limping big pairs for thr purpose of range balancing.

Big pair means QQ+ but lets get a couple things out of the way first. In no way am i saying that limping is better the raising. At micro stakes raising is always better as they call down so light. At least it is in a vacuum. Limping does have a few advantages though. For one it disguises the strength of your hand. Also it always you to play more drawing type hands cheaply. People will be less likely to punish your limp if they remember that just just limped with aces a few hands back.

i will post a hand in a sec.

I'm struggling to understand why you allow someone to see the flop cheaply and risk them hitting a flush or a straight? I see no advantage in limping QQ+ whatsoever, can you clarify this further?

Originally Posted by littleogre

limping big pairs for thr purpose of range balancing is silly and unnecessary - especially as balance is over-rated in most games 200nl and below

now your post makes sense. You don't get the history for balancing to matter at 2nl, nor would people adapt even with such history. Do yourself a favour and work on basics like pre-flop hand selection, value betting and folding

Originally Posted by daven

Originally Posted by littleogre

limping big pairs for thr purpose of range balancing is silly and unnecessary - especially as balance is over-rated in most games 200nl and below

now your post makes sense. You don't get the history for balancing to matter at 2nl, nor would people adapt even with such history. Do yourself a favour and work on basics like pre-flop hand selection, value betting and folding

Can't say i disagree but that doesn't mean we can't discuss discuss the concept. I would also say we are better of learning new concepts in a micros. We don't loose as much money in the learning process.

PokerStars (Cash Game): $0.01/$0.02 NL, 6 players
Thu, Feb 4, 2010 07:59:08 EST
Powered by Poker Academy (Format: 2+2 Forums)

BN ($1.07)
SB ($3.74)
BB ($5.47)
B3 ($2.32)
Hero ($2.33)
B1 ($1.02)

BN is the button.

Precards:
SB posts the small blind $0.01, BB posts the big blind $0.02.

Preflop: Hero is dealt Q Q (6 active)
B3 calls $0.02, Hero calls $0.02, 3 folds, BB checks.

Flop: 2 9 7 ($0.07, 3 active)
BB checks, B3 bets $0.04, Hero raises to $0.19, BB folds, B3 calls $0.15.

Before i explain why i did what i did let me say like i am not trying to claim this concept as my own. I can't give credit though because it's been regurgitated several times around the net.

PokerStars (Cash Game): $0.01/$0.02 NL, 6 players
Thu, Feb 4, 2010 07:59:08 EST
Powered by Poker Academy (Format: 2+2 Forums)

BN ($1.07)
SB ($3.74)
BB ($5.47)
B3 ($2.32)
Hero ($2.33)
B1 ($1.02)

BN is the button.

Precards:
SB posts the small blind $0.01, BB posts the big blind $0.02.

Preflop: Hero is dealt Q Q (6 active)
B3 calls $0.02, Hero calls $0.02, 3 folds, BB checks.

Flop: 2 9 7 ($0.07, 3 active)
BB checks, B3 bets $0.04, Hero raises to $0.19, BB folds, B3 calls $0.15.

[x] you don't need to balance your range much, if at all, at microstakes
[x] 99% of villains have short-term memory so limping for the hopes of getting in on the cheap won't matter 50 hands later

I honestly don't see the need to get tricky at these stakes because the vast majority of the micro population play their hands very straightforward, and the ones that don't are easy enough to spot. Don't get me wrong, it's great to think about balancing your range, but IMO it's a tad unnecessary at MSNL.

Just my .02

Ok i know most 2nl players aren't gonna notice what we do but for the sake or argument lets pretend like they do. We limp with Qs here in order to for lack of a better term train them to let us limp with say 67 sooted latter. Since we are play a stack over 100xbb we like to be able to limp with connectors.

On the flop i feel a raise is in order because frankly a lot of turn cards are scary. We can also safely assume that they will call our raise with any pair or str8 or flush draw. This brings up another point against semi thinking players by limping in pf you widen there calling and even raising range on the flop.

