Raise or limp?????

[Schmed]

Does anyone think you should ever limp when you are the first one in a pot??

Personally I don't think so, even if you have suited connectors or mid or low pocket.

Limping is a sign of weakness. Say you want to play your 67s and you're in a mp,lp and it all folds to you, and you limp you are mostly going to get raised and this is not what you want at all.

When you raise a lot of people will just call with hands that have you dominated preflop. (KJ, AJ...blah blah blah) and only really come over the top with the best hands, (KK,AA,QQ, AK....blah blah blah). It also affords you bluffing opportunites. Raising also slows down the guy who may have raised to begin with. The guy sitting in the BB, pr the button, with the aces may decide this is the time to get tricky and just call. The flop comes and it hits you he's going to C/R you all in anyway. Say you have the 67s and a 6 and a 7 hit, he's dead, or your flush hits, he's dead. Say nothing hits, you check, see your free card, and fold to his turn bet.

Unless the table is Charmin soft I can't imagine when you would want to limp first one in. Am I right in thinking like this???

[Nottom]

I see no problem limping with a small pair or suited connector early in a tourney. You hand needs to improve and if you raise you are going to get called, might as well get in cheap. Once the blinds are significant, I'm not sure there's much point unless you are prepared to limp reraise all-in to take advantage of an overaggressive opponent.

[curmudgeon]

No, you are not right. Too many unknowns.
Chip position, players, tournament, image, etc. all come into play here.
If you never limp, a limp or min raise could have people scratchin their heads. Keep em off balance, don't do the same thing everytime. Limp with a good hand and make sure you advertise it, macho man. You need a bigger imagination. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Yeknom58]

Mattering on the blind structure I believe you are correct. Generally the blinds get so large, you pretty much want to throw away hands you might want to limp with such as Small PP/Big suited connectors/Axs. Of course if the blinds are small relative to stack I see no problems with limping.

[PlayerA]

For me the jury is out. I've experimented both ways and am still experimenting.

Anyhow, 2 things from TPFAP stand out:

1. In one place, Sklansky mentions that good players should be doing alot of limping in NL tourneys. I'd love to hear a good player expound on this since the book doesn't really elaborate.

2. Don't turn AQ into 27. If you raise a mediumish hand and get re-raised, you probably should toss it. So, you don't want to throw money away raising hands that hate to be re-raised.

I understand the 2nd concept, but really don't know what is meant by the 1st.

[triplc]

A lot depends upon your opponents.

The other night, I played a $10 SnG on Party, and it was the definition of a passive table. Thus, I was able to limp in with suited connectors and low pairs more often than I'm used to (even late in the tourney), saw some cheap flops, and hit a flush and a couple of trips and took down some really nice pots without much effort.

However, if there are very agressive players at the table who are going to defend their position, then I am as likely to fold low pairs and suited connectors as I am to raise them, especially in early position at a full table.

I would agree, however, that in late position with these cards, and as the table loses players, you are usually better off raising these hands to steal blinds and make aggressive players pay a chunk of their stack to resteal.

[CrisBrown]

Hi Schmed,

I basically open-limp in two situations. In both cases, I am hoping for a raise behind me:

(a) I have AA or KK and I want to reraise all-in; or,

(b) I have hand that I'd like to play rather than steal with, and I'd prefer to play it in a raised pot, but I'd have to lay it down to a reraise.

A classic example of (b), for me, is AQ. It's a hand I'd like to play, and I'd prefer to play it in a raised pot so I'm not playing with total trash. If it hits for either the A or Q, it's probably going to be the best hand. But I don't want to open-raise with it, because if I'm reraised I'm going to be a slight dog at best (to an underpair), and very possibly dominated (AA, KK, QQ, or AK).

If someone behind me makes a standard raise (3x or 4xBB), I can call and see a flop. If I hit it, or I think I'm in a position to bluff it, I can take a nice pot. If I miss, I can get out cheaply. If someone makes a monster raise, I know I'm an underdog and I can fold pre-flop for just the price of my limp.

However, in order to open-limp with a hand like AQ, you must be willing to open-limp with AA or KK -- running the risk that you won't get the raise you want and you'll get cracked by trash. If you never limp on AA or KK, good players will see that and blast you off that AQ (AJ, KQs, etc.) with trash, knowing you're willing to lay it down to a huge raise.

In general, people seem to know that I'm willing to open-limp (or open-baby-raise) with a hand like AA or KK, so I don't often get bluff-raised out. It does happen sometimes I'm sure, and it's a risk I'm willing to take because those (b) hands do come up often enough that I don't mind folding them if the situation isn't right.

Hope this helps,

Cris

[Schmed]

lol @ Mr Macho Man...

I know what you are saying about mixing it up. And I will, on occasion, limp with AA or KK. I will limp with the kinds of hands I talked about on a passive table or in the first couple of levels of the tourny.

Your image changes so I do adjust to what I think they are thinking about me. Typically my image is that of someone who is pretty tight so when I raise with those kinds of hands it gets respect and then when a scare card comes out I own it......"I got to be a meecho macho .........." /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[CrisBrown]

Hi PlayerA,

I don't know if I'm a good enough player to try to explain #1, but I'll give it a shot. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Good players, by definition, tend to make better decisions and better reads. The more decisions they get to make, the more their decision-making edge comes into play. So when there are weaker players at the table, the better players should try to get in cheaply, reserving the opportunity to outplay weaker opponents as the cards come out.

This is why Sklansky says that a weaker player is better off going all-in pre-flop on hands that justify it. This reduces the pot to a single decision, minimizing the skill advantage of better players. Of course, this strategy also turns your fate over to the dealer, and sooner or later the odds catch up to you. Even if you're a 3:1 favorite in each of three all-in showdowns, your odds of surviving all three are only 6:9, meaning you'll bust out over half the time within three such showdowns.

That's why the better players prefer to play "small bet" poker. It increases their decision-making edge (there are more decisions to make), and reduces the chances of taking a bad beat and going bust.

Cris