Is limp bad?

Normally, "limp" sounds like a pretty bad thing to be. It certainly sounds like the opposite of aggressive.

However, if I can limp to the flop on no more than the cost of the blinds, why wouldn't I, to see whether my mediocre hand can transform into something that will beat other player's more promising deals?

What strategic options am I taking away from myself by limping?

Open limping is bad, shows your hands is weak, and you're more likely to get pushed off your hand.

When you raise preflop, you can win by everyone folding, and cbetting the flop and everyone folding. Cbetting can be a very powerful tool if used correctly. One my favorite players to cbet are ones who open limp out of position with a wide range looking to hit monster hands, but will let go of their hands easily when they do not. (Is this you? Hopefully not!)

Limping behind others is better, especially in position. You are getting better odds to hit that monster hand or strong draw on the flop, there are already players in the pots so you're more likely to be paid off, and being in position will allow you to better manipulate the pot to your advantage. (Note: if someone yet to act is laggy, limping may not actually be a good idea)

Not all mediocre hands are made equal. Pocket pairs can hit sets on the flop, and be very disguised. Suited connectors have the highest chance of producing monster hands/draws

If your playing vs any real opponents they aren't gonna fold behind your limp. In fact you limping sweetens the pot for the blind steals. If your limping in front of my BTN or CO, I can guarantee you will be folding 95% of the time. I rarely let a BTN pass freely with a limp or no opens.

Let's look at this another way. A good poker player makes 5-10BB/100 hands. Are you actually going to be able to limp 1BB 10-20 times in 100 hands and still earn a profit when you have to fold most of them to a raise?

Tell me-- is limping when you don't bet high? I haven't heard of it before, since this is all new to me. and jyms, what do you mean when you say, "BTN or CO"?

Originally Posted by jyms

Let's look at this another way. A good poker player makes 5-10BB/100 hands. Are you actually going to be able to limp 1BB 10-20 times in 100 hands and still earn a profit when you have to fold most of them to a raise?

Ah, math I understand!

So: let's say I limp 1BB 20 times to see a great hand to continue with beyond the flop.

For that to be profitable, I would need to be able to make more than 20BB's on the good hand.

That I seem to be able to do, by finding straights or flushes in the flop.

My main concern was what *other* strategic options am I weakening by this behavior? IE., do I weaken my actual good hands by limping on flush draws?

BTN = Button last hand to act aside from blinds preflop and last to act on flop turn and river. CO is Cutoff, second best spot exact same as button except button is after you. Limping is calling preflop as opposed to raising.

My $.02 on limping is its especially bad because mixing your range when you limp is very unprofitable. If you limp your strongest hands you will be losing a ton of ev when it's limped/folded around. Some people feel especially tricky when they limp and then re raise someone who isolated them, but generally they still get little value from their strong hand.

well you could actually raise, get that great hand and win 100BB instead

Originally Posted by TheBlueKnave

Originally Posted by jyms

Let's look at this another way. A good poker player makes 5-10BB/100 hands. Are you actually going to be able to limp 1BB 10-20 times in 100 hands and still earn a profit when you have to fold most of them to a raise?

Ah, math I understand!

So: let's say I limp 1BB 20 times to see a great hand to continue with beyond the flop.

For that to be profitable, I would need to be able to make more than 20BB's on the good hand.

That I seem to be able to do, by finding straights or flushes in the flop.

My main concern was what *other* strategic options am I weakening by this behavior? IE., do I weaken my actual good hands by limping on flush draws?

Wrong

First, you will only hit draws to these hands about 5% of the time, you then will have to pay only to see flops and rivers to actually make these hands. You would need to make a whole lot more than 20BB's on the hand you hit. There is also the fact that you will lose some of those hands to say higher flushes, higher straights or full houses to your straights. The fact of the matter is, nobody limps as much as you think and makes money, the only thing a limper like this makes is waiting lists. I love limpers on my table.

As for weakening yes. When I see a guy with 45/10 stats I can assure you that I know which hands to play when vs this guy. Raising preflop now tells your opponents you have a good hand.

Originally Posted by JR9477

When you raise preflop, you can win by everyone folding, and cbetting the flop and everyone folding.

I had to look up "cbetting" -- "Continuation Betting" = leading the betting on the flop after you led the betting pre-flop.

There's an article I can't link to because I'm a n00b.

