Isolation

[akak]

Say you're playing with someone who limp/calls pretty much every hand and calls down with any piece of the flop and sometimes worse. His c-bet folding % is like 25% let's say. He also frequently bluffs when he senses weakness. You have position on him and get a decent but not great hand like Q9s.

Is it better to limp behind said player, keep the SPR ratio higher, and value bet him to death if you hit, thus saving yourself money when you miss? OR is it better to make your standard pfr, isolate him, and again value bet if you hit?

I know this is probably very vague, and the correct answer is "it depends", but do your best to answer. I can make arguments either way, so I'm really not sure. Thoughts?

[uber pea]

How many people are left to act? Are they aggressive/loose? Will they pick up that I'm only trying to isolate this weak player and begin to resteal from me?

I likely would not want to raise with a hand quite as weak as Q9s, but I would likely raise JT, QJ+, K9+, A9+ since those hands would likely do well against a limper. You have to hit to make money against this guy, so why risk it with a weak hand that may cost you money if you hit?

[akak]

He's UTG, you're right after. full 6-max table. others are unknown. they won't start restealing.

On one hand, I want to limp with these marginal hands since He'll pay us off if we hit top pair, and I'd like to play as many hands as possible against him. And what's the point in putting additional money in pf, if we're probably going to yield the pot to him most of the time when we miss.

On the other hand, if we limp, it's likely some players behind us will limp, and our outs won't be as clean. Also, it's possible someone will raise when they would have folded if we had raised, and we'll have wasted a BB.

I'm not sure which is the correct course of action. Or do just slightly widen your raising range and forget about limping, like you said.

[Goodnews]

Interestingly enough, I ran into such a player the other night.

I was raising after he limped with almost any two except low rags. You need to have showdown value of at least middle pair, since you can c-bet regardless if you hit or miss, 25% of the time you are collecting the pot on the flop.

A noteworthy note to make here, is that you want to reduce the amount of money you put in preflop (achieved via limping behind) but also want to reduce the field to only you and your victim. Playing him heads up is far easier than going at it multiway. Though we put more money in preflop, and may not always make it to showdown and win, the times we do value bet him on all streets make up for the money lost multiple times when we miss and release. This makes it a clear raise.

Furthermore, if you assume that we isolate him, cbet and he calls the cbet, its likely he will check to your on the turn and you can take a free card, and still value bet relentlessly.

[djshawk]

I don't like doing this when he's utg and you are utg+1, with 4 people left to act it's usually going to get raised either by somebody stealing or more likely somebody having a hand.

When you are in CO I like it more and when you are btn it's great. I like mixing up calling and raising, I probably raise more when I'm CO to buy the btn.