Limping Poker Strategy
Introduction
Open limping before the flop in no-limit hold’em cash games is almost always the sign of a loose/passive, weak player. However, this doesn’t have to be the case, and you can definitely add open limping to your game in the right circumstances if you plan things out well. What we want to do here is look at some of the advantages of open limping in a vacuum, how to counter some of the disadvantages and what some of the math looks like for specific scenarios to get you to thinking about your play.
If you work through this and really think about how you would do it, even if you decide not to, then it will help your game and your understanding of poker.
We’re going to start by looking at the typical disadvantages and what you want to avoid doing in terms of general play style.
Limping in poker has not been looked upon as a good strategic move for a long time by many poker players. However, when we deep dive, we realize there are certain scenarios and certain hands as well as positions for which this strategy can work out well (especially in comparison to the other options of ‘raise’ or ‘fold’). What is Limp in Poker? Limp means to just call in an unraised pot on the first betting round. It’s typically considered a weak play. It’s generally accepted that players should mostly either raise or fold preflop when the action is folded around to them in an unopened pot.
Avoiding Passive Play
The one thing you have to avoid if you’re going to limp is being super passive. The reason that open limping is such a typically bad thing is that it’s done in a particularly passive way that allows you to just run all over the people who do it. You want to avoid being one of those people who get ran over, and we’re going to cover a few quick ideas on how you can do that here.
Don’t Limp/Fold Much
You shouldn’t be limp/folding all that often. There are obvious times to do it, like when there’s a raise and a 3-bet before the action is back around to you, but for the most part, you should be calling or 3-betting when facing a single raise. Limp/folding much at all is a good way to destroy your win-rate.
Leading Flops After Check/Calling
You’re on the flop out of position in a heads-up pot. You have a range, and your opponent has a range. This is no different in principle than the type of situation you would be in if you had raised pre-flop and gotten called once from a player who had position on you. Leading this flop will follow the same types of basic principles of forming your range well. The only difference is the content of your range.
Limp/3-Bet Pre-flop
When you limp and face a raise, you should be 3-betting some percentage of the time. The bet sizes will be a little larger, but the same principles remain. You’ll need to have some bluffs and some value bets in your range, and you’ll probably be balanced when you have something like 60-65 percent bluffs in your 3-betting range on average with 100bb starting stacks.
Check/Raising Flops After Check/Calling
Along similar lines, you want to be attacking on the flop in a similar way. What’s really interesting is that a lot of robotic players will probably continuation bet entirely too often on flops against you at first since you’ve limp/called pre-flop, so you can exploit them by check/raising on the flop a bit more. This diverges into several different scenarios involving 3-bets/4-bet on the flop and what happens when you’re called on the flop and see a turn with double barreling and similar.
The 3-Betting Game
To give you an idea of the math involved, we’re going to take a brief look at the 3-betting game that happens after open limping pre-flop. You limp and a Villain in late position raises to 4x. It folds around to you, and you 3-bet to a total of 12bb.
The Immediate Fold Percentages
Immediately in a vacuum, you’re betting 11bb to win 6.5bb that is already in the pot, so you need Villain to fold 11/17.5 = 62.9 percent of the time to break even assuming that you never win the hand if he doesn’t fold. It’s important to realize that robotic tags are going to probably fold a lot here, so it’s a fun exploitative move at first.
It’s also important to realize that all of the strong hands you limp are going to be taken out of your open raising range. However, your opponents aren’t necessarily going to know this, so they’ll think your open raising ranges are stronger than they really are. It’s something to thing about.
Of course you want to be able to show up with strong hands when you limp/3-bet some percentage of the time, but you’ll have to work out the appropriate percentages to limp nut hands based on what range you decide to open limp in the first place.
Your Actual 3-Betting Range
You need to know what your actual 3-betting range looks like if you want to have a good idea of what your bluffing frequencies are. To be able to do this, you have to know what your limping range looks like and what you have available to 3-bet in the first place.
For the sake of example, suppose you decide to open limp {QQ+, AK} a total of 20 percent of the time in some position in some game. Normally this would be a total of 34 starting hand combinations. However, since you’ll only have them 20 percent of the time, they’re really going to show up with the same frequency that 35 * 0.20 = 6.8 normal hand combinations would show up.
Now suppose that you decide you want to be bluffing 60 percent of the time. You can use a shortcut I’ve posted about before to see how many bluffing combinations you need in your range:
Our desired bluff percentage is 40 percent, our desired value betting percentage is 40 percent (since that’s 100% – 60%), and we have 6.8 value betting combinations. That gives us 10.2 combinations of bluffs that we need to have in our range.
Learn More
This should be enough to get you started thinking about this stuff. If you’re ready to learn more, then check out the forum thread on this topic.
The overwhelming consensus is you should always enter the pot with a raise when you have pocket aces in Texas holdem. The reason why everyone agrees on this poker strategy is that it’s almost always the best way to play the best starting hand.
But there are a few specific situations where limping with pocket aces can be more profitable than entering with a raise. You’re going to learn about these situations on this page, but you need to understand a few important things before you continue reading.
The first thing is you should only consider limping with pocket aces, in any situation, if you’re an experienced poker player. Beginning players should always enter the pot with a raise with aces. Aces are the most profitable hand and raising almost always gets more money in the pot early in the hand.
When you raise early, you also make it more costly for average and poor hands to see the flop. When you force weak hands to fold, it reduces the opportunity for an opponent to hit a long shot hand with a favorable flop.
