limp, fish move

Hello people, I have been studying poker for a long time for about 6 months or more I don't know, I question that every video of a pro that I watch always says the same thing "never do limp a bb" but they never explain to you why or when to do it. a bb is a fish move?

rather, it is a trick to find your outs for defense inexpensively

The meaning here is that you should never open limp (be the first person to call the bb). You can call the bb if someone in front of you has already open limped, usually this is done with a mid to low pocket pair for set mining or suited connector type cards. The reason they say not to open limp yourself is that it is a passive play and shows hand weakness.

i dont think so

i dont think its a fish move specially when you are deep in a tournament, for example if you are close to the bubble or maybe close to a final table then sometimes it is reasonable to limp.

I used to think it was, but Ive seen some good players doing this so who knows. I try not to limp, but after losing a few hands in a row I dunno LOL

When you limp you are usually playing out of position without initiative, so you either need the best hand or to bluff the villans. If you raise you can win the hand right there, your perceived range will be stronger and it will be easier to continuation bet and get the villans to fold, and you should get less players in the hand.

TeUnit said:

When you limp you are usually playing out of position without initiative, so you either need the best hand or to bluff the villans. If you raise you can win the hand right there, your perceived range will be stronger and it will be easier to continuation bet and get the villans to fold, and you should get less players in the hand.

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Well said. To the original poster of this thread, I think another reason for this is because raising gives you "another chance to win." If you limp in, then you can only win by having the best hand at showdown (or getting opponent to fold before then). By raising, you have these same "ways to win" but you also have the added chance that they will fold to this immediate raise.

I think you should be wary of any advice that uses an absolute like "always" or "never" because there seems to be exceptions for various situations. In the example of limping (rather than open-raising), Daniel Negraenu has had success with limping in (and "small-ball" raises other times) because his play-style needs to protect his limping range. His play-style involves playing lots of hands against weaker players (hands like 7-5 suited or 8-9 suited), so he needs to include some stronger hands in his limping range (like QQ) for balance and lack of predictability. Essentially, playing so many hands is vulnerable to being exploited by early raises and playing back on later streets - so he must include trapping with hands like QQ occasionally so opponents are never sure if he "has it" or not. What you don't want to do is try to imitate him playing weaker hands (and often!) and then raising premium hands like normal. It will then become obvious to your opponents that you raise with the best hands and limp with the trash hands: they will just play-back at you every time and give you the pot if you raise (indicating you have a strong hand since you didn't balance your limping range).

Without getting advanced into subtle points and strategies, I think open-raising as a default and avoid "open-limping" is a better play if you are just playing more straight-forward and solid. This doesn't mean other strategies involving limping are bad (maybe other strategy points can justify it), but just that it isn't the conventional and should be avoided by most players who are not pros.