Regs Open Limping in 9 Max

I'm noticing a lot of players limping a really tight range where I'm playing NL20 and some of them are pretty competent postflop players who will fold a straight when they need to.

Is this a live poker kind of thing?

It confuses me because these players aren't fish.

Are there a lot of other players at these tables - whom you do not rate as experienced regulars? If there are several fish at the table, then this strategy makes sense - they watch the flop cheaply, and then make decisions postflop.

Well, they do that, because of you . Just exploit them. And do the same with suitable hands, if there aren't aggro players behind you. This strategy is not good, because there is no defend vs iso raise. To defend against iso raise, you must limp with all your range. Or with balanced range. With strong hands. But this is a loss of value.

This limp from UTG is more suitable for live poker, because the people don't like to fold. If you play vs many players with your strong hands, this is a loss of value. You can use 5 blinds for open raise. But if there are also happy 3betors behind you, they will exploit you very easily. And this is the adaptation. Limp...With any hand. Even with AA. And you can play wide range (for UTg). With limp-fold, limp-call, limp-raise. And you can use this strategy online, if the table is similar to the "live situation". But do not use balanced range for limp in late positions. Only capped range.

Andrew Popov said:

Are there a lot of other players at these tables - whom you do not rate as experienced regulars? If there are several fish at the table, then this strategy makes sense - they watch the flop cheaply, and then make decisions postflop.

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The general 9 max population in this room open limps very often but what's strange is these guys were open limping with PFR's of less than 20. The whole table was doing this.

ventrolloquist said:

I'm noticing a lot of players limping a really tight range where I'm playing NL20 and some of them are pretty competent postflop players who will fold a straight when they need to.

Is this a live poker kind of thing?

It confuses me because these players aren't fish.

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I do not really know what is happening, well they are strange movements in Poker, and they do it especially with couples, because if they achieve a trio, this will be a difficult hand to decipher and very profitable.

Jim Rivas said:

I do not really know what is happening, well they are strange movements in Poker, and they do it especially with couples, because if they achieve a trio, this will be a difficult hand to decipher and very profitable.

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Lol I do that with them too, except many shove when they hit their sets and gain no value [emoji23] at least not from me.

Seems they are limping pocket pairs and broadways

Tables with lots of limpers are generally tables with bad players. However tables with bad players attract good players so you get good players on these tables too. The problem with limping is you can get raised. But on weak table you can limp without being raised. Sometimes that's to your advantage. Other times it's to your advantage just raise like normally would.

Small pairs and suited connectors play best in limped multiway flops because you get the implied odds you need for those hands. But hands that usually win with top pair or overpair, like big pairs and broadways are very dangerous in multiway flops. In a 4 way pot aces have a 65% chance and AK only has 40% chance. So you want to iso raise with them.
In late position facing limps in front of me with a small pair or suited connector I will limp myself and hope the blinds don't raise. With a bigger pair or broadway hand I raise to punish the limpers. I add 1BB to my standard raise size (usually 2.5-3.5 BB depending on where I am playing) for each limper because I want to try to get all but one of the limpers to fold. Without a limp in front of me I raise to steal.

When in middle position I'm worried about getting raised by someone ahead of me so I'm more cautious about limping. In early positions I rarely if ever limp except on very passive tables.

Andrew Popov said:

Are there a lot of other players at these tables - whom you do not rate as experienced regulars? If there are several fish at the table, then this strategy makes sense - they watch the flop cheaply, and then make decisions postflop.

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What this guy said.

If there are lots of fish at the table who call down lightly, you can profitably limp 50% of hands and see a flop. You can value town them with hands as weak as middle pair etc. The more pots you play with the fish, the more +EV it is.

See flop cheaply to exploit fish and stop regs 3betting you light. If you open to standard amount, the regs will exploint you and you'll have to fold to their 3bets. By limping, you ensure you see a flop even if a reg squeezes.

I don't like it when someone limps, it can be very confusing. I rarely limp, raise or throw.

ventrolloquist said:

I'm noticing a lot of players limping a really tight range where I'm playing NL20 and some of them are pretty competent postflop players who will fold a straight when they need to.

