Debate on Open-Limping in UTG and UTG+1 (6 max games)

[kennyg]

[droqqa]

[simgrim]

[GodlikeRoy]

[dennerman]

[Rhound50]

[GodlikeRoy]

[MTPaid]

From a FR perspective, I've taken to never raising in the 1st 2 spots and only occasionally as 3rd in a 9-handed game. I figure if I'm limping AA/KK and all my marginal hands then I'm pretty much telling them that it's AK, AQs, QQ, JJ whenever I raise. Now I limp all my hands and re-evaluate re-raising if it comes back around based on hand strength, opponent, stack sizes, and how much the raise was. AA and KK area always getting re-raised though.

I could also re-raise with garbage and check-raise a miss against the right player though, just to keep them honest. This will often make people afraid to raise against an UTG limper and allows me to limp with impunity with whatever I want on certain tables.

The few times I have played 6-max though, at loose tables, I've carried that over for just the UTG position. I figure you either have to always do it, never do it, or at least mix it up with AA/KK so as not to give away hand strength when you do raise.

Again though, everything I do now depends on table dynamics.

[T-Rod]

FWIW, I saw Kenny say he is going to play Bodog. I agree with all of GLR's points for Stars. However, at Bodog $300NL they will call you down with TP or even 2nd pair if you've ever shown weakness in the hand. They certainly felt with an overpair.

I do like raising all PPs in EP though since it allows you to hit you're set in a raised pot which makes it easier to get it in. The question is what do you do at a table where when you raise from EP, you habitually get 2-3 callers (i.e., Bodog and FTP).

You can't really steal the flop with CBs now as they'll float you. Are you firing a 2nd bullet? If so, you're felting most of the time then.

The other aspect of never open limping is you pretty much lose all your FE after 30 hands or so. That means you are getting called when you bet/3 bet your nut FD with an A over. That means you can't really bluff a TAG off the pot with a 2nd bullet, etc. There's nothing wrong with that, but it is higher variance and you have to adjust your bluff frequency accordingly.

[excession]

[Semillon]

Typically if I am playing a hand UTG in 6max then I will be coming in for a 3.5BB raise, however if the table has one or more shortstacks who love to shove preflop, then I will limp my low/med pocket pairs hoping to see a cheap flop multiway. Since the shorties usually are not really paying much attention, I feel this works for the specific situation.

[Notorious_JC]

[GodlikeRoy]

[Notorious_JC]

[T-Rod]