"Longhanded" Hold 'Em Strategy?

[Phat Mack]

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One specific situation I was wondering about is an ante round during a NL tournament -- say, 100/200 blinds, with a 25 ante. If there are 20 players at a table, the pot starts with 800 chips, offering 4-1 odds, before anyone does anything. First limper increases this to 5-1, second limper makes it 6-1, and so on...

What do you do? With those kind of odds you could theoretically limp with anything, but then you have to worry about the mob still to act behind you

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My guess is that you would be in a limp or all-in situation, but it would depend on the table's Shania. I wouldn't limp with any two cards, but would with hands that could flop something big-- pairs TT or higher, suited connectors with a 9 or higher. With something like an AKo, I'd want to flop broadway or a full (maybe trips), but wouldn't want to get strung out on two pair. It would be good to know how the table would react to pot-building raises. My guess is that there would be a lot of slowplaying before the flop, and pot buliders would be seen as an invitation to slam. Hard to say.

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Any attempt to steal is going be very expensive and very risky, unless of course the first 17 players are kind enough to fold to you on the button.

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If there were 17 folds to me, I'd wonder what cards remained for the SB and BB to have. I think Abdul once conjectured (if that's the right word) that in a 10-handed game, if it was folded to the button it was more likely that the blinds had big cards, but that the likelihood wasn't significant enough to affect moves by the button. It is possible that in a 20-handed game, when folded to the button, the likelihood of the blinds having hands is significant.

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And if you are dealt a decent hand, the kind you'd ordinarily raise with preflop...well, what kind of hand *would* you raise preflop with here?

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If I thought I could get heads up, maybe AA and KK. I don't know about QQ, it would probably depend on position, etc.

If you are really interested in these games, you might try cross-posting to the probability forum. Questions about specific situations would yield to some fairly straightforward mathematical analysis.