Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

Hi Guys,

I just watched jsnipes's video (from the Sticky) -- excellent analysis and highly recommended. One thing I noticed, however, is that his pre-flop button strategy was strictly raise/fold (with all raises to 3 BB except the misclick). So weak top pair hands such as Q 5o or J 2s were folded. Part of this may be the two-tabling, but from what I've seen on this forum, the consensus seems to be that smooth-calling your button is a weak play. (Please correct me if this is wrong.)

In HOH Vol II, Harrington's first rule of head's up button play is: "At least call with any two cards." (He does, however, qualify this statement by mentioning that if Villain reraises consistently in response to button limps, you should discard the bottom 20% of starting hands.)
(p. 377)

I tend to agree. Getting 3:1 odds with position, it seems to me that a chip investment of 1 SB is nearly always +EV.
This is particularly true when the stacks are deep. So consider a hand such as T 5s, J 2o, and similar hands where you don't want to play a big pot despite having position. I am usually smooth-calling here.

He also states: "With two high cards, I strongly prefer a bet of twice the big blind. I'm not committing many chips, and I'm trying to encourage action from a player holding ace-x, king-x, or queen-x, whom I may have dominated."

I tend to agree that min-raising or 2.5 BB raises with non-premium top pair hands, such as Q 9o, is often a decent play.

Thoughts?

-- Collin

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

NLTRN or Cash, very important distinction, Harrington is also talking about a situation where there are antes.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

We talked about this at pocketfives when the book came out and many disagreed with his recommendations for changing his raises .

He is blatantly wrong in saying that you should only raise twice the BB with your better hands and 3 x the bb with your good but not great hands . Sure , if you're playing against a brain dead poker player (which there are lots) then his strategy is really good . On the other hand , it's not world class advice . Any good player can exploit his strategy and fold every time he doubles the bb because of his propensity to play premium hands this way .

I prefer keeping all your raises the same . If you do decide to vary your raises , then it should not be dictated based on the value of your cards . It should be as random as possible .

Secondly , I think he's mistaken in suggesting that you should always at least call on the button . This definitely depends more on your opponents than anything else . He did mention somewhere that if your opponent raises a lot then you can fold your very worst hands so I can't be too hard on him :P .

For the most part I think it's a raise or fold on the button but this isn't always true . If you believe that this player will likely fold to your raises pre-flop but that he is a terrible post-flop player , then it's actually a good idea to limp with hands like a-8 , k-10 .Sure you may win 1.5 BB's by raising but you may incur him to make additional errors post-flop which exceeds 1.5 BB's .

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

The general consensus of most of what i've learned from this forum and otherwise is that raise/fold at 75bb (10/20 in NLTRN) and 50bb (15/30) deep is typically how this should be played against MOST opponents, however as stacks get shallower it is much to your advantage to be able to utilize the limp in position

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

It depends how much your opponent sucks. The more he sucks, the better idea it is to limp.

The problem is that a lot of people use limping as a substitute for raising, and that's just throwing EV out the window.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

[ QUOTE ]
It depends how much your opponent sucks. The more he sucks, the better idea it is to limp.



[/ QUOTE ]

Can you expand on this a little. Are you simply talking about limping if villains will never raise your limps when you hand is weak. Or does it go further to include the weaker villains who never fold pre to raises anyway and will not fold any part even to 2 barrells. If it does include the latter it would kind of make sense to allow you to play small ball with your weaker hands whilst punishing them with raises and value bets with your stronger ones.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

game flow very often more important.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

OK, let's be a bit more concrete. Stacks are moderate-deep (50 BB+), no ante (agreed cwar, that is an important distinction). Early in the match so no real reads. You have J 4o on the button. What is your play?

I dislike the raise here, since you are building a pot with an easily-dominated hand that plays poorly post-flop. But getting 3:1 immediate odds with position and an average hand heads up, I dislike the fold as well. If he checks behind and checks the flop, you can make a 1-1.5 BB bet and usually take it as a steal. Occasionally you'll connect and get value. And if Villain isn't so compliant, you at least get some info. E.g., if you limp several times early in the match and routinely get raised, then you have lost only several SB chip investments, and you can now limp some of your better hands and let him make the bigger mistake of building a pot OOP with an inferior hand.

So getting 3:1 with position, if you don't have a raisable hand (e.g. a low offsuit jack), I would say that limping is generally a higher EV play than sacrificing your button.

I would like to see the counter-argument that folding is the higher EV play in these siutations.

