Strategy Question about playing from big blind

[Matt Williams]

I play in a lot of live STT ($20-50 buy ins) where a lot of people like to limp in and see the flop until the later stages of the tourniment. How do some of you guys like playing mediocre hands from the BB? Do you like checking and seeing the flop for free, or being aggresive and pushing? Let's say the blinds are 100-200, 4 limp in and I have J6o, w/ $1,200 left after posting 200.

The reason I am asking about the BB is because if I decide to just check and fold, I only have to post another 100 and then get 8 free hands.

[Slim Pickens]

1200 left at 100/200 with a bunch of limptards is a perfect spot to shove. Just pretend to look at your cards so no one knows you're doing it blind. The problem with checking is that no one has much of a hand, and they know when you bet that you've hit some decent part of the flop, so it's very hard to get your lucky flops paid off.

With 2000 behind I'd probably raise to 700 or so and shove the flop against any callers.

[DevinLake]

I'd usually take the free flop in spots like this. These guys love to limp call with A9o or 55. Although calling with a small pp is actually not a bad thing for u here. But, the point is, they limp/call wide.

[Slim Pickens]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd usually take the free flop in spots like this. These guys love to limp call with A9o or 55. Although calling with a small pp is actually not a bad thing for u here. But, the point is, they limp/call wide.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree people limp-call with some extremely goofy hands. The nice thing about the limp-y preflop action is it takes a lot of the hands you really don't want to see, like TT or AJ, out of a lot of people's ranges. If some joker wants to limp-call with A9o, it's not the worst thing ever. Most live SNGs have much more top-heavy payout structures than internets ones, which actually makes a decent amount of wild 8-handed plays profitable in a 75/25/0 structure than aren't in a 50/30/20 structure.

EDIT: I like this play more with J6o than I do with 32o. Your hand's value can't be too low against retarded limp-call hands, so I guess you might want to look at your cards before playing. Whatever... take every advantage you can get I guess.

[The blackjacker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'd usually take the free flop in spots like this. These guys love to limp call with A9o or 55. Although calling with a small pp is actually not a bad thing for u here. But, the point is, they limp/call wide.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree people limp-call with some extremely goofy hands. The nice thing about the limp-y preflop action is it takes a lot of the hands you really don't want to see, like TT or AJ, out of a lot of people's ranges. If some joker wants to limp-call with A9o, it's not the worst thing ever. Most live SNGs have much more top-heavy payout structures than internets ones, which actually makes a decent amount of wild 8-handed plays profitable in a 75/25/0 structure than aren't in a 50/30/20 structure.

EDIT: I like this play more with J6o than I do with 32o. Your hand's value can't be too low against retarded limp-call hands, so I guess you might want to look at your cards before playing. Whatever... take every advantage you can get I guess.

[/ QUOTE ]

So for a 50/30/20 SNG it's still a good play against loose opponents even if they tend to call sometimes?
Or do you want a hand like QT or something half decent in the 50/30/20 games so you play allright against many hands even if they call?

Most useful with like 7 bb or something like that?

[Slim Pickens]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'd usually take the free flop in spots like this. These guys love to limp call with A9o or 55. Although calling with a small pp is actually not a bad thing for u here. But, the point is, they limp/call wide.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree people limp-call with some extremely goofy hands. The nice thing about the limp-y preflop action is it takes a lot of the hands you really don't want to see, like TT or AJ, out of a lot of people's ranges. If some joker wants to limp-call with A9o, it's not the worst thing ever. Most live SNGs have much more top-heavy payout structures than internets ones, which actually makes a decent amount of wild 8-handed plays profitable in a 75/25/0 structure than aren't in a 50/30/20 structure.

EDIT: I like this play more with J6o than I do with 32o. Your hand's value can't be too low against retarded limp-call hands, so I guess you might want to look at your cards before playing. Whatever... take every advantage you can get I guess.

[/ QUOTE ]

So for a 50/30/20 SNG it's still a good play against loose opponents even if they tend to call sometimes?
Or do you want a hand like QT or something half decent in the 50/30/20 games so you play allright against many hands even if they call?

Most useful with like 7 bb or something like that?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I don't want to be throwing generalizations around when these problems really have to be solved individually to find the right play. My only point was that the more top-heavy the payout structure, the lower the "ICM tax" is.

[Matt Williams]

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With 2000 behind I'd probably raise to 700 or so and shove the flop against any callers.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like that idea a lot. Especially if the SB folds and you are first to act after the flop.

[The blackjacker]

but you have 10bb so is it worth the risk? Or maybe he wont call even if he hits something.

[Matt Williams]

[ QUOTE ]
but you have 10bb so is it worth the risk? Or maybe he wont call even if he hits something.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure it's worth the risk. The flop misses you 2/3 of the time. If he's got a hand like pocket 4's, he may think it's a coinflip pre-flop. But if you push on the flop w/ J high and the board is K 9 2, can he call? Even if he does, you still have outs and he knows if he's behind he's drawing to 2 outs.

[HajiShirazu]

At least in online MTT's I find that it's really rare for someone to actually fold when you have say 7bb or less and shove into 3-4 limpers. If the others fold, the last person always seems to call regardless of their holding, which is probably correct given the odds they are usually getting. I like this play more with deeper stacks of 10-15 bb because even though you risk more people actually fold to it. How bad a hand you shove with depends on how deep you are obviously, I wouldn't usually go as low as J6o, but I think hands like Q-Kxs, two broadways, suited connectors, etc, are probably good enough.