Limping with Any Two Cards

[MrX5000]

Mathematically, what kind of pot odds do I need to limp in late position with any two cards? Is there a rule that anyone uses?

I suppose there's two answers. The first is assuming pot odds only and the other is the implied odds of nailing a monster and getting paid.

[DeucesNeverLoses]

Only donkeys LIMP in LP w/ ATC. The question you should be asking yourself is RAISING in LP w/ ATC. I def. don't like limping in LP w/ ATC, I'd rather bring in a raise or fold. Calling would be w/ hands like suited connectors/low pocket pairs with earlier position limpers.

[MrX5000]

Let's just say for instance, you're in a deepstack tournament in the first few levels and you're sitting on the button with 5 limpers in front of you, don't you AT LEAST call with any two cards in that situation? This is also assumming that you play well after the flop (maybe the first or second best at your table).

Assumming that the blinds call, you're getting like 8-1 on your money.

[basementproject]

8:1 on your money won't save 2 9 offsuit.

Hell, even a 9 on board probably won't save 2 9 offsuit.

Catch my drift?

[pzhon]

This is a common mistake.

Getting great odds to beat, or to try to outflop one hand, is very different from getting a small or no discount to try to beat many hands. It is a big mistake to treat getting 7:1 as the same regardless of the context.

Trash hands do worse in multiway pots than they do heads up. If you have 72o heads up, it's not that unlikely for you to win with one pair. It's very hard to win with one low pair in a multiway pot, and you very infrequently (about 3.5% of the time) flop more than one pair. These hands are a bad gamble no matter how many people have limped in.

By the way, in a limped pot, you very frequently don't get paid off, and when you do get action, it is often by someone with a good draw against you, or a better hand.

[sapol]

I guess in a game with antes it might be EV+ to limp with any 2 in LP in a multiway pot

[Gonso]

I can only think of a couple occasions where you'd limp any two in LP...

The first is if you're against weak/tight bad players, and you take the pot away from them often enough that your hand is irrelevant.

You could also be in a spot where you're rediculously short in an ante situation. If you have 500 left after posting a 400 ante, or something, and for whatever reason you don't want to get the last 100 in right away (say if you're already 5 away on the bubble or something). It would have to be a pretty freakish thing to happen though.

[Albert Moulton]

Assuming this is NL, the pot odds are less important than the reverse implied odds. Let's say you limp Q4o and the flop is Q47 with 2 hearts. This is a pretty good hand. Only QQ, 44, 77, and Q7 have you beaten badly. QQ would have raised preflop. And you are about 1:1 vs an OESFD (5h6h). So you get all in only to find that a more reasonable player had limped in with 77 (or a loose player had limped Q7s) and you are now worse than a 9:1 dog for all your chips.

This is a somewhat strained example, but what about when you flop TPWK? Do you just open fold? Do you bet out when there are one or two players still to act behind you?

There is just no way you get any action when you hit with totally trashy hands in a limped that gives you much confidence that you are ahead.

So, you are better off folding despite good pot odds because the reverse implied odds, especially if you are out of position, will kill you in the long run.

The ONLY exception to this is exactly on the Button. Having the button is such a major advantage that you can limp a much wider variety of trashy hands if for no other reason than to use your position, the board, and other players' actions to steal the limped money from time to time. But even on the button, ATC is not so good. Trashy hands like A9o (some might even argue to raise with this on the button, but I prefer to limp a hand like this at full ring on the button only if there are other limpers ahead of me) or J7s, etc. But 72o? J3o? It's probably best to fold those even on the button.

[DeucesNeverLoses]

"play better post flop than everyone at the table."

I used to be EXACTLY like this...playing lots of marginal hands to preflop raises (even worse it was LIMIT!) knowing that I could outplay the entire table...but you get stuck in really shiddy situations where you're overcalling the whole way down against a "terrible player" just to see you're outkicked...etc...

anyways, moral of the story is that I tightened up my preflop play and kept my solid postflop play and this has led to me making 100+ BB's at ONE TABLE of limit holdem 4 times in a week [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[MrX5000]

ok more information..

Let's say you're only looking for 2 pair or better? I understand the argument about single pair weak kicker. You're looking for 2 pair, trips or better. If you don't hit, you've only invested a small amount.

Is it still -ev playing this way?