Dealing with inelastic limp-callers in a fast-paced tournament
Hey all, I've registered an account here today because a certain situation in low-stakes live tournaments keeps getting on my mind. That is, in a fast-paced live tournament (2-3 hours to reach the final table) what is the strategy to deal with limp-callers. I know this has been talked about a lot but there are some situations where I don't know how the advice fits yet and would like to discuss it with you guys. Here's an example hand:
Tournament: MTT sitting at a table of 9 players, fast-paced tournament, 50% of players left
Stack: 20bb (which is average stack)
Position: BTN
Hand: QJo
Villains strategies: Inelastic limping (open or over limp 65% of hands, only raising with JJ+) and calling light pre-flop.
Action:
UTG open-limps
UTG 1 limps
UTG2 folds
LJ limps
HJ limps
CO limps
BTN ?
In my head, here are the following options and my thought process for them:
1. Fold: I don't like it as I'm throwing away a hand that has some value and probably has decent equity against their ranges.
2. Overlimp: Overlimp marginal hands and raise big on hands much better than QJo. This seems safest but makes me more readable and I'm allowing worse hands to see the flop cheap.
3. Bet small (3bb): This feels like the worst option because it gives everyone the odds to call (which they will) which bloats the pot.
4. Bet large (8bb): Try to scare away most players and collect some dead chips. There will probably be 1 or 2 callers and it will be an awkward flop if I don't connect as I feel I'm close to pot-committed but didn't maximise my fold equity pre-flop.
5. Rip it in! (20bb): Maximise fold equity and risk 20bb to win 30bb (assuming one caller). Will usually see a caller as these kinds of players will call any aggression with any Ace (which has me beat.)
Follow up question: How should I act here if I had 40bb instead of 20bb?
I feel like the more people limp, the worse my range advantage because of fairly inelastic limping and especially as these limpers tighten their limp ranges as the tournament goes on, so I believe I would need to tighten my range the more limpers in front of me.
My general strategy for these tournaments is to over-limp (never open-limp) the bottom of my range which can't stand a large raise, and large-raise the rest. This is because I don't get too many hands before I blind-out to a push-fold range and at the beginning of the tournament I don't want to raise to 10bb with speculative hands like 87s or 33 because everyone will call anyways and I'll have a lower SPR for no additional benefit.
Thank you 😀
7 Replies
I'd overlimp or jam. My jamming range would depend on how light I'd expect them to call. Most importantly if they're folding their weaker Ax and their Kx hands to jams.
In position I’m inclined to see a flop with hands like QJ. Would call from SB and check BB.
Use your post flop edge.
Options 1 is out, as well as 3 and 4 are out except your AA and KK maybe... As nath said it depends on how wide they call when shoving. You like to have high card equity if they call wide. I like this bb vs sb limp 20bb range that similarly demonstrates what we are talking about.
That's interesting! I assume this is action for the BB after LJ opens 2x, HJ calls, SB calls?
I assume on the BTN I'm not playing so many suited cards but I like how it shows you only jam here with very strong cards.
No, everyone folds and SB limps.
I would jam. I would not limp behind with this hand.
would never ever in my whole life jam 20bb with qjo.
on the btn i overlimp 100% time with qjo.