make this too 2p2 focused but theres no denying that the COTW is a brilliant resource and micro players should be reading and seeing if they can act on it every week imo.

So, the first point of discussion then will be, Isolating Limpers, a v.good intro to this can be found HERE. I know that some people have already been going along with this and thats awesome, but lets have some discussion.

Anything that you are struggling with re: this concept?
Do you think that it works at the Micros?
What ranges are you iso'ing with?
What kinda success rates have you been having with it?
What kind of things are you specifically looking for when iso-ing?
Where have you been isoing from?
What needs to be in place for you to iso in earlier positions?

Obv all of this information can be found in that link and just repeated here, but try and give an honest opinion of how you found the reading, and how you have been trying to use it in your game, please feel free to include stats/graphs/hands to show what you mean/try and get some analysis on whether you have even been executing it correctly.

Just a tiny bit from me first, I love iso'ing limpers at the micros, when i first learned about isoing it was one of them AHA moments i feel, for the first time ever I could play my TAG game and feel like a LAGtard bumping it up to 5bb with K8s, i think i understand the concept really well and it shows in my results, when i filter for VPIP=True Pfr=True - facing 1 limper in EP - hero in CO/BTN, my profits over just a 6k hand sample are like 1.5 Bi's, i may be using it incorrectly and be proved wrong here but imo it should be the bread and butter for micro players.

Remember, Everytime you see someone limp in EP just think in your head.......$$KA$$CHING$$!!!

I love isolating limpers as well, works very well in full ring, and does ok in 6max.

When I have a tight table image and am in position what else could god give me other than weak fish playing weak hands OOP

I'm not that good at long drawn out well thought post.Plus i play 6max i don't know how good this will be but "Watch Me Go".In the below HH i have ~200 hands on villain.43\15\1 fold to cbet ~90% of the time.If his stats are not bad enough,an that he limped from the cutt off is not bad enough he also shows how bad he is by not buying back when he loses $ over an over.I have position on him (on every one wink button)with all this i know he most deff is going to call my raise an play fit or fold poker on the flop,and we all like free money.These are some of the spots i look for.

View hand 1185716
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

UTG: $8.48
MP: $7.28
CO: $1.85
Hero (BTN): $5.00
SB: $9.70
BB: $5.27

Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero is BTN with T ♣ K ♦
2 folds, CO calls $0.05, Hero raises to $0.25, 2 folds, CO calls $0.20

Flop: ($0.57) 7 ♣ 2 ♥ 7 ♠ (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $0.45, CO folds

Final Pot: $0.57
Hero wins $0.54
(Rake: $0.03)

You can cbet to like .25 - .30 here and get exactly the same result. No need to cbet big when your opponent is going to play the same regardless of your bet size. Betting bigger just loses more when he has a hand but doesn't get any more folds.

Edit to add: Bigger is better only when villain is a chronic floater because then you're just setting yourself up to win a bigger pot when you barrel the turn.

Just wondering, don't you think bets like .25 might increase the urge for the villain to sometimes float with A high?

Nope. Not a guy who folds to 90% of cbets, especially on a paired board.

This guy does not know what floating a flop means.

Isn't floating calling a flop with the intent of taking it down later in the pot?

Yes but he said the villain folds to flop cbets 90% so he's certainly not a floater.

Ive been wondering about this too, as we always hear about c bets bein half the pot, but when i did half pot c bets for a week or two the amount of reraises i got was disgusting, ive moved my c bets up to 2/3's of the pot now and this seems to be working a treat.

I like this thread orange and will definitely be discussing some more on sunday when i get on my on my own laptop.

So ill ask a little question kinda on topic, when we're isolating and we do hit the flop with say top pair, should we still be firing a 2/3rd c bet or should we stick like 80-90 percent of the pot in to extract more value? I know this is being really fussy over a few bb's, but bb's are bb's and the more the better always

Yeah he meant the villain in the hand not you phil.

Cbet size is very flop dependent. The wetter the board the larger you'll usually have to cbet up to the point where you no longer think it's profitable to cbet. A paired board without a face card is about as dry as they come, so you can cbet really small (whether you have it or not). Same with an Ace high board in this type situation, smaller cbet because either they have an Ace or they're folding generally. You might want to bet 2/3 pot or more if the board is coordinated and hits your opponents range more.

Depends what type of villain you have iso'd imo, like if its your stock 75/5 then hell yeah, i'm at least potting flop and turn with TP in most spots, provided you havent iso'd with K3s lol, but like TP T+, possibly even 9+ kicker, i'm either gonna be value towning myself vs 2pair/TP better kicker, or value towning the fish with whatever they choose to limp + call off 2 streets with. An issue I have is shoving rivers with bad kickers, which is probs a leak but i'm def happy to bet big on flop and turn.

Ah i see, never thought of scaling my cbets down when the flop is super dry or just has the Ace... also yeah orangepeeleo i should probably bet the bot against the absolute passive droolers i probably miss some value by keeping my cbets the same and lose more than i need too when the flops dry, cheers guys will start thinking of this more next time i play

I just posted this in another thread but bet sizing in NL is a HUGELY important skill. If you're always betting the same size you're costing yourself lots of money (both in investing too much in the pots you lose and not getting max value in the pots you win). Fact is that no one at your levels (hell only like 10 guys maybe at my level) is paying attention to the fact that you're altering your bet sizing to suit your needs. Even if they do notice they're very likely to be wrong in their assumptions or the adjustments that they make.

What about checking the flop? Be it IP or OOP.

