Limping to trap = Bad decision (a lesson)

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Nikeballa07

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I have this motto, if your going to play a hand raise it. Especially if the action is folded to you. In MTT if the table is weak and allowing a lot of limping then I will start limping small pairs and suited connectors etc in hopes of nailing a flop. Any premiums get jacked up to 3x maybe more if the table is call happy.

a good motto:) and style of play imo, but if u do limp you gotta be willing to fold after the flop or turn otherwise all your really doing is effectively trapping your self with nothing good in a big pot
 
naruto_miu

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Ok, then I got a question for all especially Chuck, and Irexe:D !

Lets look at 2 different situations and plz tell me if under these conditions if Open Limping would be fine?

First you hold AA your UTG on a aggro-aggressive table 20 left to the money.

Blinds are 2k&4k antes 500, now your image on this table is very Tight/Aggressive, so keeping this in mind, if you raise your more then likely to get the blinds and only the blinds, yet it you open limp in this case your more the 80% sure there's gonna be a raise, and then you can do your bussiness with the repopping/shipping it in.

Would this be a fair enough case to open limp?


2nd case, your in the the SB (same Blinds and all) and your above average chip stack, you know the BB is one to fold often to a raise.

Would this not also constitue a limp, if no other players limp in ahead of you?
 
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Nikeballa07

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Ok, then I got a question for all especially Chuck, and Irexe:D !

Lets look at 2 different situations and plz tell me if under these conditions if Open Limping would be fine?

First you hold AA your UTG on a aggro-aggressive table 20 left to the money.

Blinds are 2k&4k antes 500, now your image on this table is very Tight/Aggressive, so keeping this in mind, if you raise your more then likely to get the blinds and only the blinds, yet it you open limp in this case your more the 80% sure there's gonna be a raise, and then you can do your bussiness with the repopping/shipping it in.

Would this be a fair enough case to open limp?


2nd case, your in the the SB (same Blinds and all) and your above average chip stack, you know the BB is one to fold often to a raise.

Would this not also constitue a limp, if no other players limp in ahead of you?

1st case if your table image is tight aggressive even a call from you in first position could be enough to scare a lot of people out of calling depending on the amount of chips you have (the larger ur stack less scared they would be from my exp cus they figure you are more likely to call with anything), but a raise here could also lead people to think that you are just trying to steal the blinds with a medicore hand and they could call, imo either a raise or call would be acceptable in this situation as long as the raise isnt to large.

2nd case is also an acceptable place to limp imo but a raise is also always good because it lets you know how good his hand is or isnt, or it could even provoke him to push if he thinks you are just trying to steal his blind if u have done it before to him. but yea once again i think either action would be acceptable
 
ChuckTs

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Well you don't even mention stack sizes which are crucial. But yes, basically the only time you should limp to trap AA is when your opponents left to act are when they're really likely to stick their whole stack in.

In the second case you want to be stealing a lot more, and yeah I guess limping is acceptable.
 
zachvac

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ChuckT, you said to never limp? what if you have a suited connector, thats def not a raising hand. but a hand you want to see a cheap flop with.

The problem with this is people will pick up on it and isolate you a ton. Then you play HU oop, not seeing a cheap flop where villain's range is super-wide and yours is extremely transparent. You open limp and any A/K/Q-high board without a ton of draws and they can get you off it 99% of the time. Then when you do hit it's obvious so you don't get paid. So you lose a ton of pots, you don't get paid (which is the entire point in seeing cheap flops with SCs, for implied odds), and generally it's a losing proposition. Note that's only against solid players. You can probably get away with limping at the micros and no one will punish you for it.

edit: also note this is for 100 BB deep cash games. Tourneys are another story and I think it's perfectly fine to limp hands like AA/KK when you're only 20 BBs deep. Of course when 4 others come along and you get a bad flop (not one bad for your hand, good for your opponents' ranges), you need to be able to dump it. Of course at that stage it's mostly push or fold anyway, and the thing about that is you don't really need to think about stacking an overpair because your opponent may even stack a hand like 2nd or even 3rd pair depending on the board texture.
 
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The river comes out a 3 and to me it looks like a blank. I've just created a situation where I'm so worried about what he's holding that I don't see the completed straight chance. And, he just checked back to me on the turn so I'm really leaning towards him holding an Ax. So I bet out half the pot hoping this will just all go away and he re-raises me all in.

I have a couple of comments on this:

1) You say you put him on Ax, which means he flat called the flop with ace high and checked behind on the turn on a blank. This is a very common play in limit, but it's much rarer in no limit. Most times people call flops in position with just ace high, it's not just to play ace high for showdown value. It's usually some combination of a value call and a float, and in either case, I think they'd be betting the turn after you show weakness just in case. Now this kind of logic may not prevail at very low limit games, and he very well might have played a weak ace high that way, but it's something that you should keep in mind when you move up to more aggressive games.

2) You say you think he had ace high, and you bet the river so he'd "go away". It doesn't sound like you trusted your read very much. Unless you think he's going to call your bet with ace high, it's more profitable to check/call than to bet. If he's always folding ace high, you only get that extra bet in when you're beat. If you check, he's going to bluff his ace high some of the time, and you get an extra bet when you're ahead. Now, maybe he'll fold some hands that are better than yours if you bet, but that's a different read entirely. I guess my point is that you can either play just based on your hand strength, or you can make confident reads and play based on those. If you're not at the point where you can make confident reads and make gutsy calls and set up your opponent to bluff, then you shouldn't be putting money in on the river with ace high.
 
dg1267

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I have a couple of comments on this:

1) You say you put him on Ax, which means he flat called the flop with ace high and checked behind on the turn on a blank. This is a very common play in limit, but it's much rarer in no limit. Most times people call flops in position with just ace high, it's not just to play ace high for showdown value. It's usually some combination of a value call and a float, and in either case, I think they'd be betting the turn after you show weakness just in case. Now this kind of logic may not prevail at very low limit games, and he very well might have played a weak ace high that way, but it's something that you should keep in mind when you move up to more aggressive games.

2) You say you think he had ace high, and you bet the river so he'd "go away". It doesn't sound like you trusted your read very much. Unless you think he's going to call your bet with ace high, it's more profitable to check/call than to bet. If he's always folding ace high, you only get that extra bet in when you're beat. If you check, he's going to bluff his ace high some of the time, and you get an extra bet when you're ahead. Now, maybe he'll fold some hands that are better than yours if you bet, but that's a different read entirely. I guess my point is that you can either play just based on your hand strength, or you can make confident reads and play based on those. If you're not at the point where you can make confident reads and make gutsy calls and set up your opponent to bluff, then you shouldn't be putting money in on the river with ace high.

Very nicely put.
 
robert_wrath

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YOu definitely shot yourself on the foot by a mere limp in on the button. What were you thinking? YOu had position the whole way thruout the hand. Dare not make this mistake ever again. Also, a small win by way of a simple raise adds to your stack in the long run.
 
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One your playing a micro table so it's really nothing for them to call... So some people will play their hunch's a lot more.. Second i would have a pretty good idea of what the table was doing before i started slow playing.. Third.. If you are slow playing and you dont hit.. you really have to be able to lay it down .. I wouldnt abandon the idea totally but be careful and know when to lay it down..
 
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