You also need to raise most of the time that you find yourself in one of the situations below. None of these situations are strong enough to limp every time.
The last thing you need to know before continuing is that all the situations below are when you’re playing no limit Texas holdem. You must always enter the pot with a raise with pocket aces in limit Texas holdem. This is a 100% rule, so never deviate from it.
1 – Playing With a Maniac
This doesn’t happen at the top levels very much. Even at the middle levels, it’s rare. But at the lower levels, many times you can find a table maniac. The table maniac bets and raises in most pots and doesn’t seem to have any control at all.
It can be difficult to adjust your play when you’re at a table with a maniac, but they offer a great opportunity when you have pocket aces. A maniac basically will lead the way for you by jamming the pot at every opportunity.
An added benefit is that many of your other opponents will enter the pot after the maniac because they don’t think he or she has a good hand. When the maniac is to your left, you can limp. When the maniac raises, he builds the pot and usually draws one or two other opponents into the pot.
It depends on stack size and a few other variables, but when you limp and the maniac raises, you need to carefully consider how to play the rest of the hand. The first thought is to make a big raise when it comes back to you before the flop. But when you do this, it screams a big hand.
But if the stacks are small enough that you can get all in and keep at least one opponent in the hand, raising all in is the best play.
But if the stacks are deep, the best play is to flat call the raise, check to the maniac after the flop, and then check raise after the maniac bets on the flop. If you check the flop and the maniac checks behind you, simply bet the turn if the board doesn’t look dangerous.
The power of limping with pocket aces against a maniac is that your hand strength is disguised from the other players. When you’re able to wait until after the flop to raise, many opponents will believe that you’re simply pushing back against the maniac. They assume that you might stick around without the correct odds to remain in a normal hand.
2 – Playing With Great Players
If you want to make as much money as possible playing Texas holdem, you need to find games filled with players who aren’t as good as you. This means that if you find and play in the right games, your best play with pocket aces is to raise because lesser opponents are going to pay you off by making mistakes.
But when you find yourself at a table with great opponents, you have to pull every trick out of the bag that you can. Great players read other players and situations well. They can usually put you on a small range of hands. They also are better at getting away from trap hands after the flop than weaker opponents.
You also need to try to understand how the best players view you and your abilities. Do they think you’re a good player or a fish? This is important because once you figure out how they view your abilities, you can use it against them.
You’re playing in early position, and the best players at the table view you as a solid player. If you limp from early position with any hand, they’re instantly going to recognize that something is off.
The best poker players almost never limp from early position, so they know that there’s a high probability that you’re trying to make a play.
This means that against the best players, it’s actually better cover to raise with aces from early position than to limp. But if they view you as a weak player, limping from early position isn’t a bad play, because they’re less likely to put you on pocket aces.
Limping Poker Strategy Games
I know this can be a little confusing, which is why I mentioned in the opening section that these plays are only for experienced players. If you’re not sure what to do, stick with a raise.
When you’re playing against great players, the places to look for an opportunity to limp with pocket aces are middle and late position. You can make a flat call from late position with pocket aces if it looks like only a few of you are going to see the flop.
Most hands at the top level of play are played with only two or three opponents, and many of them have a pre flop raise. Remember this when you’re deciding how to play aces. With a single opponent, you’re almost always better off raising early, unless it looks like your opponent is willing to bet for you and build the pot.
3 – When You’re on a Rush
While it doesn’t happen often, sometimes you hit a series of hands while playing Texas holdem when you can’t seem to lose. Every hand is playable, and the flops keep hitting you. When this happens, I call it a rush.
In truth, a rush is just a statistical probability that happens from time to time. You can’t do anything to create a rush, and everyone has them if they play poker long enough. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of one when it hits you.
If your opponents are paying attention, which isn’t always the case, they can see when you’re on a rush. The smart ones are going to get out of your way unless they have a particularly strong hand. But they know the rush will quickly pass.
But the opponents who aren’t really paying attention will continue playing average and poor hands. The way to make the most profit is to get as much money in the pot as possible when you’re the favorite to win the hand.
This usually involves entering with a raise. However, against weak opponents, sometimes the way to maximize the pot is to get another one or two of them into it.
This is dangerous because as more people enter the pot, your pocket aces lose their advantage. Aces have a strong advantage against any single hand, and even have a good advantage against two or three hands.
But once you get more opponents than that in the pot, your pocket aces can lose the overall advantage.
When you’re on a rush, and it looks like you can see the flop with two to three opponents with pocket aces if you limp, you can limp sometimes. It is a rare occasion, and it’s the most questionable situation on this page. If you’re not 100% sure limping is the correct play, simply enter with a raise.
If you limp in this situation and an opponent raises behind you, forget playing passively and re-raise to get as much in the pot as possible. If you can get all in without forcing everyone to fold, you need to do it.
Limping Poker Strategy Game
Conclusion
Limping Poker Strategy In Tournaments
Now that you know about three specific situations where you might want to consider limping with pocket aces, you need to determine if it’s the right play. The truth is that most players are going to be better off simply making a raise every time they find pocket aces.
Poker Strategy Starting Hands
But if you’re an experienced player and have a strong post flop game, you can use a change of pace play like this to keep your opponents guessing and squeeze a little extra profit out of the game. Just don’t take it too far and limp very much. If you take this too far, it’s going to end up costing you a lot of money in the long run.
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