good spots to limp

[Suns of Beaches]

What do you guys think? There is an old saying "never limp" but there are rare spots where it can be profitable imo.

Example: we get AA on the button heads up and our opponent is short.

 

[Leandro6803]

I think it's a valid strategy depending on specific situations, for example: in bounty tournaments with short players in final position pre flop at the table

 

[okeedokalee]

Limping is player dependent.
You have AA-QQ and know a maniac will be provoked if you limp, then do do.
On the flop I would just min bet or call in this instance, and get that player type to continue their aggression.
You also aren't wrong to limp small pairs and suited connectors if you have a decent stack size.
If you have less than ten bigs, then of course the smaller hands should be shoved.

 

[infonazar]

What do you guys think? There is an old saying "never limp" but there are rare spots where it can be profitable imo.

Example: we get AA on the button heads up and our opponent is short.

There are quite a few situations in which it is possible, or even necessary, to play outside the box, breaking certain conventional rules or strategies. The situation you described is one of them.

 

[Suns of Beaches]

There are quite a few situations in which it is possible, or even necessary, to play outside the box, breaking certain conventional rules or strategies. The situation you described is one of them.

Do u know of other, similar situations?

 

[fundiver199]

In games with antes, like most tournaments, SB limping definitely has a lot of merit. Its also pretty common to limp the button heads up with short stacks. Finally good players will sometimes limp BTN in situations with high ICM pressure to take away, what would otherwise be a good rejamming spot. And then of course their is the super exploitable "limp AA UTG with a short stack" strategy, if you think, you will get raised a ton. Not something I personally do, but on the right table it can be an ok play.

 

[Suns of Beaches]

In games with antes, like most tournaments, SB limping definitely has a lot of merit. Its also pretty common to limp the button heads up with short stacks. Finally good players will sometimes limp BTN in situations with high ICM pressure to take away, what would otherwise be a good rejamming spot. And then of course their is the super exploitable "limp AA UTG with a short stack" strategy, if you think, you will get raised a ton. Not something I personally do, but on the right table it can be an ok play.

I also sometimes gained or saw value by limping medium weak hands against passive-weak players in position.

Example: everyone folds to me on the button and i got something like j3s with very passive players in the blinds. Sometimes, depending on my stack, i choose to limp in these kind of spots.

 

[TeUnit]

For the most part in Mtt play you really should not be doing very much open limping.

There are some low blind situations where you can use the limp and go, the limp and pray, or the limp and outplay.

There also low blind situations with AA where you may want to limp to maximize the pot.

If you have 18BBs and are in mid with AQ against all GTO players you can limp, but I dont know about you, but I am more likely to run into sitter limpers than I am winning GTO players.

 

[Suns of Beaches]

For the most part in Mtt play you really should not be doing very much open limping.

There are some low blind situations where you can use the limp and go, the limp and pray, or the limp and outplay.

There also low blind situations with AA where you may want to limp to maximize the pot.

If you have 18BBs and are in mid with AQ against all GTO players you can limp, but I dont know about you, but I am more likely to run into sitter limpers than I am winning GTO players.

No that limp with 18bb in middle pos with aq makes no sense. Its an open/reshove or even openshove to me.

Ps: Please stop with ur sitters talk 😂 we got it: u as an accomplished long time freeroll player do not like people who sitout.

 

[Igor Popadyk]

I still think that you need to play aggressively with your top hand, I myself was punished for slow play

 

[kaynbergo]

If this is early in the tournament, I'd rather go all-in with AA than a limp. To limp the previous formation, create a multipod at the table where your AA will lose strength.

 

[I Live Poker]

When you have premium hands, in late position, with a table with an effective stack of less than 20 bbs, and you have the information that the players are aggressive and will possibly go allin.

Limp is a difficult action to balance, it works best for passive players in terms of range and balance bet size. When you're aggressive, limping is somewhat unusual, so you probably won't get the jam.
Therefore, for aggressive players who would like to diversify their range of moves, implementing limping opens up an opportunity to limp with connector hands of the same suit.
In a blind war, limping and then C-betting 1bb will cause your opponent to fold too often, and mixing this with value hands will likely have a better chance of encouraging your opponent to go allin.
But the frequency is very low.

