Limpers who shove when you raise: what to do?

n3rv · Nov 19, 2013

I do this with any pocket pairs if I'm running bad and get a read on my opponent. It is a pretty simple strategy.

If you have any pocket pair late in a tourney and you are short-stacked with not many blinds left then you need to make the most of it. At a table where most people are raising with any two high cards and it is getting respected, you can easily take advantage.

You generally have a 50-60% chance of having the best hand pre-flop but once that flop hits, it is about 10-20% chance that it hit you. It is useless raising, so you have to limp if you want to see it. However, if you get raised and it is only 3BB it is generally a massive tell to say your best chance of winning with this hand is by shoving now. Your opponent shouldn't call you, and even if they do, you generally have the better equity, even if it is marginally.

khe0ps · Nov 19, 2013

fletchdad said:
This is not enough info to make any kind of suggestions. It is also a bit confusing what you mean. How can you have a call from UTG and a 3bet from MP? And how can SB + BB be involved if you have not yet made your play?

What i meant for example in MTT: SB/BB 25/50, UTG calls 50, MP raise to 250 and i am in LP or on the button with pocket pair 99 or worse 88,77 so on, what should i do in this spot 4 bet to let's say 750-1000 or fold? doesn't depend on stack size the example i mean in general even if i know stack size is important in most cases.

spiderman637 · Nov 25, 2013

In the particular hand u mentioned, i would fold there.
See what will help u whether to call or fold him is the read u have on him and how precise ur read is. Have u figured out his range of strong hands? If yes, then u will know when to call or fold....Wait for ur good hands and make his game backfire...Infact its easy to trap these type of villians...Good luck !!!

PrayForSpades · Nov 25, 2013

From my experience and just general logic a player who limp shoves you will have a small pair, of course it could be KK or AA but that is not a great way to play those hands because after one or two limps everyone is going to call for odds and it would be a nightmare for AA / KK.

blakewyte · Nov 25, 2013

I'd snap fold. Can never trust my A to hold because too often I've been in situations where the villain spikes two pair or even a set.

awmm1983 · Nov 25, 2013

Propane Goat said:
I was in this hand recently in a turbo STT where I had AJo in the BB, there was one limper in MP so I raised to 3BB.

Blinds and antes were 0/50/100. I had 17BB, villain had 12BB. Villain then shoved all in. Would you have called here? Or, would you have just checked instead of raising?

What do you do in these situations? I see this quite a bit, and when I'm able to see what people are shoving with it's usually some hand like a low pocket pair, connector, or something like QTo that they were trying to see a cheap flop with.

It's not good enough to raise with but it's good enough to shove when somebody else raises....is this actually a valid strategy I don't know about or is it just a donk play, and how do you handle these situations?

I remember reading somewhere that some players with big stacks will limp AA or KK in early position when blinds are high and there's several short stacks at the table because they're hoping somebody will shove, but that wasn't really the case in this hand. Villain had the shortest stack, but the chip counts were fairly even and the table was still full.

Your thoughts and advice appreciated

It's no donk play. It's genius. He has minimum QQ. You fold..

Vhyre · Nov 26, 2013

With a premium hand in a turbo I shove back. Especially if the other player is playing a lot of hands. I'll take a coin toss in a turbo more often than not if I have a hand I like.

etherghost · Nov 29, 2013

There is also another way of playing this hand by fold showing him what you had so that if he had a crappy hand and does this again you can use your psychological advantage on him the next time by shoving or re-raising. He'll probably sub consciously think about your last AJo fold and will assume you have something much stronger this time around. I guess I'm getting to psychological here though.

Propane Goat · Nov 29, 2013

I've been watching for this situation and so far I've seen several occasions where somebody has limped early then shoved when somebody else raised, but I still have yet to see the raiser call.

I might have to think about doing this myself once in a great while when I have a good hand, of course the risk is that you limp AA/KK early then get a whole chain of limpers seeing the flop and nothing you can do about it at that point, but if blinds are high with 5 or less people left at the table that seems much less likely. I can see this play backfiring horrendously, but then again I've raised 5x UTG with AA and had four or more callers too.

awmm1983 · Nov 29, 2013

Propane Goat said:
I've been watching for this situation and so far I've seen several occasions where somebody has limped early then shoved when somebody else raised, but I still have yet to see the raiser call.

I might have to think about doing this myself once in a great while when I have a good hand, of course the risk is that you limp AA/KK early then get a whole chain of limpers seeing the flop and nothing you can do about it at that point, but if blinds are high with 5 or less people left at the table that seems much less likely. I can see this play backfiring horrendously, but then again I've raised 5x UTG with AA and had four or more callers too.

