is it ever ok to limp?

[theopimus]

For me is limping not an issue.
It depends of my stack and possition.
Dealerbutton or small blind are the best places for me.

[Twiztedtony]

when im playing at a very aggrissive live cash table i love limping with aces in early position. then when someone pops it and maybe two ppl call i just shove all my chips in the middle and hope for the best.. someone with ak ha

[jasonv12]

Early in a tournament, when deep stacked, your goal is to play hands that can potentially win big pots, while risking a small amount of chips. Because of this, if you can get away with limping hands like smaller pocket pair to set mine, suited connectors/gappers to draw to flushes and straights, suited aces to get value with flush over flush or two pair versus ace higher kicker, and don't think you will get raised out of the pot a large percentage of the time, limping could be okay.

By the same token, hands that are either going to win you a small pot, or lose you a big one, like unsuited broadways: KJo, QJo, Q10o, A9o, A10o. Raising may be a better plan depending on who your opponent(s) are if you are going to play. If I am in early position, I generally just fold most of these hands... Even AQo. It looks pretty, but really it has very negative expected value if against AK, any two pair, etc. and is very hard to not get invested in. In these spots, raising narrows the field out and should hopefully give a lot of the hands mentioned in the first paragraph bad odds to play -- making spot postflop more clear. One issue here is, if you have a hand like AQo and the flop comes down J84, it can be really hard to continue even tho most of your opponents range won't include a J. Also, the times when it does include a J, your A or Q outs can be dirty and QJ and AJ are very much within their range. So raising pre, but check folding the flop seems bad, but limping seems worse? So how do you find harmony within that? These hands are extremely hazardous early if you aren't aware of EXACTLY what you are doing and why you are playing them and I like to fold them unless I can play heads up or 2 ways against fishy opponents, or at least have position, or a blind discount or something.

Now hands like AA, KK, or QQ (JJ can go either way -- set mining is okay with it too depending on the table), it is best to just play it fast and don't let too many players get in the pot, especially at a table with a lot of calling stations. --In fact at such a table, an argument for open shoving AA or KK for like 100+ bbs might even be a profitable line, but again dynamics like that change things. The main point is, these hands MUST be raised and played as fast as possible, as the lose equity with not only each additional opponent, but also each card that peels. The average winning holdem hand is two pair. These hands are only one pair. AA is not strong enough to slow play while deep stacked, don't do it. Don't, don't don't.


As the tournament progresses, the average stack (and probably your own) becomes much shallower, and there becomes a lot of dead money bloated into pots because of antes -- and no one is "protecting their antes," so raising already has value in the sense that there is a lot of chips to be won just taking the pot down preflop, so here, unless you're playing some deep stacked tournament format, raising is almost always correct if you enter a pot. The hands in paragraph one are generally push or fold and are more for if you are desperate and trying to steal to keep yourself afloat. Again if you have 30 bbs, just fold 77 or whatever. The hands in paragraph two also start to gain a lot of value and make for great bets/blind steals and play much post flop than they did prior, as your opponent's range is now much narrower. And the third paragraph hands, make for great 3betting, and possibly 4betting hands. These should again be played mostly preflop because they lose value as cards come out.

And that concludes my diatribe. Hope you enjoyed it.

[dustynuts3185]

when you have a frequent 3 bettor out the BB sometimes limping the button instead of opening is good. You either play a small pot IP or when they raise you now get to 3B IP. Very outside the box thoughts to limping.