Google: "cbetting at micro nano levels"

This describes my experience with continuation betting exactly. Bluffing doesn't work for me. Some jaggoff with a pair of twos is going to go all the way with me, and if I haven't made my draw--and if I don't make my draw--I'm gonna lose.

But if I limp to the flop I haven't lost much. If the flop gives me a made monster hand, or good odds on one, then I can get some real money on the table and have a chance at profit.

This strategy is working for me in nano stakes poker, but I'm concerned that it's a bad habit or has other implications for my overall success at the table...

you can cbet at the micros
you know which people to cbet? the people that limp and try to hit a good hand

because you know they won't hit it that often and they'll fold when they miss

Originally Posted by jyms

There is also the fact that you will lose some of those hands to say higher flushes, higher straights or full houses to your straights.

Yes, that's a good point. I lose some money here.

Originally Posted by jyms

As for weakening yes. When I see a guy with 45/10 stats I can assure you that I know which hands to play when vs this guy. Raising preflop now tells your opponents you have a good hand.

Ok, I can understand the concept. What does "45/10 stats" mean, and where do I get this data?

Originally Posted by iopq

you can cbet at the micros
you know which people to cbet? the people that limp and try to hit a good hand

Ok, I get that. Let me work on this lesson.

Thank you, all.

you can get a poker tracker 3 trial on their website for 2 months, it will show you these statistics
or you can skip it for now, it doesn't matter too much at this point since you shouldn't be playing too many tables at the same time

Originally Posted by TheBlueKnave

What does "45/10 stats" mean, and where do I get this data?

45 VPIP and 10 pre flop raise

the stats come from right here




Thats a full history of every hand you have played against me and tells me your a limper and trying to hit flops and make monsters, so I am not gonna let you limp and play big pots on later streets. Your gonna pay big on the flop and turn.

Originally Posted by jyms

Originally Posted by TheBlueKnave

What does "45/10 stats" mean, and where do I get this data?

45 VPIP and 10 pre flop raise

Ok. VPIP = "Voluntarily Put Into Pot". Ok.

That client: what poker site is that for? I don't get any of that in the pokerstars software, I don't think. Looks handy.

I was looking at poker tracker, but was thinking it might be wise to get solid without it as there's no poker tracker software in the casinos...

Less action in a casino, as mutlitabling isn't happening.

like I said it's for playing multiple tables more efficiently
you should be playing one table or two if you can handle it to start and really focusing on decisions

I recommend you get Poker Tracker even while following iopq's advice to play a single table. Poker Tracker doesn't just keep track of your opponents. It keeps track of you.

You get to see what hands are profitable for you, and what hands are not. You get to see how you make more money in position. You get to see what happens to your bankroll over time.

It's a great program even if you never turn on the HUD.

The reason limping is bad is because:

1) Narrows your range.
2) Has no initiative (Really this is #1 recycled)

poker is a game of information. When you limp, the information the other players get is that you have a marginal hand -- often a PP or sc and thus its very easy to play against you. When you raise instead of limp, your range is full for that position. When you limp, it is narrowed.

The only time I limp is if several people have already and I am in the SB and complete for cheap, and don't wish to make a raise OOP with a marginal.

Ok, so I think I've got my head around the the strategy, and have played a sequence utilizing a considerably tighter but more aggressive "no limping" play.

50 hands isn't enough to draw any statistical conclusions, but so far, I've earned a lot less, and I've seen some amazing flushes and full houses miss me because I didn't chase them...

Is that just the siren song of bad poker play trying to lure me to my doom?

Or is it probable that I'm missing some other basic strategic element.

50 hands is an absolute statistical joke.

Maybe you should start playing 72o so you can make a fullhouse when 722 flops!

ok, ok. i get it.

so, are you master players immune to the, "damn i wish i'd been there" on a flop that matched your hand? is that just an emotional response i need to defeat?

Originally Posted by TheBlueKnave

is that just an emotional response i need to defeat?

Yes.
Start by unselecting "Display Folded Cards" under the Options.

Fun fact of the day: Online poker rooms are constantly "shuffling" the deck, so the split second it would have taken you to move from the fold button to the call button with your 72o would've changed the cards you see on the flop from 722 to something else.

Edit: Most likely to 772.

But mostly, yeah, just control the emotion, the above is merely a comforting thought in the mean time.

