putting limpers on a range

I have been playing a lot of 6 max micro limit hold em. At that level there are a lot of people who open limp. Obviously most of these people are playing way to loose but what type of range should I put them on?

I've been running some pokerstove scenarios and when I am in cutoff or on the button the potential range for a limper can affect what I do when I am dealt borderline hands near the bottom of my range. I don't have hud software yet (soon though) so when facing unknowns what kind of range should I put them on to start?

Thanks,

Bill

If someone is open limping a ton and never open raising, expect suited cards esp A's, pairs, connectors, one and two gappers.

This may or may not vary by position - i.e., the range may be tighter utg than on the btn.

Putting them on an accurate range is next to impossible, for ranges in pokerstove just give them an unsuited connector (or several) or Axo (since they'll often have an overcard) to represent the rags in their range and see how much air they need to have for you to call them down.

One of the problems of them having such wide ranges is in situations like:
If the board paired, how many 7's could possibly be in the range of the limper who's repping a 7? I have no idea,. In these types of situations I default to folding vs passive fish and calling down weaker hands vs aggressive fish.

I also value bet really light vs frequent limpers and assume they're going to have a ton more top pair weak kicker and middle or bottom pair hands than nuts.

Edit: The reason I specified unsuited cards should be in their range is because there's more of them. You can replace them with suited, you just need to add more.

If you are thinking about their range to decide whether to isolate them then instead of looking at your equity against their range you could consider the playability more?

- If they limp/fold a lot then you can isolate looser because you will often take the money without a fight.
- If they fold to cbets too often you can also isolate looser because you can take the pot down without a huge hand.
- Do they call the flop frequently and then fold the turn?
- Do you have reads on how they play monsters? Some will minraise, some will call the flop and raise the turn, some will slowplay.

Sometimes the only way to find these things is to get in and attack but since these players are typically poor players it is often the case that our aggression wins.

Not really the answer you want but another thing to consider.

Thanks for the replies, lots of good things to think about.

I really appreciate how helpful everyone on this site is. I and my bankroll thank you.

Bill

The only limpers you need to worry about is the tricky or conservative player limping with big hands hoping you will raise it up.

They would be what we refer to as "fish".

Interesting, I'd be interested to know if there are any winning players who limp too often (VPIP more than double PFR?).

I mean in theory you could have a very strong postflop game and enjoy playing without initiative...

Anyone with a big database want to see if they have any candidates?

Sorry this is a bit of a thread hijack but it links sort of because it discusses whether we assume limper = fish.

Edit: If I ever get bored of playing "conventional" poker (making money) I might give that a go.

Honestly, yes it's probably possible. There are a lot of people who understand poker far better than I do who'd probably say it couldn't be done, but there is a very strict by-the-book right and wrong mentallity attatched to online poker. There is more than one sollution to seemingly obvious situations, we're just all trained/conditioned to think in similar ways (by "we" I'm taking a leap and counting myself amongst decent players).

With that being said, I stand by my comment that tricky and conservative players who limp are fish. The enormous vast majority of them are, such a high percentage that you may never come across a good player who does limp. The logic by which newer players decide to limp is usually along the same lines and demonstrates a lack of understanding of various factors which make it a horrible play. They aren't thinking about how balanced their range is (I'm not using "balanced range" as "unexploitable range" but rather "thought out and optimal") and they're often miscalculating the equity difference between limping and raising even before we bring game theory into the question. Noteably, they're forgetting about the blinds they're unable to steal and how transparent their hand is after taking various lines, even fish will likely be scared off by their value bets. Those who aren't so new to poker strategy that they're going to make these common blunders, will not limp.

Simply put, yes, limping is a sign of a fish. If you frequently see limpers who are not complete fish to you, you need to sit down and do some studying because these players are exactly the guys who should be contributing a lot to your winrate.

Oh and something that caught my attention (because I haven't rambled on enough yet).

This only applies if they can make the assumption that they will be in position, which basically means CO/BTN (CO is pushing it, imo) and if they're doing it from those positions the loss of potential equity from blind stealing is too high to ever justify it.

The only way I can imagine it would be possible is if many players on the table were weak-tight. Isolating badly, cbetting 100% and that way you can limp/raise or limp/call and raise their cbets. Probably just about profitably.

I might try it one day. Would probably take better reading skills than I possess though.

I have seen a few at the micros. I have a 19.2/5.9 that I have 2k+ hands on. He is a winning player, and plays extremely passively. The players at the lowest levels will stack off with TPTK and worse in small pots, and the worst won't notice that this is the first time someone has raised/reraised in 100+ hands.