Limp-Reraise with AA/KK in EP

[Rick Nebiolo]

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Not sure I understand you. If your stack is let's say $700 in this game (sort of typical) and your limp reraise fails (the pot is six way for about $50) you need to be really careful postflop when all you have is an overpair. When you get postflop action it's often going to be action you don't like.

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Fold.

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IOW you might bet the flop (except atrocious flops such as JT9 two-tone) and get away from substantial action.



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But let's say with $700 you either raise to $30 or $40 or limp reraise. If your raise gets called in five or six spots you aren't getting away from too many flops, the pot is too big (about $250) relative to your replaceable stack (in the Commerce game you can buy a max of $600 after going to the felt).

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If you limp in and get outflopped you lose $10, or maybe $60 if you bet and fold to a raise. By raising preflop and refusing to let go of your hand, you lose $700 when you get outflopped.

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But how often are you going to be outflopped and drawing nearly dead (to a set) when the pot is this big (after a raise) relative to your stack? Problem of course is any reasonable sized post flop bet tends to get you pot stuck.


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A limp reraise usually narrows the field more, but if you didn't push everything with the limp reraise you are usually pushing on the flop with your remaining chips.

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If you limp-reraise you are generally going to be putting in 20-30% of your stack preflop. No hand is correct to call you even if they get the rest of your stack 100% of the time that they outflop you. Your opponents will either correctly fold and let you take down a couple hundred dollars of dead money with no risk, or they will incorrectly chase without proper odds. You win either way.

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Great point with these parameters. I need to limp-reraise a bit more, but make sure I get away from the failed attempts (since the pot is small).


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Am I missing something?

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Yes.

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Actually I know I'm missing something so it was a dumb question. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Thanks for your input.

~ Rick

[soah]

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But how often are you going to be outflopped and drawing nearly dead (to a set) when the pot is this big (after a raise) relative to your stack? Problem of course is any reasonable sized post flop bet tends to get you pot stuck.

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This is indeed the crucial variable. And since I've never been to LA, I can't offer any estimate of how often players there will lose their stack with top pair or worse against an EP raiser. I'm not going to attempt to argue that raising AA is -EV or anything (with decent postflop skills and playing against average opponents); the debate is simply whether raising is more +EV than limping. There are a lot of variables that will impact the EV of both lines and attempting to address them all here would be futile.

One other thing... I would rather play against an opponent who will only continue past the flop if they can beat an overpair... if my opponent could have a set, two pair, or top pair, then essentially they are going to be bluffing me a certain percentage of the time which is likely to be somewhat close to the optimal bluffing frequency. Sometimes they may double me up with top pair, but they will get it all back when I am forced to pay off their set the next time.

AA wins against 4 random hands 56% of the time... once again this is leaving out a lot of variables (like the fact that on the flop you would still be ahead much more than 56% of the time) but it's still a good reminder that one pair doesn't hold up well in family pots. If you put your stack in postflop against multiple opponents with AA you are just gambling that this is one of the times that it holds up. Depending on how loose your opponents play it might be a good gamble, or it might be a bad gamble... but it's just a spot that I'd like to avoid.

[FreakDaddy]

Nice response - well put.

[Gregg777]

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Ideally you should be growing into a player who makes it very difficult for opponents to put you on a hand

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I agree with your post, but I would rather play a weaker hand like a strong hand to add deception than the other way around.

I am not saying don't limp with AA/KK, just that the statement above should probably have further clarification for others.

[Rick Nebiolo]

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One other thing... I would rather play against an opponent who will only continue past the flop if they can beat an overpair... if my opponent could have a set, two pair, or top pair, then essentially they are going to be bluffing me a certain percentage of the time which is likely to be somewhat close to the optimal bluffing frequency. Sometimes they may double me up with top pair, but they will get it all back when I am forced to pay off their set the next time.

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Wow, great observation. I seem to have several problems when playing the overpair or playing against the overpair.

When playing the big overpair fairly deep I get pot-stuck too easily and pay off the opponent holding top two or a set far too often in large part because of the problems you outline above. So I definitely need to be limp-reraising more to avoid this dilemma as I'm not a superior reader.

When playing against the overpair I'm too often showing top two or a set since I won't call early raises with inferior holdings and tend not to raise on the come with all but the biggest draws against a strong EP raiser. Experienced opponents learn not to pay me off with overpairs or TPTK.

The end result is I get the worst of both worlds.


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AA wins against 4 random hands 56% of the time... once again this is leaving out a lot of variables (like the fact that on the flop you would still be ahead much more than 56% of the time) but it's still a good reminder that one pair doesn't hold up well in family pots. If you put your stack in postflop against multiple opponents with AA you are just gambling that this is one of the times that it holds up. Depending on how loose your opponents play it might be a good gamble, or it might be a bad gamble... but it's just a spot that I'd like to avoid.

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soah, you have made my ever increasing list of poster's I need to read more. It's not like the old days when I could count the top posters on my fingers and toes.

~ Rick

[bkholdem]

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Ideally you should be growing into a player who makes it very difficult for opponents to put you on a hand

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I agree with your post, but I would rather play a weaker hand like a strong hand to add deception than the other way around.

I am not saying don't limp with AA/KK, just that the statement above should probably have further clarification for others.

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Yes, thank you.

[Percula]

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spread limit

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Wow, that's some spread (I assume the BB is $5).

We don't see much spread limit here in LA. My only experience with it was in a 2-10 spread in Las Vegas around 1985.

It would seem that the spread of this magnitude serves as NL with a capped bet as opposed to a capped buy-in.

~ Rick

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You got it. This is in AZ where there is no NL.

[AdamBragar]

I see wherre a lot of people are going with this, but I like your plan and sometimes utilize it. If you were going to institute your plan, I'd never raise preflop from the first 3 positions. I'd start off limp reraising preflop with AA and KK and limpreraising BIG with QQ if you think you are up against a moron. I doubt people will pay attention enough to figure out your plan, but you avoid a ton of sticky spots.

If you really think people catch on to your plan, I'd start limp reraising preflop with suited connectors too.

[BoxTree]

This thread shows one of the possible difficulties of raising only 3-4x the BB with AA/KK in EP.

So, what's a better default play (assuming a passive-to-typical game with a mix of short stacks, medium stacks, and big stacks -- no exceptional players):

1) Raise to 6-8x the BB in EP, or
2) Go for the Limp-Reraise.

Right now, I feel that 2) is better than 1) for a few reasons:

a) If you're raising big in EP with monsters, you'll occasionally have to make similar sized raises with AK, QQ-77 (maybe all the way down to deuces), and some suited connectors. At the Commerce 400, where the blinds are so big and the players so bad, I really don't think this looks like a good plan. If I only raise with AA/KK, I'll eventually never get anyone to play. And if I add in the deception hands, I'll probably end up playing more hands OOP for big money than I should.

b) Many of the players are often shortstacked relative to a raise this size. Even if a player has $600 in chips to start a hand, a raise to to $70 makes the pot $150. I'm forced into two-street (or sometimes three-street) poker. If that's the case, the limp-reraise seems to be a better move. Both plays force a two-street hand, but the limp-reraise has the potential to take down a reasonable pot preflop or get all (or enough so that the flop is an easy push) the chips in preflop.