 

[Mortis]

Limping with AA on the BTN gives your opp(s) a chance to see cheap/free flops as that increases the chances that the SB will come in as well, which also makes it more difficult to put your opp(s) on a hand. I've seen limped AA on the BTN go terribly wrong. Granted, I've seen it do its trick as well when the BB hits something.

Personally, I would much rather at least min raise on the BTN with AA. That may even entice a reraise from the BB OOP, thinking you're trying to steal the blinds. Then you can pop them with a 3-bet. You have a better chance of taking down more in the pot in a less amount of time. Or just take the pot down pre-flop. A small win is still a win. Better than letting the BB see a free flop, imo.

 

[tagece]

"Never" is a word is a word that shouldn't be used in poker and most of the aspects of life.
poker strategy can change every hand. You always need to look position, stack, opponents to think about the hand you have. And these is changing in every hand.
Sometimes you are playing in a table where people are limping all the time. It's a good spot to play marginal hands and there no reason to raise, so it worth to see the flop for a cheap value.
Sometimes it can be used as a trap, specially when playing from BB or SB.

 

[Propane Goat]

I like limping with suited connectors such as 87s, or suited 1-gappers (J9, T8, 97, etc) in late position when at least one player has already limped in. You won't flop a monster in most cases, but picking up at least some decent draws on the flop for cheap is a good possibility especially when blinds are low.

The danger is that villains will often limp into multi-way pots because they're set-mining with low pocket pairs, so your hand-reading skills have to be good enough to stay out of trouble post-flop.

The game variant is also a factor - you will see much more pre-flop limping in PLO because even weak holdings will often flop at least backdoor and gutshot draws, where in Hold'em it's much more common to flop absolutely nothing usable at all.

 

[Rost]

What do you guys think? There is an old saying "never limp" but there are rare spots where it can be profitable imo.

Example: we get AA on the button heads up and our opponent is short.

Of course, it all depends on the situation. Sometimes you need to surprise your opponents, otherwise the game will be boring, but you should never get carried away and always know the limit

 

[LUKADONCICMVP]

only good times to limp is to trap maniacs who are going all in every hand.

 

[Vallet]

The proverb is good, but it needs to be applied in certain cases. I don't see anything wrong with doing limp. Especially in heads up, when our hand is perfectly disguised.

 

[eetenor]

I also sometimes gained or saw value by limping medium weak hands against passive-weak players in position.

Example: everyone folds to me on the button and i got something like j3s with very passive players in the blinds. Sometimes, depending on my stack, i choose to limp in these kind of spots.

The more passive the players the more we want to raise not limp-when passive players 3 bet we get to fold vs their tight ranges knowing we are not being bluffed--- we use limps to protect hands that have good equity to play but not for a standard 3 bet size which would reduce our SPR--- hands such as KT QT JT all off suit ....etc. We do not want to limp J3s because we want to use it to steal pots post flop more often than we would with say KT that can show down and win a lot or beat worse KX J3 cannot do either of those things very well. If we bluff flop after we raise J3s with a backdoor flush draw and turn brings in another flush card we can continue to pressure our V with our strong equity draw.

 

[duqnuk]

Yes, I believe that in specific situations might be a good option, as said by other members, specially if you're playing agains't the same players for a few hours because limping might mix your range perception (or polarizes your hand).

Picture this: We are on the BB. The villan limps in BTN. SB folds. We raise to 4.5bb (doesn't really matter what hand we have here). Villan on the BTN 3-bets to 12bb. The villan must be super super strong right? That's usually what I would feel in that spot. Limping and then 3-betting is very sus, so as you can see this is a possible line that you can use in some situations (specially if your playing agains't this opponent for a few hours as said above)

A similar situation is when you're in SB and you only call instead of opening 2-3bb. It brings opportunities to trap your opponent, so basically, yes, limping from time to time is another tool you can have. Poker it's all about this, there are no strict rules to follow, every situation is different due to many factors involved (number of players, stack-size, opponent's style, level of blinds,regular-pko,etc..).

Knowing the fundamentals you can bend them to your will.

 

[AKQ]

everyspot is a good spot to limp
My favorite move is limp folding 20 times in a row

 

[AKQ]

Limping is Pimping Can't be played optimally against amateurs as profitable as GTO and Exploitative
Limping is Pimping is for SPECIFically against the GTO machines. that overlooked its usability and got smacked in the face 2023 SHR