Does the "Never Open-Limp" rule still apply today?

louuu19 said:

Hey everyone,
We always hear that open-limping is a cardinal sin in poker. Every beginner book says to raise or fold.
However, I still see players doing it in live low-stakes games and winning. Sometimes they are trapping, and other times they just want to see a cheap flop with deep stacks.
Do you ever have a strategy for open-limping?
Or is it always a mistake in modern games?Curious to hear your thoughts!

Click to expand...

I think the "never open-limp" rule is a great guideline for beginners because it prevents a lot of costly mistakes. But like most poker rules, there are exceptions.
In tough online games, open-limping is usually a losing strategy since competent players isolate aggressively. However, in soft live low-stakes games, where players rarely punish limps and multiway pots are common, it can sometimes be profitable with certain speculative hands and deep stacks.
The key is having a clear reason for limping, not doing it out of habit or because you're unsure what to do. If your limp has no strategic purpose, raising or folding is almost always the better option.

All you really need to know is winning players do it very rarely and losing players do it very frequently.

Which one do you want to be? Seems like an easy choice, but for some the allure of opening limping is just too strong.

everybody plays different there is no rules lol

I see people still limping in live poker but not a whole lot anymore, most people are pretty studied up now days. What’s fun to see is an older guy limp from UTG, then it gets raised and folds back to him and he three bets it really big. It’s almost always QQ+ AQ, AK. So if I see someone limp from EP it’s always a red flag for me. But people still limp and fold to a raise, they are just donating money. The only time I do it is if it folds to me and I’m in the SB. It’s not a bad play because against an aggressive player to my left in the BB he is going to raise his whole range and then we already have the plan of either check raising here, calling his raise and then leading the flop, or check raising the flop. Against a passive BB, I like to limp the SB also if it folds around to me because we will get to see the flop cheaply with only one guy to beat.

dannystanks said:

But people still limp and fold to a raise, they are just donating money.

Click to expand...

Or they limp and call it off with all sorts of bad hands. This morning I played two $10 "Battle Royal" SNGs on GG Poker and reached the final table in both. At one of the final tables there was a hand, where 3 people limped to me in BB. I covered them all, and the largest stack was the original limper with 17BB. I jammed with AJo, he made the call with K9o and busted before the money.

You still see stuff like this regularly in low stakes games, and therefore the "never open limp" rule is still an excellent piece of advice for beginners trying to clean up some of their biggest and most expensive mistakes. I mean... its really simple to just fold K9o from MP and still be in the game with an above average stack and a decent chance to cash.

Widen your preflop calling range from early/middle position because you don't have to worry about 3-betting and can go all-in whenever you're lucky. Play all pocket pairs from any position and set-mine, because you'll end up with a bunch of crappy two-pairs that don't belong there. 3-bet big with your premium hands to squeeze out a ton of value from passive play with AK/AQ that will fold on the flop.

Only sitter limpers could find a way to make open limping even a worse play.

I think it's mostly a player pool issue. Against decent opponents, open-limping is usually losing because you're giving up the initiative and making it easier for others to realize their equity. But in soft live low-stakes games, where people rarely isolate correctly and make plenty of post-flop mistakes, I can see some limps being profitable.

I still default to raise or fold most of the time, but I wouldn't say open-limping is always wrong. Context matters.