-- Collin

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

if it weren't an option to 3 bet pf, or rather, if a particular villain never 3 bet pf, i think i'd agree. but giving away more information pf by limping some buttons and raising others reduces the chance you'll be able to play a 3 bet pot with position and a good hand, which is very significant.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

Usually I am on the pro-limping side of these arguments, but I will play devil's advocate here.

You can't look at these things in a bubble (i.e. individual hands), because limping only weak hands is obviously a bad play against all but the most brain dead opponents.

So if you limp here, you have to limp some good hands as well, which will lower your EV on those good hands. Thus limping J4o doesn't just need to be profitable, it needs to be profitable enough to make up for the EV you lose when you limp AA.

edit - i had this all typed out before seeing teteatot's reply which basically says the same thing.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

Collin

To refer to the particular situation you describe.

Firstly, I don't think you should have a play in advance. Say this is three hands in, and you have raised your first two buttons, I'd probably fold. Say you've limped once and folded once, I might raise, etc.

You hit upon it at the end of your second paragraph - it is worth trying almost everything at the start of the match (and I'm assuming HUSNG here) to develop your reads at a quicker rate - the chip price is worth paying. In my experience, the edge in HUSNGs goes to the player who can gather and use information the quickest - there's just so much of it there.

There are also (and I might get flamed for this) types of opponents against whom you should never fold preflop, so you should just be deciding whether to limp or raise.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

I agree Collin , I think limping with something like j4 is reasonable . It's not the best hand to be playing in a raised pot even with position . Besides , even if raising is positive EV , doesn't preclude limping from being positive EV as well .

On the other hand , if your opponent folds often to your raises , then I believe raising is superior to limping with that type of hand . If your opponent calls all your raises , then limping is better .

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

limping some hands at 5/10NL+ is probably ok (depending on image/opponent), but at lower stakes it is just more profitable ($$/hr wise) to raise or fold the button IMO, especially when it keeps gameflow going.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

[ QUOTE ]
I agree Collin , I think limping with something like j4 is reasonable . It's not the best hand to be playing in a raised pot even with position . Besides , even if raising is positive EV , doesn't preclude limping from being positive EV as well .

On the other hand , if your opponent folds often to your raises , then I believe raising is superior to limping with that type of hand . If your opponent calls all your raises , then limping is better .

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Jay - to summarise your correct assessment, everything in HU NL depends on your opponent. There is no other manifestation of poker where the cards are so irrelevant to so many hands.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

I agree Penguin .

I think the decision whether or not to limp, fold , raise has more to do with your opponents' tendencies then the actual value of the cards itself .

Heads up poker is more about your opponents and less about your cards . This doesn't mean you ignore your cards completely , but that there should be more emphasis on evaluating your opponent as quickly as possible ; figure him out before he figures you out .

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

Ok, I think we have drifted away from the original topic a bit, the conversation isn't whether limping or raising is positive EV, sure, both can be, the question is why are we playing 50bb deep as raise/fold when limping gives you 3:1 in position.

Collin, another distinction I believe is is this situation we are talking about HU cash or HU SNG, will blinds be increasing, can we rebuy, etc. ?

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

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the question is why are we playing 50bb deep as raise/fold when limping gives you 3:1 in position.

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This is something that I can't help but wonder myself.

As far as I can figure, the *only* reason to fold, if your opponent is perfectly happy to let you limp a significant percentage of the time (and as far as I can tell, most people are happy to do just that) is for image.

But is it really that big of an advantage to have a "tight" image at a heads-up table? Against the typical player, there seem to be just as many disadvantages to having a tight image as there are advantages.

And after going through a pretty long streak without getting paid off on any of my monsters (which is something that seemed to happen with great regularity before I started playing raise/fold), I'm starting to wonder if the advantages are really advantages at all.

Maybe when I move beyond $50 HUSNGs, it will be important, but against the caliber of player that I'm up against most of the time, I'm not sure that having a tight image is really buying me anything at all. Most of my opponents are still just playing their hands, and my bets will only get respect depending on what they have or don't have.

Or maybe this is one of the unquantifiable differences between turbos and regulars? Maybe a tight image pays off more in the turbos, where you get to higher blind levels much more quickly? Most of my regular games are over or fairly well decided before the blinds hit 25/50 on Full Tilt.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

I think the image paying off thing is very overrated unless you are making drastic changes to your game early on, I.E. instead of playing like a maniac you are playing a little LAG on button and nitty OOP. Sure you're going to notice an image change if you change your game drastically, but overall opponents play fairly tight and play their hands in the end of the game (It may be a lot different overall on sites other than PS). The few that play more aggressive are usually too aggressive, very few players mix it up well in the big blinds.

