Is it okay to Open Limp against players that you know won't raise and will Call any Raise pre-flop?

I'm going to hypothesize that the solution to this question will mostly have to do with your and your opponent's stack-sizes vs. the size of the raise.

Let's start at the beginning, and think this through.

What are your opponents' preflop tendencies?

They play a very wide range passively, and they will call inelastically. This means will limp with most all their range, but if someone puts in a raise, then they will call with the same hands with which they would have limped. Also, they're only 3-betting with premium hands.

**Why do we choose to play the hands we do?"

Simply, we play a hand because we deem it to be +EV, but a hand can be +EV for many reasons.

  1. A hand is profitable if it's ahead of our opponent's range, given we can play well post-flop.

  2. A hand may be behind our opponent's range, but we have implied odds.

3 (I'll use 3 as a catch-all). We are able to win with our hand often enough to turn a profit, this could be due to a variety of reasons such as a skill-edge, table position, etc.

Why do we choose to play our hands the way that we do?

We play a hand a certain way because it is the most profitable way to play it. Okay, we're finally getting to your question. Should we raise or limp KQ UTG 6-handed?

Well, KQs is going to be ahead of our opponents' calling ranges most of the time. So, it is profitable whether you put in 1bb or any amount of big blinds up to the point where their calling range starts to become eleastic. But, what is the most profitable way to play KQs UTG? Well, if you put 1bb in the pot, and four players call, and you win X% of the time, then you are winning X% of 5bb, and you invested 1bb.

What if you had raised to 5bb in he previous situation though? The same four opponents would have called, and you will win he exact same percentage of the time, that is X%, but instead of winning X% of 5bb, you'll win X% of 25bb with 5bb invested. This is a much higher return.

So what would you rather do, raise to 1bb or 5bb? Remember, we're assuming that winning X% of the time is often enough to turn a profit since KQs is ahead of your opponents' calling ranges. Your equity edge counters things like your positional disadvantage, bad implied odds, so the only factor left is your skill-level and judgment.

Mind you, I am no tournament expert, but if we're talking about cash games, I can't see a reason to limp a hand as strong as KQs unless, perhaps, your opponent is an astoundingly terrible post-flop player, and is making huge bluffs too often, or calling large over-bets in limped pots with like A high or bottom pair.

Let's move on from a hand that has as much playability and equity-realization as KQs though. Let's say you have 33 UTG. You are virtually only ever going to be able to realize your equity if you hit a 3, or maybe some 2-4-5 type flop. This means you are going to need implied odds to turn a long-term profit.

Let's say you need stack sizes to be about 15x the bet-size to turn a profit. I think this is a fair estimate, but opinions vary as some will argue you could set-mine profitably if stacks are anywhere between 10x-20x. Remember, you are essentially set-mining because your getting multiple calls almost always with your opponents' wide, inelastic calling ranges. Say you raise to 5bb UTG, this means you and an opponent who calls would need a stack size of 15 x 5bb for you to even make a profit. I'm going to make the same argument as earlier. It is more profitable to raise than to limp against this crop of villains, but it requires analysis of effective stack sizes. The exception again being, if a villain is going to make hyper-maniac post-flop moves, then perhaps investing a smaller amount pre could be the higher EV play overall.

I'll conclude by hypothesizing that there is always an optimal amount to bet pre-flop, and against your friends, this amount will be determined largely by effective stack-sizes as your hand-strength decreases.

/r/poker Thread