F.e. We have AdQd and flop comes 267ss? If we're playing against a very loose player, this flop hits them a lot of the time. I guess this will be the case where you think it's not profitable for you to make a cbet.
And the other case is when you flop the nuts. You're pretty sure your opponent(s) will fold if you bet, so you check and let them catch a pair or something on the turn. Something that they can call a bet with, or maybe bet themselves when they see you checked the flop.

I wish I had read this bit before just being called to the river by a "passive drooler" who called a 3/4 size cbet after flop and turn to catch his flush on the river.

Not that I fully blame him to much I played the hand all wrong.

In general the COTW has helped me, I know I'm picking up many more limped pots than I was. I needed to read kurts post first to help me make sense of the actual post we are discussing.

It also pointed me in the direction of the fact I had too many of some of the tendency's being pointed out as exploitable in my game and I am working on putting them right.

I don't like checking back the flop too often, i think that if you do flop the nuts, say AA on an A73r brd, if the villain hasnt caught much on this flop then chances are he's not going to catch much at all anyways but he's surely gonna peel with like 66+ 45/24 Ax(obv unlikely), your either gonna lose value from a hand that will peel or check it back with the small possiblity of someone catching something, like 6 outs for 2 broadways or something.

I'd like to see some bet sizing analysis hands, this a huge part of whether we profit or not and we might not even be doing it right.

Pre flop?Or on the flop or both PI? I go with 5s bb vs one limper 6x vs 2 or more.WV told me my almost 3\4-pot size was wrong on certian boards so i would like to listen also.

I usually raise 3X pre-flop and add 1X for every limper, in position. OOP I raise 4X plus 1X for every limper.

I usually bet half the pot when i'm c-betting on flops that aren't wet. (10 9 8 flops and such are a different story)

When I am betting a hand it is anywhere between half the pot to pot, it's just depending on what I put my opponent on.

Would like to do some hand analysis.

Ill post some HH's on sunday when im back on my laptop, sounds good idea.

And a little tip Phil Ivey, at 2 and 5NL (i dont know if ure at them or not) 4x bb is kind of the standard raise +1 per limper, just try it out and see what you think i found 3x just didnt cut it really, also like kurt said if theres say 3 or 4 limpers and we really wanna be HU, you can always just make it 9,10 even more bb's because chances are one of the droolers will call, even if they dont this is better than playing multiway pots.... which brings us onto another thing to discuss, how do you guys cbet in multi way pots, i know i often lose money here....

I had never done this before but I limped and let someone isolate me:

PokerStars - $0.05 NL (9 max) - Holdem - 7 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3
CO: $13.34
BTN: $4.63
SB: $11.58
BB: $2.77
UTG: $2.52
Hero (UTG+1): $5.00
MP: $2.35
SB posts SB $0.02, BB posts BB $0.05
Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero has K♦ K♣
UTG calls $0.05, Hero calls $0.05, fold, CO raises to $0.30, fold, fold, BB calls $0.25, UTG calls $0.25, Hero raises to $1.50, fold, BB raises to $2.77 and is all-in, fold, Hero calls $1.27
Flop: ($6.16, 2 players) 9♣ A♠ 5♥
Turn: ($6.16, 2 players) A♣
River: ($6.16, 2 players) 5♣
BB shows 7♥ 4♣ (Two Pair, Aces and Fives)
Hero shows K♦ K♣ (Two Pair, Aces and Kings)
Hero wins $5.86

I don't recommend this play were we are at FX.Sure it will sometimes work but mostly you will have 5-6 callers an your F ed pretty hard.

I thought about this for awhile before trying it. I planned ahead so that if no one raised I would only play for set value. I would only try this from EP and if I expected someone to raise after me.

It's real good for your game FX to think about different things like this.Playing KK for set value is not one of them though.If your playing it because you have 2 or 3 50\40\5 behind you limp raiseing for value is fine.If every one smoothed and the flop came out J94 an the lag villain bet out 1\2 pot what would you do?
Edit:reason it sounded like a brag.

So what's your WR for hands where you raise preflop limpers???

At 100nl mine is 74BB/100.

PT3 - Filters > Actions > Select Behind limpers and Any Raise

I have no idea in HEM for this one.

Graph for all my FR hands in this situation. Remember this the next time someone limps in front of you. ♥

luv limpers.jpg (http://www.cardschat.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=36169&d=1298073713)

so what's your raise sizing?

Preflop is pot. (3.5x+1bb/limper).

so you always just press pot?

Not always but that is my current default raise size. I used to raise 4x+1, then went to 3x+1, and now 3.5x+1. Now if it's a special kind of limper, I'm certainly not above making it 6x or more with hands that will play well postflop.

so are you pretty much raising limpers with ATC? How many limpers need to be in for you to pop?

Whats wrong with my example for this.Is one that is juicy and plump not good enough?

Haha that is golden, 13k from isolating limpers, inspiration ITT. Everytime i miss out on isolating a limper in the future, i will punch myself in the balls.

And Fx, have you read the COTW on isolating limpers by kurt from 2+2? that pretty much explains when and why we should be isolating them and is a v.good read.

Edit: Joebob nothing wrong with your example, actually its a perfect example of what always happens at microstakes, but did you make 13k from it? haha

So I did this filter and found that almost all my profit still comes from hands Id never fold or limp along with. I very rarely just limp along anyways and usually decide if I should raise or fold it.

So I took out all value hands that Id never even think twice about raising almost all limpers. ATo+,ATs+,KQo+,KQs+,KJs and 77+. Without these hands Im a very small winner. Is this normal? What do everyone else's stats look like here?