Limping to players sitting out(aka sitter limping) the worst play in poker

[TeUnit]

What other play in all of poker destroys more value than limping to a player sitting out.

Its hurts the player who limps, it hurts all the other active players at the table, and it even hurts the site.

The only players that benefit from limping to a player sitting out, are the players who are sitting out.

To limp to a sitter you need to not believe in any of the following:
Fold equity
The power of position
ICM

When you limp in early position with sitters in late position, it just prices in the other players to limp. Now you are in a hand with a bunch of sitter limpers and you are out of position with no initiative. I am not sure why you would want more players to play your mediocre hand against, especially out of position.

What if there was a 2 table MTT, on 1 table 5 sitters and 5 active players and on the other table 2 active players and 8 sitters. On the table with 5 active players they are all limping to the sitters every hand and on the other table the 2 players are only raising and folding. Which players do you think have the best chance to win?

The more dead money at the table the more you should go after it, and limping K6o to a sitter is not going after it.

Another thing to consider is the value of the tourney, if you make $1 and the tourney lasts 1 hr thats better than making $1 in a tourney that lasts 2 hours.

I can only think of 1 possible reason to limp to a sitter and that is as a stalling move to get a villan higher blinds or blinded out etc.

Sitter limping
gets you less hands
gets you less dead money
increases the length of the MTT
gives you an opportunity to play bad hands out of position with no initiative
decreases your equity in the tourney
other active players at best will view you as inattentive

 

[MickGreed]

I think its the ppl that just dont know how to play, I dont see any advantage except drawing time close to the bubble,

 

[fundiver199]

I dont see any advantage except drawing time close to the bubble,

Even that is kind of risky, since the sit-out player could return at any moment. I agree, that its either inattention or lack of understanding of the game. I have also seen someone give a sit-out player a walk, which is of course even worse

 

[Matt_Burns88]

I have also seen someone give a sit-out player a walk, which is of course even worse

I have seen this before a few times. A real "what are you thinking!" moment.

 

[TeUnit]

Even that is kind of risky, since the sit-out player could return at any moment. I agree, that its either inattention or lack of understanding of the game. I have also seen someone give a sit-out player a walk, which is of course even worse

At least when they fold to sit-out its instant, you do not have to watch them check it down with somebody who is not playing and it doesn't induce a limpathon.

 

[CallmeFloppy]

I think its basically not paying attention. I know i have done it myself accidently when playing multiple tables or watching tv while playing online.

 

[300HPGOD]

I think there are some things here that need to be clarified as TeUnit himself got on me once for this at a table. There is a big difference being the SB and limping to the BB who is sitting out vs being in middle position and limping with players to come after you and then the BB is sitting out (Te got on me for doing the latter).

I think there is never a reason to limp being in the SB in this situation, just raise and take the pot, no argument there. However in the specific example I am talking about with me and TeUnit, I was in middle position and Te was either the button or the SB. Te is a very very good player for those that dont know him so I myself know that if I raise there he can put me on a hand where I am only raising because the BB is sitting out and then he can exploit me with 3 betting as he is good at. I think limping in the spot I am talking about is not bad due to the fact that you can trap the better players that see you do this and think you must be weak and you can call their raises now and punish them knowing their range is wider than normal. It really should depend on who is after you to act and how you think they will perceive your limp or raise in that spot. I dont normally open limp but I will say I think there are times for it when there is a sitting out BB with good players left to act behind. Just my two cents but too blanket a statement to say that it is always bad to be limping in that scenario.

 

[TeUnit]

I think there are some things here that need to be clarified as TeUnit himself got on me once for this at a table. There is a big difference being the SB and limping to the BB who is sitting out vs being in middle position and limping with players to come after you and then the BB is sitting out (Te got on me for doing the latter).

I think there is never a reason to limp being in the SB in this situation, just raise and take the pot, no argument there. However in the specific example I am talking about with me and TeUnit, I was in middle position and Te was either the button or the SB. Te is a very very good player for those that dont know him so I myself know that if I raise there he can put me on a hand where I am only raising because the BB is sitting out and then he can exploit me with 3 betting as he is good at. I think limping in the spot I am talking about is not bad due to the fact that you can trap the better players that see you do this and think you must be weak and you can call their raises now and punish them knowing their range is wider than normal. It really should depend on who is after you to act and how you think they will perceive your limp or raise in that spot. I dont normally open limp but I will say I think there are times for it when there is a sitting out BB with good players left to act behind. Just my two cents but too blanket a statement to say that it is always bad to be limping in that scenario.

I still think if you limp out of position with players sitting out you are giving up any fold equity, you are giving up initiative in the hand, and you are gaining less dead money.

Again, imagine a 2 table MTT with lots of players sitting out, one table with sitter limpers and the other with players who only raise or fold. The table with the raise or fold players should be gaining equity faster from the players sitting out than the table having a limpathon.

If there are other live players left to act after you then you are pricing them in to play against you and they have position on you.

When you limp out of position, its kinda like you are forcing the remaining players to play good. Everything else being equal they should play better than you because they have more information(ie they know what you did after the flop) and they are last to act, and heaven forbid if they limped trash and hit the lotto.

Raising just helps you in so many ways, less competition, makes the pot bigger, and it makes it easier to take down the pot with a cbet. It also increases the number of hands, the speed at which you gain equity from the sitters, and shortens the length of the tourney(improving your hourly).

