Fish Keep stealing all my fold equity!

loafes

loafes

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It really irritates me when you are getting to the later stages of a MTT and its at the point where you need to start making plays to steal blinds only you have a big problem... The fish keep stealing all your fold equity. These brain dead zombies limp into lots of pots for big portions of their stack or they feel they can call with any two cards simply because they have some chips left. I mean you get some players who are happy to limp in for 20-25% of their stack and sometimes even limp fold but usually they wont, you need a read to work out which they are.
Normally I have no problem with this, I mean bad layers are good for the bankroll however in this stage of an MTT I find that if you have a bad table position I miss out on lots of chances to make steals because these oblivious fish are stealing all my fold equity. This puts me in a position where instead of being able to find good spots I need to find good cards, I feel like this lowers my skill edge and makes it harder to do well in tournaments. I like it when I am actually able to win some chips without a hand.

I was wondering on how other people deal with it when fish steal all your fold equity, should I be stealing lighter and play bigger pots with more risk or should I be taking chances earlier to build a stack so that missing out on blind stealing situations is going to be less inconvenient to my stack or do I just need to accept that in these situations there are times I will just need to hope to pick up some hands in good spots in order to chip up?
 
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RamdeeBen

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Then you just need to shove over these limpers. I find a lot of the time you still actually do have fold equity ( I see some crazy limp/folds with 10bb eff stacks) That said; I actually love the limpers at this stage just push a range of hands that's ahead of their limping range it's never a bad thing if they are limp/calling you.
 
cardsking

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What ramdee said might be right because im one of the fish that you might be talking abt . Less stack notin to loose . So just give a good fight .

Poker is abt outsmrtin n stealin ech other . No complining or crying . You lose if you are bad , no one is big or small .

And u hav problem wit loosin , you need to change ur game plan
 
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cotta777

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Agree If you like to play a loose game your probably going to really have to hammer them in to get a fold,
take positives its always better to see the flop , these fish unless over committed will usually check fold if they miss, and check call if there is a draw out there.
you know if they have top pair or a huge draw they will most likely lose control see $$$ and go fish.

anyways... You have the added benifit of getting payed off so you dont necasarily need to steal to many pots.

if the players a truely terrible you might aswell limp in LP unless super strong and see the flop a they wont
view your raise in the same way one of us would view a raise, they wont see past their two cards.
you can usually steal the pot after flop, when he missed the board and cowers to 3/4 pot bet
 
Emperor IX

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You need to be more comfortable getting into 60/40s with these players around
 
1ofTheFellas

1ofTheFellas

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Start shoving over these players limps.. you'll be shocked how many times they limp/fold, or how many times you'll shove a marginal hand like KTss and get called by worse even
 
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tohos

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I think some of you guys are not getting how short the limper here is. Probably has a stack of 6BB or less by the sounds of it.
Yes they will take away your skill edge by being effectively all in(they are calling almost always) every time they limp. My answer to your question is the last choice. You just have to accept it and wait for a good hand. You don't want to ruin your table image by raising and going to showdown with rags.
 
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RamdeeBen

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I think some of you guys are not getting how short the limper here is. Probably has a stack of 6BB or less by the sounds of it.
Yes they will take away your skill edge by being effectively all in(they are calling almost always) every time they limp. My answer to your question is the last choice. You just have to accept it and wait for a good hand. You don't want to ruin your table image by raising and going to showdown with rags.


Well; if he keeps limping, we can widen our shoving range over him and be happy about him limp/calling crap like 56s or J4 etc.

Waiting for a good hand when you have fish who are doing this is the absolute worse possible thing to do. Showing down bad hands when effective stack size is 6bb, is standard, if you're not showing down rags when this short you're playing wrong.
 
WeenieSVK

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Well I think, If you mean in "later phase of MTT" few minutes before bubble or playing on bubble I think you still have some fold equity even if player has 6BB :)

If you mean situations already ITM then, yea just wait for better spot or shove brah :D
 
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tohos

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Well; if he keeps limping, we can widen our shoving range over him and be happy about him limp/calling crap like 56s or J4 etc.

Waiting for a good hand when you have fish who are doing this is the absolute worse possible thing to do. Showing down bad hands when effective stack size is 6bb, is standard, if you're not showing down rags when this short you're playing wrong.

If it was only you and the fish, of course it is not wrong to show down with not so good hands since his range is crap. But you ruin your table image in order to do so. Once the table sees you show down weak holdings, people will start to fight back more and your steal success rate is going to drop.

Also you can't just ignore the rest of the table. You shove wider but when people wake up with real hands they reshove over you and you lose 6BB for nothing. 6BB when blinds are big is a huge deal. The effective stack size for a pot between you and the fish is 6BB but when others get involved its not anymore.

It is not our job to go after the limping fish. If we get a good opportunity to take his chips good we'll do it. There is no need to try to hunt him down with not so good hands. When you're stealing and restealing alot, knocking out the fish with K9 is going to hurt us more than do good in the long run. We pick up 6BB+whatever in the pot but we lowered our fold equity. We don't even win that because its gonna be close to 60/40 very often when we are shoving wide.

The times we are losing the pot, the fold equity we lose and the times we have to give up due to getting reshoved means that trying to go to showdown with the limper just because we are ahead of his range becomes a losing play in the long run. We also need to be ahead of the reshover's range. We need not so cally players behind us so it will be an isolated pot just to have a close to flip confrontation.

We'll try and take him out if a good opportunity presents itself. Otherwise, we can afford to give up a few low success rate steals(because fish is already pot committed) with not so good hands and revert back to crazy self after the fish is gone.
 
PurgatoryD

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It is not our job to go after the limping fish. If we get a good opportunity to take his chips good we'll do it.

I think this is very true. I think we all have to be careful about focusing too much on certainly styles of play that frustrate us. You of course modify your play as needed, but don't put yourself into a bad situation or, as others have noted, ruin a table image that you took a long time building. It's that much easier to steal when in position, for instance, if people actually think you have the cards to back it up. That's worth far more in the long run that trying to take care of a limping fish.
 
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ricksterrick

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Ignore the limp and shove what you would normally shove. Sometimes they add to your equity since they limp fold and if they don't fold well take a flip! Don't be scared.
 
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