Is this a live poker kind of thing?

It confuses me because these players aren't fish.

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The universe of poker players is a bit more complex than just "fish" or "pro", and propably we should be happy for that. The important is to find out, what each opponent is doing wrong, and how we can exploit them. In the case of the tight limpers, probably iso-raise them less liberal than we would a true fish and use some degree of pot control postflop.

TheGenera1 said:

What this guy said.

If there are lots of fish at the table who call down lightly, you can profitably limp 50% of hands and see a flop. You can value town them with hands as weak as middle pair etc. The more pots you play with the fish, the more +EV it is.

See flop cheaply to exploit fish and stop regs 3betting you light. If you open to standard amount, the regs will exploint you and you'll have to fold to their 3bets. By limping, you ensure you see a flop even if a reg squeezes.

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My counter to that problem (with your regular vpip 60 fish and regs at the table) is actually iso tighter than I open, and iso with bigger size. Works wonders, at 9 max I even make some ridiculous isos in like 25bb with AA or KK and when I get called by somone who can't fold their pocket pair I'm usually stacking them. It's just that these limpers were pretty tight which I found strange lol.

Yes, we can exploit the fish by ISO raising very large, and then take them to value town when they call down.
We can also make a small profit on the regs who limp/call when we ISO. The thing to remember is that the REG is also making profit when they limp/call as long as they do so with the expectation that the fish/whale is coming along for the ride.

The reg makes a mistake when they call the ISO raise, with intention of folding flop if they miss, when the fish has folded pre flop. If fish calls pre, then the limping reg/s have implied odds to call.

Just for the record I think, open limping require not just fish at the table to be justifiable but also a very passive table, where players dont iso-raise as much, as they should. So while I dont know this particular game or its dynamics, open limping in cash games is not something, I am planning to implement in my own strategy

It's a strategy I use a lot if there are multiple whales. Im talking VPIPs of 50+. The trick is to open limp in EP and MP and open raise or call from LP. That way we get to see as many cheap flops as possible with really speculative hands and take fish to value town. The risk of raising from EP means the following happens. I'll give two scenarios.

My winrate at 10nl was 26.49bb/100 over 30k hands using this strategy and I played stats of 23/15. Big gap between VPIP and PFR.

Scenario 1 10nl
Fish UTG Limps: 10 cents
Folds to another fish in MP who calls 10 cents.
Hero in LJ calls 10 cents with K5s
Folds to reg in Button. ISO raises to 60 cents
UTG calls
MP calls
Hero calls

Scenario two
Fish UTG Limps: 10 cents
Folds to another fish in MP who calls 10 cents.
Hero in LJ RAISES to 50 cents with K5s
Folds to reg in Button who 3bets to $1.50
UTG folds
MP folds
Hero folds

Which scenario is preferable with speculative trash like K5s? We know we can play this hand profitably with position on the fish, so by limping we allow ourselves (and also the fish, this is very important) the preflop odds to call an isolation raise. In scenario two, we throw the money away and ourselves, along with the fish, are forced out of the pot.

There is a big difference between open limping and limping behind. Limping behind is certainly a reasonable strategy in some situations. But I dont think, calling the 6BB raise with K5s is a profitable play. Even though there are fish in the hand, you are also playing against the reg, and he has position on you. I would not isolate with something this bad either, so I would just fold. I know, the games were very soft during the lockdowns, but this is no longer the case, and I think, you are taking the "get involved with bad players" idea a little to far with an example like this.

The regs are weak, and non-thinking. They don't adjust their game according to the fish most of the time. They'll blindly raise hands like AQ and AK/AJ and just check fold the flop when they miss 70% of the time. You can easily outplay the reg. They give up on multi-way pots unimproved.

Open limping against multiple whales is ok too. The scenario plays out the same. Fish love to limp and won't raise your limps, and you can play against fish and non-thinking regs even when out of position. Top pair with K5s is good to take to the river against whales. Your EV goes up the more pots you play against whales. By limping certain hands, we ensure the pot stays small and allows us to see flops. This is +EV in my opinion.

