Punishing limpers w/ an all-in

[KneeCo]

10+1, about half-way through the field. Fairly passive table, a lot of limping, limpers have been willing to call 3x raise, haven't been re-raising. Hero has been quiet since coming to the table.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (9 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

Button (t1980)
Hero (t1508)
BB (t1265)
UTG (t3250)
UTG+1 (t9619)
MP1 (t1345)
MP2 (t3313)
MP3 (t4648)
CO (t2690)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].
UTG calls t150, UTG+1 calls t150, MP1 calls t150, <font color="#666666">4 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t1508 (all-in)</font>

I'm very confident that nobody, except maybe UTG or of course the BB, has a premium hand, but I'm not certiain I can get 88-99/AT-AJ and such to fold.

What are the bets spots/hands for this type of move?

people don't ever believe those big raises w/ a lot of limpers in front... they think your trying to steal 6 big blinds. The common hands to use for this approach are medium-small pairs, Ace rag, just a garbage hand. People usually will go out of their way to call (smaller buy ins for sure). I think if you use this play you should do it with your good hands as well as bad. Try it with AA or KK once in a while, you'll be suprised with what people will call you with.

[TwistedEcho]

I used to make this move pretty often in these, and would pretty often end up being called by 77, A9s etc and bust. Now i prefer to have a strong hand like ATs+, 99+, KQs to do this with in the lower buyins, unless i have a decent read on the limpers. I might also consider doing this with 89s, 9Ts, esp if i have the limpers covered so at least i have live cards if they call. I think that A7o is way behind whenever you get called, and i think you get called too often to make this play.

[Rizen]

I like this move a lot, but you have to pick the right spots to do it. Having 10-15BB or (depending on the site ante/blind structure) an M of 7-13, I like to do this with any hand that stands a reasonable chance of winning if called as well. Without any significant reads on the table I'd break it down like this. I'm only going to do the calcs for heads up since I think it's reasonable to expect you won't end up as a part of the 3+ player all in here very often.

50% of the time you will win this pot uncontested for a net profit of 675 chips.

50% of the time you will get called by at least one player. Heads up against any reasonable calling hand but AA you are probably ~30% (sorry, not doing pokerstove, just using rough calcs that can be done easily at the table).

That breaks down so 15% of the time you will be called and make ~3400.

35% of the time you will be called and go broke. (lose 1358)

Someone can check my math, but using those #s I get a net +EV of 372.2 for each time you pull this play. Even if my #s end up a bit off I believe this is obv +EV. I think if your stack is either much bigger (making the risk/reward ratio much worse) or much smaller (so you are certain to get called more often) you can't do this, but there is usually a sweet spot when you have between 10-15BB left where this move can be a highly effective way to chip up, and if you do get called you're not too upset to bust out as the blinds were going to force you to make a move soon anyways.

-Rizen

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
I used to make this move pretty often in these, and would pretty often end up being called by 77, A9s etc and bust. Now i prefer to have a strong hand like ATs+, 99+, KQs to do this with in the lower buyins, unless i have a decent read on the limpers. I might also consider doing this with 89s, 9Ts, esp if i have the limpers covered so at least i have live cards if they are. I think that A7o is way behind whenever you get called, and i think you get called too often to make this play.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you'd have to be certain you'd be called at least 65-70% of the time to make this move -EV. I can't imagine this would be the case at a standard table, even at lower buy ins. Perhaps if you had a read that the table would make loose calls, but I just can't believe you'd get looked up often enough here to make this -EV, and even if you are called, you'll be at worst 30% against any hand but AA with ~2.5:1 odds from the pot. I'd make this move with a wide variety of hands here and if I get called and lose so be it. If I'm at 1500 with 75/150 blinds I'm in pure chip building mode and will take any +EV play I can get.

-Rizen

[TwistedEcho]

From personal experience i used to bust a lot from pushing marginal hands over limpers only for them to call with another slightly better marginal hand that had me crushed. It might be +EV, but i really don't like doing it with A7o. I think with 10bb spots you can find better places to push where there is less risk, IMO you get called by a dominating hand more often than you take down the pot.

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
From personal experience i used to bust a lot from pushing marginal hands over limpers only for them to call with another slightly better marginal hand that had me crushed. It might be +EV, but i really don't like doing it with A7o. I think with 10bb spots you can find better places to push where there is less risk, IMO you get called by a dominating hand more often than you take down the pot.

[/ QUOTE ]

How often do you think you're getting looked up % wise?? I'm not trying to say you're wrong, I'm just curious how often you think you're getting looked up here??

-Rizen

[TwistedEcho]

Well i tend not to make this play without a good hand, so not often :P But when i did push, it was often due to the 'omg 10bb im screwed!' mentality and im pretty sure they looked me up over 50% of the time (baring in mind you don't get THAT many situations where everyone limps to your bb and you have 10bb and a marginal hand to push)

You have to think what are they limping with.. hands like KQ, KJ, A9s-AQ (i find once 2/3 ppl limp, weak passive fish like to limp with AQ, even AK sometimes) and 55-99. When you push, they just see they have an 'ok' hand and call you, esp if its the last limper. You also have the additional problem of the first limper having a monster (which isnt THAT often, but when i shove my 53s and AA calls, i feel pretty dumb)

I'm not certain how often they need to call %wise for this to be -EV, but i would say 6 months ago, about 70% of my busts were pushing over limpers with hands like A7o.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not certain how often they need to call %wise for this to be -EV, but i would say 6 months ago, about 70% of my busts were pushing over limpers with hands like A7o.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I am in this territory now. I have a marginal raising hand in late position with 10 bbs or less, and there is a limper or 2. I see 3.5BB's in the pot, and think its a win win situation. Am I being too loose by doing that?

[TwistedEcho]

one limper i would push a marginal hand, because im less worried about him calling. If he open limps from say, MP and i know hes a pretty passive player, im less worried of him having a huge hand, and often they will just fold. Two limpers again i don't mind so much, but its when there are 3/4 limpers i seem to always get called by a better hand. (i guess its basic pot odds, when its 1v1 they assume i have a better hand, and its my stack vs their stack, so they fold the AT, 66 or whatever, but with 4 limpers money in the pot they are more willing to call, even though i would have been pushing the same hands)

Personally i find i do better in tournaments by not pushing here, and waiting for a better spot. Maybe if i was still pushing these spots i would be winning more chips, but i feel this is too risky and never seems to work for me (and i dont think ive ever been called by a hand thats worse than 50/50, usually they are 70/30 and the tournament ends.

Recently i've been playing rebuys/deepstacks so this situation doesn't occur so often, but in this example, i wouldn't shove the A7. I would shove AT though.