It's definitely worth doing early on in a low stakes tournament online. If you get sucked out then move on to the next one.An early double up helps a lot. If it fails and you get limpers you can get bet / fold the flop to resistance. Once your M drops below 20 it would be catastrophic ,in my opinion. I'd rather see cheap flops anyway and 5x bb seems a very large raise for me. But then again, i am no hustler.

Propane Goat · Nov 30, 2013

Somebody pulled this trick on me again and I called, surprise surprise the villain had 44 again just like last time but I had AA and got paid off, which put me in good shape to cash but then I blew it like I seem to keep doing.

Looks like that's the next thing I need to work on, I played three STT's tonight on Bovada and was in good shape to cash in all three but busted out of all of them making stupid plays.

sleepymike · Dec 3, 2013

I would of just seen the flop at that time with AJo at that time. Since he had limped folded several times already, each time increases the chance of him making the shove after raise, meaning to me that I would of already assumed this would happen (him shoving) when I raise. He has to either quit limp/folding or limp/shove sooner or later.
If you had not seen him do this limp/fold before this hand then a raise/fold on your part would be appropriate holding AJo. But that's just me

Jacki Burkhart · Dec 4, 2013

I'd say with AJ right there you either want to limp along and see the flop, or shove yourself before anyone else has a chance to put you to the test.

Whenever someone enters the pot ahead of me, it is extremely important that I consider their stack size as well as my own.

For instance, sometimes when I am the SB and it folds to me....maybe I have 2000 chips and the BB has something like 450 chips and the blinds are 40/80. Normally at 40/80 blinds I would raise to 200...but then he has a perfectly sized shoving stack and I hate being put to the test, I'd rather put him to the test. Knowing that it takes a much stronger hand to call for your tourney life than it does to raise for a quarter of your stack. Each hand is a yes/no proposition. If I want to play it I just raise enough to put him all in...Usually in a spot like this I'll raise him all in with the top 60% of hands or so, let him call if he has a hand...most of the time he won't be able to call, even when he's ahead. Much better than limping or standard raising then having to decide what to do when he shoves into my K7...

this is just an example of having a plan specific to your opponent's stack size...

In your example, it is the limper's stack size that makes your AJ a bad hand to raise with...he has pretty much the perfect stack size to put you to a tough decision. He figures he is getting good enough odds to call the extra 2BB with his small pocket pair, but then he knows he might have to fold on the flop leaving him only 9BB. He knows there is a good chance he is slightly ahead of your raising range as you mostly likely have 2 big cards, and he might even have some fold equity...

Propane Goat · Dec 5, 2013

missjacki said:
I'd say with AJ right there you either want to limp along and see the flop, or shove yourself before anyone else has a chance to put you to the test.

Whenever someone enters the pot ahead of me, it is extremely important that I consider their stack size as well as my own.

For instance, sometimes when I am the SB and it folds to me....maybe I have 2000 chips and the BB has something like 450 chips and the blinds are 40/80. Normally at 40/80 blinds I would raise to 200...but then he has a perfectly sized shoving stack and I hate being put to the test, I'd rather put him to the test. Knowing that it takes a much stronger hand to call for your tourney life than it does to raise for a quarter of your stack. Each hand is a yes/no proposition. If I want to play it I just raise enough to put him all in...Usually in a spot like this I'll raise him all in with the top 60% of hands or so, let him call if he has a hand...most of the time he won't be able to call, even when he's ahead. Much better than limping or standard raising then having to decide what to do when he shoves into my K7...

this is just an example of having a plan specific to your opponent's stack size...

In your example, it is the limper's stack size that makes your AJ a bad hand to raise with...he has pretty much the perfect stack size to put you to a tough decision. He figures he is getting good enough odds to call the extra 2BB with his small pocket pair, but then he knows he might have to fold on the flop leaving him only 9BB. He knows there is a good chance he is slightly ahead of your raising range as you mostly likely have 2 big cards, and he might even have some fold equity...

Thanks Missjacki, great tips. I ignored position here once again, and didn't even think about stack sizes when I raised.

houtlijm · Dec 7, 2013

hmm tough one. has he been slowplaying during tournament ? cuz similar play is limp with aces and 3bet all in after. anyway, you won't be far ahead with Aj so i think best option is to fold here

jj20002 · Dec 7, 2013

analize his range before taking a decision

if you are playing against a limper and he goes allin:

analize your hand, is it strong? or just good? best thing to do is to fold if you dont have enough info, and wait, wait for the hand, and then boom, shoot down the limper,

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Limpers who shove when you raise: what to do?

n3rv

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khe0ps

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spiderman637

RIP Buck

PrayForSpades

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blakewyte

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awmm1983

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Vhyre

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etherghost

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Propane Goat

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awmm1983

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Propane Goat

Grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't

sleepymike

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Jacki Burkhart

long winded rambler...

Propane Goat

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houtlijm

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