Re: limpers & button
Hand 3:
Preflop: Hero is button with A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].
4 limpers, Hero folds/raises
You could make second-best here a lot of times. If you're going to play, you'd have to raise. Fold might be the best play -- depending on your reads. Calling makes Baby Jesus cry.
Well I was going to goto bed until I read this.... [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]
I sometimes like these types of posts more then HH posts since they can show fundimental flaws in ones thinking. You tell someone to raise J9s after 4 limpers and he will do it all day long. But give him T8s or JTs or QTs and he has no idea what to do because he doesn't understand the underlying concepts behind the play.
Anytime you are on the button and have 4 limpers in front of you it is never a raise or fold scenario. There are essentially 4 times when you should raise or fold preflop:
1) You are opening the pot beyond the 1st few positions.
2) You are looking to isolate a bad player (or players) with a weak hand.
3) You are in the SB and are facing an open raise with no coldcallers in the middle.
4) Someone else has raised and it comes to you with no coldcallers.
Why is this not raise or fold?
Anything we do in this spot is for value. If a raise has value, we should probably take it. If a raise doesn't have value, we have to decide if a limp has value (remember a fold is 0 EV). So if ATo has enough value to raise X% of the time (where X is significant), that same hand should never be folded under similar conditions. If you are in a spot where you would sometimes raise (and not raise as a bluff or semibluff) you should call with it those times that you don't raise. The raise doesn't do anything else for us besides build a pot in this case. A raise isn't going to change the dyanmic of the hand in terms of how many people will be taking a flop (or what players will be taking it). If we still had people left behind us it might be a different issue (or if some of the limpers would fold for one more bet), but both calling and raising will produce the same result (other then the pot being 2x as big). So if you feel like your ATo has enough equity to raise 50% of the time, it clearly has enough to call the other 50%. Notice how just calling doesn't put you in a bad spot postflop as compared to raising. If you are outkicked in a limped pot, you are going to be outkicked in a raised pot. That is just poker.
Notice how this is much different then say
UTG limps, UTG+2 limps, Hero has ATo and...?
Now you can make a much better case for a raise/fold.
Brad
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