Mark

Originally Posted by kiwiMark

Fun fact of the day: Online poker rooms are constantly "shuffling" the deck, so the split second it would have taken you to move from the fold button to the call button with your 72o would've changed the cards you see on the flop from 722 to something else.

my mind is blown.

kinda surprised no one mentioned that even if you limp every single hand you get, you're not seeing nearly as many flops as OP assumes. EVEN IF you have a 5% chance of hitting a flush and so forth without investing anymore money than it costs to limp (which you don't, at all) like half of the times that you limped, it's gonna be raised behind you, so you have to choose between two strategies:

1) you limp and then fold when it's raised preflop. in this scenario, you're only seeing half as many flops as you accounted for while still paying the same amount of money.

2) you limp/call a shitton, in which case it's gonna cost you more like 50bb before you ever see that delicious flop (10bb for the 10 x's that you manage to see a cheap flop and 40bb for the 10x's someone raises you). 50bb is a half a stack, and i can guarantee you that tom dwan doesn't even average that kinda value off of his juicy hands (especiallly if a juicy hand is to include pretty meh value hands like baby flushes).

so even if you're playing against bad bad bad players, you're still springing a really big leak that's not realistically possible to plug.

if you wanna talk about whether you can limp hands that have relatively "likely" potential to make hands that'll win you money (small pocket pairs and suited connectors), there's like ACTUALLY a debate to be had. and modern poker theory has really moved toward the side of the debate that it is bad to even limp these hands (if it's not outright -EV, then it's at the very least not maximizing potential). i do, however, limp/call any pocket pair in EP when i'm playing live poker, but even 2nl isn't half as passive as casino poker.


ANYWAY, as for not getting the "oh i wish i'da played this hand" syndrome, it does just kinda come with getting used to the poker mindset. the poker mindset is something that is in super opposition of natural human prediliction of being results-oriented, and instead being probability oriented. in other words, after seeing 20k hands per month, you stop thinking of things in terms of "well this is what happened this one time and that means that i shoulda played my hand differently" and start to think of it more as "well there is no friggin' way in hell to play 86o profitably UTG, so i made the right decision to fold it pre, regardless of whether or not i woulda flopped quad 6's"

the fact of the matter is that poker is completely counter intuitive (that is the logic of it goes against how humans are hard-wired to think) in so so so so many ways, and that's why there are so many fish in the sea, and that's why so many people come to FTR and leave before they even get enough posts to be able to post a hand history 'cause they're like "FOLD KoJack WITHOUT THERE EVEN BEING A RAISE IN FRONT OF ME?!?!" or "YEAH WELL I'VE TRIED BETTING MY FLOPPED STRAIGHT ON EVERY STREET AND THOSE DONKS JUST ALWAYS SNAP FOLD!!!" and think that we're some sort of combination of pompous retarded assholes who just don't get how it works at the lower limits.

idk, it's 5 in the morning and i'm still a little tipsy, so sorry for the ramble

Here's another reason why limping can be bad for you. Say you limp everything except for monster hands like A-K, AA, KK-JJ. Then you raise pre-flop. Most players, even the dumbest of idiots at 2nl will eventually catch on. So when you have a good hand, you won't get paid off. If you limp with AA, you're setting yourself up to get beat on the flop by a crap hand, say 7-2o when the flop is 2-2-Q.

Limping is not necessarily a bad thing. You have to take into account more than just your cards...

Position, your table image, and the rest of the table's image.

Last night, I was sat at a table full of absolute maniacs. Nearly everyone would limp in with any two cards. It should have been extremely profitable for me, though I was sucked out on many times, and it took four hours to leave the table with a healthy profit. It was insane. I was pretty card dead, and when I did have decent holdings like AK, too many people would call the raise and it wouldn't hold up. Apart from pushing pre with KK and taking out a fish with QT, it was pretty dire.

So, after an hour of frustration, I changed my strategy. Instead of waiting for nice hands and raising them, I started to limp in with a very wide range from any position, because I knew no-one else would raise, and if they did it would be a min raise. I'd look for 2pr better and play it hard, and get paid off big. I'd fold TPTK without hesitation, unless I was priced in to redraw, there's 7 other hands in the pot, it's probably losing. But my big hands I'd get paid off for. It was extremely frustrating, but normal poker went out the window. Sometimes you just have to adjust to the maniacs' style of play in order to make money. The maniacs themselves rarely adjust to your play, no-one seemed to twig that if I was betting hard I had 2pr or better.