As to the question of J4o limping. It's the sort of hand that you have to be very comfortable playing OTB early. You can very easily overplay or miss the +EV that you want to have to limp this hand. Early on there are less reads, wider ranges and you're holding a more marginal hand deep stacked, good players can easily turn this combination into a -EV play.

Weighing in all the positives and negatives of the play, it is a lot easier for a majority of players to probably just fold it preflop, the level of the opponent's play is so exploitable in more certain areas that require less advanced skill to beat.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

I fold J4o at my level of SNGs because limping with 50bb with weak hands is a play that my opponents (90% of them) will exploit, case closed. If they didnt I would limp it.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

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[ QUOTE ]
It depends how much your opponent sucks. The more he sucks, the better idea it is to limp.



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Can you expand on this a little. Are you simply talking about limping if villains will never raise your limps when you hand is weak. Or does it go further to include the weaker villains who never fold pre to raises anyway and will not fold any part even to 2 barrells. If it does include the latter it would kind of make sense to allow you to play small ball with your weaker hands whilst punishing them with raises and value bets with your stronger ones.

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If he's passive and never raises your limps, you limp your bad hands (which would ordinarily be mucked) because he's not going to raise them out of the pot, and therefore you can eke out a small win with them.

If he's a calling station and never folds pre, then you make what is ordinarily a mistake and stop raising as much; you limp with some borderline "default raise" hands with no high card strength like 53s and 76o and J4s because you don't have fold equity.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It depends how much your opponent sucks. The more he sucks, the better idea it is to limp.



[/ QUOTE ]

Can you expand on this a little. Are you simply talking about limping if villains will never raise your limps when you hand is weak. Or does it go further to include the weaker villains who never fold pre to raises anyway and will not fold any part even to 2 barrells. If it does include the latter it would kind of make sense to allow you to play small ball with your weaker hands whilst punishing them with raises and value bets with your stronger ones.

[/ QUOTE ]


If he's passive and never raises your limps, you limp your bad hands (which would ordinarily be mucked) because he's not going to raise them out of the pot, and therefore you can eke out a small win with them.

If he's a calling station and never folds pre, then you make what is ordinarily a mistake and stop raising as much; you limp with some borderline "default raise" hands with no high card strength like 53s and 76o and J4s because you don't have fold equity.

[/ QUOTE ]

I had given this a lot of thought today after my post and came to the same conclusions that the only hands I would want to limp v a guy who never folds his BB but will not raise limps is the speculative hands like 54s that cannot win without improving. Still think raising is the correct default in 90%+ of the time your hand is playable but maybe being more selective on making C bets. No point trying to force through double barrells when he doesn't want to dump his 93o on the KQ37 board.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It depends how much your opponent sucks. The more he sucks, the better idea it is to limp.



[/ QUOTE ]

Can you expand on this a little. Are you simply talking about limping if villains will never raise your limps when you hand is weak. Or does it go further to include the weaker villains who never fold pre to raises anyway and will not fold any part even to 2 barrells. If it does include the latter it would kind of make sense to allow you to play small ball with your weaker hands whilst punishing them with raises and value bets with your stronger ones.

[/ QUOTE ]


If he's passive and never raises your limps, you limp your bad hands (which would ordinarily be mucked) because he's not going to raise them out of the pot, and therefore you can eke out a small win with them.

If he's a calling station and never folds pre, then you make what is ordinarily a mistake and stop raising as much; you limp with some borderline "default raise" hands with no high card strength like 53s and 76o and J4s because you don't have fold equity.

[/ QUOTE ]

I had given this a lot of thought today after my post and came to the same conclusions that the only hands I would want to limp v a guy who never folds his BB but will not raise limps is the speculative hands like 54s that cannot win without improving. Still think raising is the correct default in 90%+ of the time your hand is playable but maybe being more selective on making C bets. No point trying to force through double barrells when he doesn't want to dump his 93o on the KQ37 board.

[/ QUOTE ]

J4s might've been a bad example, it'll still high card him about 15% of the time if it gets checked through. Think about stuff like nine high or lower.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

OP Colin wrote a book on SNGs. SNGs are mostly shortstacked situations. I used to play 6person sngs and by the time it got hu the average stack was almost always <30bbs.

In tourneys, I will limp otb. This is because I try to win a lot of small pots (unless I pick up a great hand) to chip away at my opponent. In cash games, chipping away doesn't work because people can reload and I'm giving away too much equity in the long run.

