Pros limping?

skeg01

Been watching a lot of Poker After Dark recently, and i've noticed that a lot of the pros on there (phil ivey, phil hellmuth, daniel negreanu etc) open limp pre flop rather than raising. I've always been told never to open limp, and i never do. (Unless its by accident lol) but why do those pros do it?

Is it just because PoD was ages ago and the game has changed since then? Or maybe because the players are so confident playing post-flop that they don't mind limping in and seeing cheap flops etc? Just wondering lol.

Also, i've seen a few players limp on the button when it's been folded round to them rather than raising to steal the blinds, are they just doing this so they have position post-flop? If the pros do it, then why does everyone always say we should never do it? haha.

I've been watching too much of it i think, i better not get any bad habits from it

dub1

Because T.V. shows need to be entertaining. More action and more multiway pots leads to more entertainment. Don't forget that these shows are trying to appeal the the general public and the general public doesn't wanna here about triple range merging or watch; fold, fold, fold, fold, raise, 3bet, fold pokerz, they wanna see action where x pro flops top pair, x pro flops a flush draw, x pro flops a straight draw, x pro flops a set and all the money goes into a huge pot. Put these guy's in a game for millions of their own cash and you'd probably see a different story.

LARSON7

There's nothing wrong with limping in my opinion, in certain circumstances, but don't do it that often at all.

You see pro's limping.

Basically, raise most times, but it's good to mix it up sometimes too.

BorinLoner

Decent reasons to limp:

You think it's a better way of exploiting a particular opponent than raising. Meaning you believe they're likely to fold to a raise but put in more money post flop when you have a significant advantage of ability and/or position.


Bad reasons to limp:

1) To "see a cheap flop" - This is not the aim of the game.

2) You should not be limping because you have a particular type of hand. That is to say you should not be limping because you want to see a multi-way flop with a small pocket pair, for example. This unbalances your range and makes you ridiculously easy to play against. You cap your range at weak hands. The implied odds of hitting a set are also rarely good enough in a limped pot.

3) When playing 100BB or even as much as 200BB, there will rarely be a situation when limping is a good idea. When deeper you can justify limping because it is so difficult to either commit stacks pre-flop or build a pot to such an extent that it is easy to commit stacks on the flop. This means that making raises pre-flop can force out the weak players, who may be holding marginal or weak hands pre-flop, but who may commit more chips post-flop with weak pairs or chasing weak draws. Again, it is opponent dependent and even in these circumstances, you will be raising most of the time.


If you're justifying limping in any other way than to say it's the best way to exploit a particular opponent, then you're making a big mistake. In online poker, we rarely play deep enough to make limping a viable, superior strategy to raising in the long-term.

Larson, I've seen you advocate limping on occasion with small pocket pairs. If you believe this is viable and you don't agree with my arguments to the contrary, I'd suggest you start a thread on precisely that topic in the "Poker Chat" section to allow other players to voice their opinion.


Sometimes you will see professional players limp into a pot. As dub has said, the particular program mentioned above was of fairly dubious integrity. Strong rumours suggest that the numbers were artificially inflated by the sponsors and the players were not, in reality, playing with those amounts of their own money and they were encouraged to produce "action".

You may recall Sam Razavi limping in from the button in the first series of the Sky Poker Cash Game. In the later review program, you may also have heard Neil Channing suggest that Sam's logic was that he didn't want to raise and play a heads-up pot with Rob Yong much of the time, so preferred to limp to allow Rastafish into the pot. His belief was that Rastafish was a weaker player than Yong and therefore he wanted to play post-flop pots, in position versus Rasta.

Once again, the justification for limping is that it's the best way to exploit a particular opponent and they were playing very deep. At no point would "I want to see a cheap flop" enter into their thinking.

mrdavies

Example of limping... had a player on table (vitalstats) raising nearly every hand as he percievd everyone to be weak as i was watching the table, limped with intention of shuving and him calling with wide range (which he did) ended up hitting his 6 OUCH.. But I love to limp, with players like this behind as normally I would re raise 4x knowing they will call.

only use it against player who have a certain perception of you or against loose raisors..lol if that makes any sense

Deeley7	Small blind		£0.25	£0.25	£50.68
PM2704	Big blind		£0.50	£0.75	£24.07
	Your hole cards	9 9
mrdavies	Call		£0.50	£1.25	£19.33
bigdog91	Raise		£1.50	£2.75	£25.85
VITALSTATS	Call		£1.50	£4.25	£58.70
blueberr27	Fold
Deeley7	Call		£1.25	£5.50	£49.43
PM2704	Call		£1.00	£6.50	£23.07
mrdavies	All-in		£19.33	£25.83	£0.00
bigdog91	Fold
VITALSTATS	Call		£18.33	£44.16	£40.37
Deeley7	Fold
PM2704	Fold
mrdavies	Show	9 9
VITALSTATS	Show	6 6
Flop
		J K 6
Turn
		4
River
		A
VITALSTATS	Win	Three 6s	£42.36		£82.73

MattBates

Its a case of having a plan.

Why are you limping? Do you have a strategy? Most of the time on the show players are limping random hands (out of position a lot) with no plan except for I may flop 2 pair or a flush etc. This is why they are told to raise.