F
fundiver199
Legend
Loyaler
Its fine to sometimes limp behind or complete from SB. Open limping is not something, I would recommend, other than from SB in games with antes. Remember that you need a very large sample to detect a change in your results. How you are doing over 20 or even 100 SnGs will be completely random and determined mostly by luck rather than a small change in strategy.
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Murph1969
Rock Star
Silver Level
Maybe so, but I know how I was doing when I tried to play by the book. Maybe your games are different, but in mine nobody folds so raising is just throwing money away.
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Hermus
Rock Star
Bronze Level
F
fundiver199
Legend
Loyaler
If there are many calling stations left to act after you, then use a tighter range and a larger size. You dont HAVE to play J9s from UTG, if its usually going to result in you ending up in a 4-way pot as monkey in the middle. The conclusion, that open limping is not profitable, is one, that tousinds of winning poker players have collectively arrived at by playing billions of hands over a period of decades. So its up to you, but I dont see any particular value in trying to reinvent the wheel, when it comes to this particular part of poker strategy.
Also consider, if maybe in some of those hands, where you got multible callers, the problem was not preflop, but how you played postflop. You already shared one cash game hand, but it was an all-in preflop hand. So why not find some of those spots, where you feel, that maybe it would have been better to limp, and then share them to the hand analysis forum? Hands that went all the way to the river or at least the turn. Maybe you are putting in to many chips in a situation, where you should just give up in a multiway pot or try to get to a cheap showdown.
eetenor
Legend
Platinum Level
Thank you for posting.
Limping a certain range and making big hands post flop and winning big pots versus exploitable straight forward players is a viable strategy
The why of your result change is the most important factor here. The difficulty is your statements are too broad to be analyzed in depth.
Raising should not be throwing money away therefore it is not the preflop raise but the post flop action that may be causing the issues. Playing post flop is difficult for all of us as it is the thing we do the least. If we can get head-up it becomes easier, when we go multi-way post flop with more of our stack on the line we can make the biggest mistakes- even the solvers are not designed for multi-way.
What may be happening if it is not just variance is that by limping you are getting away from pots and or losing less in pots post flop than you would do if you were raising and then trying to make hands win post flop because they were the best hands preflop and you were the raiser. A common error even the best players make- just less often than us mortals.
If so this is an indicator of the need for post flop skill improvement not that limping all hands is better than raising.
Again your statements are broad so I may be way off. If you can compare your data base from before you limped and after you may be able to identify the above leaks in your game if they exist.
Hope this helps
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Murph1969
Rock Star
Silver Level
TeUnit
Legend
Loyaler
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Hermus
Rock Star
Bronze Level
Your equity goes down but there are also more people putting money in the pot. If you have the advantage in terms of hand strength that's still a positive. It's also fairly irrelevant if you compare it to the alternative (limping) because that is never going to reduce the number of people that see the flop.
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Murph1969
Rock Star
Silver Level
True, but you can get away from the hand much cheaper. Chip preservation is just as important as chip accumulation. bluffing doesn’t work at low stakes. Can’t speak to high stakes.
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Murph1969
Rock Star
Silver Level
I’m not talking junk. I’m talking about hands like small pairs, suited connectors, suited aces. Hands you don’t know if you’ve got anything until after the flop.
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fundiver199
Legend
Loyaler
Exactly. Its a common mistake for people to feel, that if they raised preflop, then they must also C-bet the flop and try to win the hand even by running a big multistreet bluff. Whereas if they limped or called preflop, its much more acceptable to take a neutral action and check. And in multiway pots (especially 4 or more players) you have to be very selective with, which hands you continue with. Its totally acceptable to raise preflop and then simply give up, if you get 3-4 callers and miss the flop completely.
As I touched on already, in loose games these hands should just be folded from early position with the clarification, that we are talking about hands such as 98s or A4s and not KQs and AQs, which are technically also suited connectors and suited aces. Its simply not profitable to play speculative hands out of position against many opponents, and maybe you lose less by limping, but you still lose. So simply tighten up, and if open raising dont create a good situation, because you get to much action, then fold.
If you are in late position, and the game is very loose, then chances are, someone else have already entered the pot, because otherwise its not really a loose game. And then you can at least consider playing those cute pretty hands, that dont really make anyone money in the long run, and its often fine to do so by taking a passive action and call. You still should not press "call", every single time you look down at 33 or 86s, but its at least better to play these hands in late position rather than early position.
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Murph1969
Rock Star
Silver Level
I’ll just keep losing then. You’re gonna get blinded off with this strategy in any sort of tournament.
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fundiver199
Legend
Loyaler
"Getting blinded away" does not really matter in the early blind levels, because blinds and antes are still small. And when they have gone up, typically some players are already eliminated from a SnG, so that there are no longer any early position seats. And when the blinds get really big relative to our stack, we shift to push-fold poker, at which point even calling stations will let their junky hands go.
You are posting here, because your results are not as good as expected. But if you wont listen to the advice, you get from more experienced players, its a futile effort. Of course not all advice is equally good, but in this thread so far not a single forum member have told you, that open limping from early position is a great strategy. So there is a rather clear consensus forming, which should tell you something.