I have an idea, don't ever limp anything so you don't need to balance your limping range...

Originally Posted by OhioRounder

[x] you don't need to balance your range much, if at all, at microstakes
[x] 99% of villains have short-term memory so limping for the hopes of getting in on the cheap won't matter 50 hands later

I honestly don't see the need to get tricky at these stakes because the vast majority of the micro population play their hands very straightforward, and the ones that don't are easy enough to spot. Don't get me wrong, it's great to think about balancing your range, but IMO it's a tad unnecessary at MSNL.

Just my .02

Sure but that doesn't mean that we can't share how and why the cocept works and who it works on. To be fair though we must also discuss the possible pit falls. For one i find my fave read with embarrassment when i limp KK pf and triple barrel only to find that the villain hit a garbage 2 pair hand on the flop with 6/4 sooted. We also allow villain to get away cheaply on the flop if an over card hits .Cat on KB no more type

Step 1: Stop doing dumb shit like limp after a limper with QQ.
Step 2: Climb out of microstakes.

As an aside, I don't think balancing your range means what you think it means. You need to get better at dealing with putting people on ranges and knowing how they play them before you start thinking about balance. It's sort of like if you were going to become some expert scuba diver, you'd need to get to where you could swim without the little floaties before you started trying to scuba dive.

Originally Posted by daven

Originally Posted by littleogre

limping big pairs for thr purpose of range balancing is silly and unnecessary - especially as balance is over-rated in most games 200nl and below

now your post makes sense. You don't get the history for balancing to matter at 2nl, nor would people adapt even with such history. Do yourself a favour and work on basics like pre-flop hand selection, value betting and folding

1st off) ^^^^^

2nd off) what spoonit said, i don't think you really understand the concept of balancing ranges. i hear it used a lot in the BC as meaning like "doing the same thing with awesome hands as you do with not so awesome hands." i guess it's KINDA like that, but that doesn't at allllllllll suffice for a definition.

so you're limping big PP's to "balance" your range for when you limp other things like small PP's and SC's. ok so a decent player (someone where balancing might actually matters) iso's you, and you go "LOL TARPED" and 3b him, is your range balanced? is he going to think, hmmmm well he open limped, so clearly his range is 22, 54s, QQ+, and i have decent equity with TT against that range, so i'll stack off? NO! (in fact he would flat TT even if this were the case, but anyway...) i guess he could think that if you got into the habit of mixing in some limp/3b's with garbagy hands, and then eventually over a 500 hand sample (in other words, by the time any semi-decent player is well BR'ed for the next limit because you don't get 500 hand samples until 100nl), he'll start to think he can get it in light in UTG+1 vs MP1 battles, but that sounds like you have to play A LOT of crappy, FPS syndrome to get to that point which isn't even that awesome because you're not going to get iso'ed in EP if he thinks you're going to limp/3b him like ever.

OR, you can limp/call, and now the flop comes J54tt and you go for a c/r. have you now more effectively balanced your range? NO! again, he's not going to think that your range is 22-77, QQ+, 54s+, he's going to think it's sets, and now lol he "balanced" his range by adding strong overpairs. lol he has no idea what balance is because i'm still snap folding my TPTK. of course you can start c/r'ing monkey in these spots and eventually you'll get him to stack off with TPGK, but again, it seems ridiculous to go this goddamn far out of our way just to take the initiative in a bunch of pots AWAY from ourselves? (this segue's well into my 3rd off, but let me make another point first...)

