Limp reraise with AQs?

[Nate tha' Great]

3/6 Party, 7 players are seated at the table.

I'm in EMP and dealt AQ /images/graemlins/spade.gif. UTG and UTG+1 muck, and the action is on me.

In a moment of inspiration, I decide that I'm going to limp reraise; the table has been playing a little tight and it's too good a hand to merely steal the blinds with.

So ... I open-limp (haven't been seated at the table long enough for this to look suspicious), but CO, Button and SB all muck.

So the only other player left in the hand is the BB who ... raises.

I went ahead and 3-bet. Good move? Results to follow.

[Aces McGee]

[ QUOTE ]
the table has been playing a little tight

[/ QUOTE ]

Tight-passive or tight-aggressive? If the former, a limp reraise attempt is bad, because it won't get back to you.

Aces Mcgee

[Mike Gallo]

I would not.

[GuyOnTilt]

After two folds, I would not attempt a limp-reraise. UTG, I limp-reraise with AQs about 30% of the time at a typical Party 3/6 table.

[ElSapo]

I've never limp-re-raised anything but the largest of the pocket pairs. Why the L-RR with a hand like AQs, or AKs? Is this the same logic as with AA, you want to get more money in the pot with the best hand? Doesn't seem like a play I'd be comfortable making. Can someone explain?

[Nate tha' Great]

[ QUOTE ]

Tight-passive or tight-aggressive? If the former, a limp reraise attempt is bad, because it won't get back to you.

Aces Mcgee

[/ QUOTE ]

Certainly not tight-aggressive, but preflop raises had been folding a lot of people.

I was willing to accept the risk inherent in the limp-reraise that nobody takes the bait and you just get a bunch of callers for one bet (especially since the hand is suited and plays reasonably well multi-way). It has been my experience that those situations can still play out pretty well, in that you will often have the strongest hand postflop, and can go for a check-raise on either the flop or the turn, at which point the other players have more invested in the hand psychologically and financially.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I generally hate the limp-reraise, thinking it's too obvious a move (but now I know a couple of people at Party who do it with less than AA or KK /images/graemlins/cool.gif)

However, in this case, HU vs. the BB, it may make sense if you're convinced that HU against one limper, the BB would raise with a wider range of hands than against multiple limpers. Now he's back on his heels and you have position.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Most people only make the play with AA or KK. That's why I don't like it. It's like playing with your cards face-up.

[Aces McGee]

I think the idea is that you need to limp-reraise with hands like AK or AQ to disguise the times you do it with AA or KK.

Aces McGee

[Ed Miller]

I tried to limp-reraise AKs today because a guy behind me was raising about 50% of the pots. He decided to take the hand off, though, and I airballed.

I risked it because I'd much rather trap six people in for three bets before the flop than three people for two bets (people call when maniac raises and fold when I raise).

[GuyOnTilt]

If you only limp-reraise with AA and KK, it makes hand-reading a lot easier for your opponents. In fact, there's no hand-reading involved at all. You're not going to get any observant opponents to pay you off.

Limp-reraising with hands like AQs, AKs, and the like is good because it ties your opponents into the pot. Like you've read in HPFAP, AQs plays well in large multiway pots, which is exactly what you're creating by limp-reraising. Ideally, you'd want the raiser to be in EP or MP so that your raise doesn't force very many to call 2 bets cold, and it has the desired effect of creating a big multiway pot.

If you truly only limp-reraise with AA and KK, you really should be adding more hands to the list. I don't know what limits you play, but if your opponents are even half observant or have tracking software, this could put a serious dent in your shown profit with your premium pocket pairs.

[Nate tha' Great]

Results:

Flop came up a raggedy 853 with two hears and one /images/graemlins/spade.gif. Checked to me, I bet, and BB folded.

I didn't make the 3-bet preflop on autopilot (since I had "decided" that I was going to do so before) but because I had the sense, as KoM suggested, that BB's hand may have been marginal, and that he was trying to punish me for a weak limp, as he might a SB who had completed but not raised in heads-up play.

It's also possible he had something like 99-JJ and the limp-reraise scared him into folding a better hand. The fact that the limp-reraise *is* always taken for AA/KK sets up all sorts of interesting bluff potential, not that I'm quite ready to try that yet.

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
If you truly only limp-reraise with AA and KK, you really should be adding more hands to the list. I don't know what limits you play, but if your opponents are even half observant or have tracking software, this could put a serious dent in your shown profit with your premium pocket pairs.

[/ QUOTE ]

In theory, this is true. In practice, it's incorrect. I bet you could limp-reraise exclusively w/ AA every time you got it and only a tiny fraction of your opponents would pay you off any less.

[Nottom]

That and you don't want the more observant players to know exactly what you have when you limp-reraise. Adding a few more hands that have a good EV against a good sized field is a good way to mix up your play.

Also if you look at the section in HEFAP concerning Preflop play from EP, you will notice that it says to limp with you big suited cards a good amount of the time and to often re-raise if it comes back for 2 bets. You limp with these hands because they play well multiway, but since they are often the best hand as well a 3-bet is often in order if it gets raised by someone in a later position.

[Dynasty]

[ QUOTE ]
it's (AQs) too good a hand to merely steal the blinds with.

[/ QUOTE ]

According to the data at pokerroom.com, AQs is worth 0.59 big bets. That's less than the blinds. Every analysis I've ever seen has shown that only AA-JJ are definitely worth more than the blinds.

[Dynasty]

[ QUOTE ]
If you only limp-reraise with AA and KK, it makes hand-reading a lot easier for your opponents. In fact, there's no hand-reading involved at all. You're not going to get any observant opponents to pay you off.

[/ QUOTE ]

You'd think this would be true but the reality is that you get paid off anyway even by observant opponents. They simply can't fold their strong but inferior hands.

Almost all of my limp-reraises in live games have been with AA and KK. Now that I think about it, I think every single hand has gone to a showdown, often against observant opponents. It may be that the pot becomes so big (often 7+ big bets pre-flop) that they will call on the river with any pair.