Raising from the blinds

[metaxy6]

Is raising from the blinds a tactic to add the tool kit for winning play?
Personally, I don't like to do it unless I've got primo starter, but that's a holdover from the midrange limit games where limpers will of course call 1 more bet, the other blind will call for pot odds, and you can expect callers on the flop with the juicy pot you've created. So, you'd better be holding.

In nl, it may just be bad strategy. With limpers, I won't raise real quality hands like 99, aq, etc. It can be costly when aq gets 2 paired by j9 or 99 gets beat by the lp 57 who calls down and rivers a strt because nobody showed any pre-flop strength.

These things will happen, but with a player who tends to raise from the blinds, that 57 might never have seen the flop. I know that I think twice about coming in lp w speculative when aggros are in the blinds.

I also find that I'm playing paddycake in the blinds too much. Because I don't raise, the sb completes with all kinds of 93 o, etc. and his 3s stand up against my unimproved qj.

So, to put second thoughts in would-be limpers minds and prevent this, is it a good tactic to make the occasional raise from the blinds, even with marginal holdings?
I suppose that if the purpose is this long-term protection, it's best done in spots where it would be remembered. Ideally with 1-2 weak-tight limpers
and call attention to it.
Thoughts?

[Fnord]

I also find that I'm playing paddycake in the blinds too much. Because I don't raise, the sb completes with all kinds of 93 o, etc. and his 3s stand up against my unimproved qj.

A few random thoughts:

I really don't get cute with blind play in cash games. The sunk cost is so low and being out of position with lukewarm hands and lots of money behind sucks so much.

If the SB is open completing, I'm testing him quite a bit because I have position on him.

Rasing to 10x out of the blinds with s00ted trash is always fun to screw with nitty limpers.

[metaxy6]

Ha. Can't wait to try the 10x bb on the nitty sb completion.

But, in general you're saying that you prefer to trust to postflop play even when holding real quality in the blinds?

That makes sense, and its why I limp high pps from the blind waiting to whack somebody when I set.

The cost is a few bets when that j9 2 pairs or the 57 makes the strt. But - as you say the sunk cost is low, and it's easy to make the read and get off the hand.

I was just thinking of the effect of those players who consistently raise from the blinds. It really does give 2nd thoughts about limping/4x raising with spec like kj s when I know how willing they are to play hard out of position. I know they're betting pot on the flop and putting me to the test.

[Lukie]

Ha. Can't wait to try the 10x bb on the nitty sb completion.

But, in general you're saying that you prefer to trust to postflop play even when holding real quality in the blinds?

That makes sense, and its why I limp high pps from the blind waiting to whack somebody when I set.

The cost is a few bets when that j9 2 pairs or the 57 makes the strt. But - as you say the sunk cost is low, and it's easy to make the read and get off the hand.

I was just thinking of the effect of those players who consistently raise from the blinds. It really does give 2nd thoughts about limping/4x raising with spec like kj s when I know how willing they are to play hard out of position. I know they're betting pot on the flop and putting me to the test.

Don't make it 10xBB to go from the BB if the only action to you has been folds and the SB completes. Fnord was talking about pumping in 10xish from the BB when there were multiple limpers.. but this isn't a move you want to frequently make with garbage, at least until you can really understand your opponents.

The reason this works (generally), is because nobody has really shown any strengh preflop. The first limper didn't like his hand enough to raise and chose to limp instead. Hands like baby PP's, AJ, KQ, etc are common here. When facing a raise from the blinds, this player is sandwiched between you and the limpers behind him. Unless he was pulling a limp/reraise stunt with KK/AA, you can usually count on a fold here.

Each successive player that limped also saw weakness in front of them, and with growing pot-odds with each player, all kinds of trash gets limped in behind. The rest is pretty self explanitory.

High PP's are exactly what you don't want to be completing/checking out of the blinds with. With these hands (QQ-AA usually), you want more money in the pot, but not more players.

[UG]

I've talked about this a little bit before as well. If you have 7-8 limpers you need to ask yourself, "What are all of these players limping with?" Nobody, with the exception of *maybe* UTG and UTG+1 has a hand here. Nobody. So you can pump it to 10x's BB and watch everyone fold.

The only calls you will get are people looking to hit sets, thinking they're in for a big payday if they hit. When you continuation bet it on the flop, and they don't hit, they'll fold like cheap suits and you'll take a nice 14-24 bb pot, depending on how many callers you get (you probably won't get any to begin with, this is only if you do).

Now if UTG or UTG+1 gets really frisky with you...then you've got to lay it down, they've probably got big tickets and pulled the old limp-reraise scheme. But most of the time this doesn't happen.

[dalai007]

Tried this twice yesterday both during sngs. 1st hand- 8 limpers (t50 each) im bb with AJs push all fold worked quite well! 2nd hand- different sng my M is getting low and 6 limpers to me in sb with 74s I push get 1 fold and an immediate call from UTG all rest fold. UTG flips KK! DOH get a frush draw but he avoids the suck out. oh well. I wonder how often this play works on average?

[Fnord]

I saw H@LL pull this move once. A 20ish bb stack pushed and he said "do I have to show this down?", called and won with 52o.