OR, we could limp/call pre and c/c on that J54tt flop, and now we're just being retarded because there aren't many boards where villain's going to triple barrel when their preflop range is {54s+, 22-77, QQ+}

3rd off) ISF once said, if you have the choice between balancing your range with aggression or with passivity, you should just about ALWAYS go for aggression because people make mistakes when they're faced with a balanced aggressive line, and it's much harder to make a mistake in the face of passivity. in other words, in order to properly balance our range, it's going to take a long history of GOING OUT OF OUR WAY to reverse the initiative in hands on OURSELVES, which just seems like bad, pre-UIGEA-hangover poker.

in other words, in the hand you posted, why the fuck don't you just open 22-77, 54s+ AND QQ+ when you're just two off from the button?! now you have the widest, hardest to read range possible, AND you keep the initiative, so that when you lead out on the flop, you still have a wide, hard-to-read range, and when you bet all 3 streets, you still have a relatively wide range (if you're playing good balanced poker). now villain has no clue what you're doing until you get to like 600nl, whereas all this limp/calling crap thins your range significantly, and even if you're playing balanced, your ranges are still thin enough to be able to play perfectly against much more easily.

CLIFFNOTES A) you're at 2nl, and you beat this stake and the next 5 stakes AT LEAST, by playing UNBALANCED poker that exploits very bad players' deep-seated tendencies that aren't going to change anytime soon

B) you don't know what balance is, and how to optimize profitability with it if you think that simply limping some premiums will balance limping implied odds hands.

C) a better way to achieve balance in these spots is to simply play your WHOLE RANGE the same way.

Originally Posted by littleogre

I would also say we are better of learning the absolute basic concepts in a micros. We then make more money in the learning process and are able to move up in stakes. Then, if we're ever in the position where we need to explore a concept but aren't comfortable with the possible bankroll effect then we can simply move down in stakes

ok, I agree that it's worth learning all sorts of things when starting out. But, there is some sort of order to this madness. If you learn the three things i listed above

Originally Posted by "daven

work on basics like pre-flop hand selection, value betting and folding

you'll be moving up in stakes. Also, as spoon said, ranging villains is an integral part of this. I know, why not put villains on ranges in the two hands you posted - and see if your play makes any sense...

here is a hand against a typical 2nl villain yesterday - wtf balance
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (8 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($99)
BB ($100)
Hero (UTG) ($101.50)
UTG+1 ($55.85)
MP1 ($40.20)
MP2 ($90.15)
CO ($305.95)
Button ($100)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q, Q
Hero bets $3.50, 2 folds, MP2 calls $3.50, 4 folds

Flop: ($8.50) 5, 10, 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $8, MP2 raises to $32.50, Hero raises to $98 (All-In), MP2 calls $54.15 (All-In)

Turn: ($181.80) 9 (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($181.80) 9 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $181.80 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero had Q, Q (two pair, Queens and nines).
MP2 had K, 10 (two pair, tens and nines).
Outcome: Hero won $178.80

Originally Posted by surviva316

................

Everything here, even though I dont understand mist of it , got a 5 Spade from me.

Nice post surviva.

if you raised more before the flop then limping is never needed to 'balance'

surviva i don't wanna quote you entire post and i'm to lazy to filter out the relevant subject matter. You asked what do we do if a player raises our limp. Well it depends on the player and stack size. Say for example he has a high frequency of c-betting. i'm calling whether i have a big or small pair or a connector type hand. Then i'm checking most flops except when i have an op on a wet flop. If opp checks behind thats fine if we have air or a draw. If we have a op then it sucks as villain just got a free turn card. If he bets i'm c-raising Op hands and sets and 2p hands and flush and str8 draws. Some players and not necessarily donkey players would even c-raise up hands. I'm not that ballsy enough though.



For clarification

op= over pair
up=under pair

Of course another way to balance would be to raise whether we have a big pair or a SC hand.

wrong hand

How about occasionally limp/re-raising QQ+ from EP at a table where you are quite confident there will be a preflop raise? This is really for trapping, not range balancing.

Haven't done it myself very often, but it seems quite efficient.. Quite often the original raiser will stack off facing what he thinks is an "obvious bluff" or "another tilting donkey who overplays his small pairs".

Got caught by it myself several times...