If you are worried about being 3bet, you may be raising too light, or not be 4betting enough.

 

[fundiver199]

I dont normally open limp but I will say I think there are times for it when there is a sitting out BB with good players left to act behind. Just my two cents but too blanket a statement to say that it is always bad to be limping in that scenario.

I will go as far as agree, that it certainly dont make open limping any worse, that someone behind is sitting out, if there are also other live players to act. One can argue, that limping is always bad except from late position and with certain stack sizes, but if you limp UTG, it hardly makes any difference, that 1 out of 8 players behind you is sitting out. If its big blind sitting out, and nobody else wants to play, you can just take it down with a flop bet.

 

[TeUnit]

Lets say the blinds are both sitting out, and utg you limp, now your blind is in the pot, and the big and small blinds have contributed 1.5 bbs to the pot, now utg+1 thinks wow I am getting a great price to overlimp, then utg+2 thinks hes getting even a better price now you got a limpathon going.

What did the utg limp accomplish?
It put us in hand out of position with no initiative.
It wasted everyones time.
And if other tables are not limping to sitters it cost us equity.

 

[eberetta1]

I have played at many websites that they do not say sitout for the player sitting out. So I doubt most people are limping to a sitout in purpose.

It annoys me to no end when the software allows a sitout to even win the hand. The software should automatically muck the sitout players hand.

 

[ivanlt18]

It is often a good way to bait any other position to make them think youre abusing and bluffing. But it might as well be more effective to not limp in, but just to raise.
Provided its only seen as a strategy, not an usual play.

 

[SharkFinn]

I have played at many websites that they do not say sitout for the player sitting out. So I doubt most people are limping to a sitout in purpose.

It annoys me to no end when the software allows a sitout to even win the hand. The software should automatically muck the sitout players hand.

I only play on unibet and their software does this so I haven't had to endure the issue of sitouts entering hands. With the unitbet software, if there's a limp into the BB who is sitting out, BB autofolds and limper wins the pot preflop

 

[Pokerpoet2]

There are 2 solid reasons why a person Limps in any given hand.


1. His hand is mediocre at best and does not want to fold to a re-raise.
2. He has a monster and wants a lot of players to limp in so he can shove all-in when he is facing a raise.

I often use the 2nd tactic when sat with a monster hand so that I don't get folded to when I put in a raise under the gun, Yes dangerous move in that you are letting more players see the flop if no one raises, but very profitable if you are the one hitting the flop, as you will get players betting the flop even when they miss.
I did it once with KK and there where 2 other players in the hand the flop came KKJ rainbow and being first to act I checked. 2nd player bet, 3rd called and I called after all I did not want to chase away my prey.
Turn gave us another Jack so 2 pair on the board. I know from experience that an Ace would sometimes bet here because if no-one had actually hit the flop 2 pair with an Ace kicker could be a winning hand.
I checked again and 2nd player bet, 3rd called and I called, now the problem was what do I do on the river? The River gave us a 10 and I thought if I bet big here I will get no action so I checked for the 3rd time, 2nd player bet, 3rd called and now I raised, you need to understand that by this point player 2 was down to about 8 BB left and player 3 was down to about 12 BB. I raised by 4 BB, This meant that player 2 would be pot committed and would have to push If he was going to call, He did and player 3 just called the re-raise, so with him only having 4 BB left I re-raised all-in and he had to call.as he was pot committed now.
I took the pot and 2 players out of the game, they were both playing J/10 and thought a Boat would be unbeatable,
Why on Earth anyone would do this I do not know because it was obvious from the start I must have had a King at the very least giving me a bigger boat, but some players wear blinkers when it comes to their hands and all they see is what they are holding, not what the other players might have.

When the fun Stops, STOP!

 

[kraemer]

Maybe sometimes the people wanna see what becomes of their hole cards...
But i even see people folding to sit-outs every once in a while... worst move possible!

 

[TeUnit]

I am starting to think that sitter limping should be classified as a hate crime, because if you limp to sitters you hate money and are trying to hurt the active players at the table, while you focus on helping the players that are sitting out.

 

[zerosalex]

One of the worse moves in poker is short stack all in with two callers. And one of the callers bluffs the other caller out the hand in fourth or 5th street. To triple up short stack when the guy who got bluffed out could have won and eliminated short stack. Only for short stack to come back to make it to final table when he should have been eliminated if it wasn't for senseless bluff. It rarely happens and when there is no side pot worth enough for the bluff it's not a good poker move during a tournament.

 

[Pokerman32750]

One of the worse moves in poker is short stack all in with two callers. And one of the callers bluffs the other caller out the hand in fourth or 5th street. To triple up short stack when the guy who got bluffed out could have won and eliminated short stack. Only for short stack to come back to make it to final table when he should have been eliminated if it wasn't for senseless bluff. It rarely happens and when there is no side pot worth enough for the bluff it's not a good poker move during a tournament.

I've seen it happen I've seen people win tickets to live events through a very small buy in because bluffers cause short stack to triple and quadruple up

 

[Darthrazer]

Yes. I hate that too. :/

 

[Frenzeco]

I hate it with my life. I only sit-out when I'm busy

 

[TeUnit]

With all the resources freely available, I never would expect to see as much sitter limping as there is today.

 

[Mr.$t0k]

I think you have no right to limp any hand that you have, you must open raise 100% hand that you have