Limping in with marginal hands, 4 X more profitable than big hands???

A

angrybanana

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I'm somewhat of a noob and getting through Phil Gordons Little Green Book. Where he talks about limping I understand the reasoning behind losing 1BB four times and winning on the fifth time for the amount of 5BB giving me a net gain of 1 BB. What I don't understand is what do marginal vs big hands have to do with it. Here is the excerpt:

"I have found limping to be most effective when I do it with a marginal hand about four times more often than I do with big hands. Why is that? Mathimatics.
Assume my opponents are likely to raise about five times the size of the big blind when I limp, in an effort to get to fold. If I follow the four to one ratio above, then four out of five times I will have a mediocre hand that I will have to fold after my opponents raise. Over the course of those hands I will lose the equivalent of four BBs. On the fifth time, I will have a strong hand, re-raise the raiser, and (hopefully) win the pot right there. I will win the money they have raised- about five times the size of the BB- and cover the four times I have lost, leaving me with a net gain equivalent to 1 BB"
 
Mase31683

Mase31683

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He's saying that if you are going to limp weak hands, you need to mix in strong hands with at least a ratio of one strong hand for every four weak ones.

That way you can't be exploited for limping the weak hands because 1/5 of the time you have a hand capable of 3betting.

It's going down a GTO line of thought.
 
XXPXXP

XXPXXP

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just want to say
it tells you a way/method how to balance your hand/cards/range to protect you from being exploit.
but I don't think it is a good idea here.

maths is like
if you limp 5 times, and limp fold 4 without contest.
the 5th time, even you limp with AA, is NOT make you a 100% winning, you may have something like 20% winning chance.
which is net 60% of 5bb = net 3big blinds
but the other 4 times you lost net 4bb
therefore, you net lost 1Big blinds.

if change that to AK the situation becomes even worse, it may just have net 20% or less than 35% of net win when you limp the 5th time.
___
 
zarzar78

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Limping with marginal hands is a risky strategy, i d'ont agree with Phil Gordons cause when he will limp on the 5th times with good hands , the raiser can cover him with nuts, so reraising will cost not just 1BB but my be all his chips on the table...
 
Mase31683

Mase31683

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The point here isn't to be limping with good hands.

He wants to limp weak hands. Problem is observant players will know his limp means free money if they attack his limp. His solution is the 4:1 ratio he talks about, varying based on villain raise sizing.

The point is to force the other players to allow him to limp the weaker marginal hands because they can't just assume he's full of it all the time and start attacking his limps super wide as he'll be able to play back at them approximately 20% of the time.
 
sandund

sandund

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The point here isn't to be limping with good hands.

He wants to limp weak hands. Problem is observant players will know his limp means free money if they attack his limp. His solution is the 4:1 ratio he talks about, varying based on villain raise sizing.

The point is to force the other players to allow him to limp the weaker marginal hands because they can't just assume he's full of it all the time and start attacking his limps super wide as he'll be able to play back at them approximately 20% of the time.
Ok,you are talking about something. But I have to say one more time, bad hands are not the same as usual bad hands from real life poker. :rolleyes:
 
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hffjd2000

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Phil Gordon book is based on live tournament play.

We all know that live is totally different from online.
 
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