The problem with limping as a general thing to do instead of raising:
- you never get the betting incentive post flop
- you never get anyone out of the hand, so now others will join in with a limp because now it’s so cheap to see a flop and a lot of people think the whole point is to see the flop and then decide what to do.
- if you are limping everything except premium hands everyone paying attention will see this.
- you can never move up in position by limping.
So most of the time when you limp it will be a multi way pot. Your hand will have to be better than everyone else to win. This is going to be hard. This is why people start hating poker. This is why people don’t have big chip stacks in middle or late stages of tournaments.
If we raise what happens:
- get the betting initiative post flop
- we can get players to fold
- we can move up in position
- we can get a bigger pot when we have value hands
- we can
bluff
- we can isolate and get a weak player all to ourselves
So before you make a decision on what to do you have to ask yourself what is best for this particular spot right now. If everyone folds to you in the small blind and you have a premium vs. the big blind, here maybe you can limp.
Also limping can influence your opponent to just raise you. So you have to react to them. If we raise they have to react to us.
Be in position
Be the raiser
Have a great hand
This is the spot you need to be in.
Good luck!