It's not important what state the games are in, I'm specifically talking about games WITH lots of whales in them. This is the game that the OP is specifically talking about. In games without lots of whales, this strategy is defintely not advisable. I think I've made this clear in my posts

TheGenera1 said:

It's a strategy I use a lot if there are multiple whales. Im talking VPIPs of 50+. The trick is to open limp in EP and MP and open raise or call from LP. That way we get to see as many cheap flops as possible with really speculative hands and take fish to value town. The risk of raising from EP means the following happens. I'll give two scenarios.

My winrate at 10nl was 26.49bb/100 over 30k hands using this strategy and I played stats of 23/15. Big gap between VPIP and PFR.

Scenario 1 10nl
Fish UTG Limps: 10 cents
Folds to another fish in MP who calls 10 cents.
Hero in LJ calls 10 cents with K5s
Folds to reg in Button. ISO raises to 60 cents
UTG calls
MP calls
Hero calls

Scenario two
Fish UTG Limps: 10 cents
Folds to another fish in MP who calls 10 cents.
Hero in LJ RAISES to 50 cents with K5s
Folds to reg in Button who 3bets to $1.50
UTG folds
MP folds
Hero folds

Which scenario is preferable with speculative trash like K5s? We know we can play this hand profitably with position on the fish, so by limping we allow ourselves (and also the fish, this is very important) the preflop odds to call an isolation raise. In scenario two, we throw the money away and ourselves, along with the fish, are forced out of the pot.

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Thanks for the explanation, I always appreciate seeing databases to back uo strategies , I can see merit in this at tables that have no regs.

I think at the table where I was all the fish left and a bunch of regs limping remained (because the table had no fold equity).. not realizing all the fish left lol. At least so it seemed with the tight limping ranges. Or perhaps they were just cheaply colluding, just a paranoid sidethought lol.

TheGenera1 said:

The regs are weak, and non-thinking. They don't adjust their game according to the fish most of the time. They'll blindly raise hands like AQ and AK/AJ and just check fold the flop when they miss 70% of the time. You can easily outplay the reg. They give up on multi-way pots unimproved.

Open limping against multiple whales is ok too. The scenario plays out the same. Fish love to limp and won't raise your limps, and you can play against fish and non-thinking regs even when out of position. Top pair with K5s is good to take to the river against whales. Your EV goes up the more pots you play against whales. By limping certain hands, we ensure the pot stays small and allows us to see flops. This is +EV in my opinion.

It's not important what state the games are in, I'm specifically talking about games WITH lots of whales in them. This is the game that the OP is specifically talking about. In games without lots of whales, this strategy is defintely not advisable. I think I've made this clear in my posts

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It always scares to take top pair bad kicker too far multiway, but I guess with the ranges being so loose the liklihood of very strong hands diminishes. Is it really profitable to value bet K5 three streets in the long run multiway? (Assuming we choose a safe dry flop to so)

ventrolloquist said:

It always scares to take top pair bad kicker too far multiway, but I guess with the ranges being so loose the liklihood of very strong hands diminishes. Is it really profitable to value bet K5 three streets in the long run multiway? (Assuming we choose a safe dry flop to so)

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It really, REALLY depends on the villain. Some whales call to the river with bottom pair. In this case, yes, it's advisable. Some villains will bluff all in effective over a number of streets with no pair at all, a missed draw, bottom pair, gutshots etc. Again, in these cases it's advisable to call down light.

Just be sure you've got the villain tendancies correctly noted.

TheGenera1 said:

It really, REALLY depends on the villain. Some whales call to the river with bottom pair. In this case, yes, it's advisable. Some villains will bluff all in effective over a number of streets with no pair at all, a missed draw, bottom pair, gutshots etc. Again, in these cases it's advisable to call down light.

Just be sure you've got the villain tendancies correctly noted.