That said, I will still rarely limp in cash games, usually with hands like k2 or j5 (ok hands that don't have much potential). I'll also sometimes limp with mediocre hands in the first few hands with a new opponent.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

Primordial, the "why play moderate/deep HU as strictly raise/fold pre-flop?" is exactly my question.

Cwar, how would your opponents exploit button limping? By raising most of your limps, I assume? Because if so, that in turn is a very exploitable counter-move. You simply limp some of your stronger hands as well, and your opponent's OOP raise will either win him a small pot (when you hold a J4o type hand and usually fold), or he'll be set up to play a larger pot OOP with an inferior hand (when you hold a decent hand, say K J, and call).

Same question to creedofhubris: if you are confident your opponent will be frequently raising button limps, why not mix up your limp/raise frequencies a little and make him gamble on whether he's chosen the right time to raise? This strategy also allows you to play more hands from the button. Position is key enough in HU that I think this benefit outweighs the cost of occasionally having an AA checked behind, or being forced out of a few straight marginal hands after a 1 SB chip investment limping.

Maybe I'm playing devil's advocate a bit, but I would really appreciate a more detailed explanation to the question at the top of this post. It's something that's been on my mind a lot recently.

-- Collin

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

You don't really get enough hands in on avg in a turbo to exploit a 50-75% auto raise of limps from villain.

You lose a ton of value when you limp an AJ type hand.

You also lose a ton of value because a majority of players call way too light OOP to a button raise preflop and play weaker postflop in these bigger pots OOP.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

[ QUOTE ]

Same question to creedofhubris: if you are confident your opponent will be frequently raising button limps, why not mix up your limp/raise frequencies a little and make him gamble on whether he's chosen the right time to raise?

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If he autopots vs. your limps and you fold more than half the time he profits. You gonna mix in enough decent hands to call half the time?

If you limp with hands from your top range (AJ+ 99+) then you eviscerate your raising range and he can repop your raises profitably.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

[ QUOTE ]
Cwar, how would your opponents exploit button limping? By raising most of your limps, I assume? Because if so, that in turn is a very exploitable counter-move. You simply limp some of your stronger hands as well, and your opponent's OOP raise will either win him a small pot (when you hold a J4o type hand and usually fold), or he'll be set up to play a larger pot OOP with an inferior hand (when you hold a decent hand, say K J, and call).

[/ QUOTE ]
Its much harder to develop a good metagame in regards to limp reraising or limp calling than it is to just raise or fold. Its so hard that I suspect it may not even be as profitable as raise or fold so I generally take the easier route and just dont worry about this and use the simpler r/f.

Re: Smooth-Calling your Button: Always a Mistake? NL
 

[ QUOTE ]
If he autopots vs. your limps and you fold more than half the time he profits. You gonna mix in enough decent hands to call half the time?

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's assume you play limp/raise poker (no button open-folding, maybe you limp around 25% -- generally your weaker hands, but not always -- and raise the rest), and it takes you four times of being raised out of the pot to realize Villain will auto-raise those times you button-limp. Assuming you fold each of these four hands (as your starting default is to limp weak hands you'd otherwise be folding in raise/fold poker), you have lost an additional 2 BB (losing four 2 BB pots instead of four 1.5 BB pots).

After losing those 2 extra BB's, if you call/reraise 50% of his OOP raises those times you limp rather than raise (not necessarily your top 50% of limping hands, you can still mix up your play), your expectation for subsequent limps is positive iff:

0.5 x (-0.5 BB) + 0.5 (P) > 0

where P is your expectation of playing a large pot in position against an opponent holding the random distribution.

If P > 0.5 BB these subsequent button-limps are +EV. If you are at all decent playing HU, P should easily exceed 0.5 BB.

Of course, this is far from conclusive, since ...

1. Your expectation for raising these limping hands may be higher than 0.5 BB (although this is non-obvious, since in raise/fold poker, your folds are 0 EV plays, and so you must believe raising has -EV if you are choosing to fold instead).

2. Villain may readjust to your increased in-position raise-calling frequency ... what he would do, and the effects of such an adjustment, on your limping EV is difficult to say. For instance, if he begins checking more often, this benefits you those times you were limping weakly, and hurts you when you have a better hand.

3. You start out losing those 2 BB to obtain the knowledge you are facing 100% OOP raises, which could be significant in a turbo SNG.

Perhaps cwar's point cuts to the chase a little quicker: r/f poker is an easier style to play with fewer meta-concerns, particularly if multi-tabling or playing a quicker format such as the turbo SNG.

-- Collin