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Assuming they all call any pair at any reasonable bet size of course, I would fear 2 pair pretty often though so I wonder if the value outweighs what you risk against better top pairs +. These were like 5 or 6 way pots every hand lol.

Again, it really depends on the opponents. One of them might bluff heavily with nothing. The other might call down with nothing. You need to identify who is doing what and act accordingly.

I know it's hard to bet big with marginal hands against fish, because sometimes they will indeed have two pair or better. But you need to go again a range of hands. If, over a large sample, they are calling down with bottom pair and garbage draws, then it's +EV to bet into them for your entire stack.
Same goes for maniacs who bluff all in with total air. Some guys will play 100% of hands and have an aggro of 25 or more, when the average TAG has an aggro of 3. These players will bluff with nothing, every single hand.

TheGenera1 said:

Again, it really depends on the opponents. One of them might bluff heavily with nothing. The other might call down with nothing. You need to identify who is doing what and act accordingly.

I know it's hard to bet big with marginal hands against fish, because sometimes they will indeed have two pair or better. But you need to go again a range of hands. If, over a large sample, they are calling down with bottom pair and garbage draws, then it's +EV to bet into them for your entire stack.
Same goes for maniacs who bluff all in with total air. Some guys will play 100% of hands and have an aggro of 25 or more, when the average TAG has an aggro of 3. These players will bluff with nothing, every single hand.

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Thanks, that makes sense

I used to really like limping in especially when I liked my cards but I see the error of my ways now

UkoChebuko said:

Well, they do that, because of you . Just exploit them. And do the same with suitable hands, if there aren't aggro players behind you. This strategy is not good, because there is no defend vs iso raise. To defend against iso raise, you must limp with all your range. Or with balanced range. With strong hands. But this is a loss of value.

This limp from UTG is more suitable for live poker, because the people don't like to fold. If you play vs many players with your strong hands, this is a loss of value. You can use 5 blinds for open raise. But if there are also happy 3betors behind you, they will exploit you very easily. And this is the adaptation. Limp...With any hand. Even with AA. And you can play wide range (for UTg). With limp-fold, limp-call, limp-raise. And you can use this strategy online, if the table is similar to the "live situation". But do not use balanced range for limp in late positions. Only capped range.

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So I recently revisited / thought about this concept. While I agree with you I think that once you have people who iso too much + people who call too much at the table, limping becomes a favorable strategy. Of course you would balance your range limping some premiums a small percent of the time, this way your range isn't as capped. The idea is you can do this to exploit the regs who iso too wide as long as there is a loose passive player to their left, you would limp and then squeeze. Picture these two scenarios.

1) you open raise 2.5x, reg folds, fish calls in bb. There is 5.5bb in the pot

2) you limp, reg isos 3.5bb, fish calls, there is now 8.5bb in the pot and you can squeeze/3-bet a mix of value and bluffs. When you do squeeze there is a good chance the passive fish will call and the reg will fold. You get to see a flop against a weak player and get to outplay him.

Of these two the second one imo will make much more money on average.

I realize a lot of people might strongly disagree with limping preflop and this is certainly the case if nobody will be iso raising very often. But I'm sure most small stakes regs will iso much wider than what a solver would suggest. And even if they follow a solver solution for iso vs a limp, the fact that someone to their left flats way too much would void their strategy and they would still be isoing too wide. I've seen simplified game tree solver solutions that suggest that the best strategy at tables like this is to mix big open raises with a balanced limping range. It's certainly possible to build a limping range without capping your range.

Was wondering if anyone has ever tried this strategy? I usually just stick to GTO ranges but might consider doing this at some of the splashy tables on pokerbros and chico network.

ventrolloquist said:

Is this a live poker kind of thing?

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Probably yes since this post was made in july 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, where a lot of live players had come into online poker, and other people come back to online poker after a decade long absense, because psycical casinos and were closed and outgoing activities severely restricted. Volume on sites like pokerstars more than dubbled because on this, but now two years later its a completely different situation, and I dont think, you will find much open limping from competent players online today