Christmas in July: Overlimping with KJo in the CO

You missed an important bit. Also not sure if anyone said it in that thread, but 1 or even 2 limpers is different to 3+ limpers.

Read of "loose passive pre." here is like saying "random 1-2 players". How loose. Is UTG limping QQ?

I can see arguments for raise to 12 or fold. Depending on what I think will happen if I raise. If everyone is likely to call for 12 I'm more likely to just fold than try going to 16 or more with this hand. I think it's unlikely that 100% raise or 100% fold is good without great reads on everyone.

I see no problem with overlimp in position. It’s somewhat likely we are dominating a limper or two and unlikely we’re dominated.

I would be raising to 16 here but that's just me.

I'd prefer folding instead of calling only to get milked when the flop is K57r and we get taken to value town vs KQ.

From HJ all things being equal I can see limping or folding, probably folding.

From button all things being equal I can see limping or raising, probably raising.

From CO I think anything is acceptable in a vacuum, it's going to depend on the dynamics. KJo isn't the worst offsuit Broadway. I'd fold QTo in a heartbeat these days.

FWIW my first reaction was also to say "you can do anything here" 😀.

The main reasons I decided to lean more towards just raise/fold was:

1. "you can do anything" feels like a non-answer, and I didn't want to be that guy (WP for being that guy moxterite 😉.

2. BTN being described as tight passive makes limp worse, IF BTN limps behind ... and us limping probably makes that more likely.

3. I doubt it makes a _lot_ of difference if you just always fold and if someone is confused/worried about limping, I'd rather tell them to fold than say "eh, limp is probably fine too here".

Raise or fold, but I play almost my entire range as raise or fold pre, from every position that isn't the BTN or BB.

Since the Button is a tight passive, chances are that you will be in position throughout the hand, so that's in favor of raising. Second of all since the raise size is going to create a pot with a small SPR, KJ is a good hand to have because it's looking to make strong pairs to get it in vs some of the shallow stacks.

Regardless, it should be a pure raise. Why? Because if you raise and you get the blinds or at least one of the limpers to fold, then this means you get 3.5bb of dead money which equates to 350BB/100 or 105BB per hour. Since it's unlikely to get 3bet and fold in this games, this means that once you raise and you get called, you have the luxury of playing your hand in a straightforward way simply to materialize its equity. And once you do, thanks to the dead money -which again is at least 105BB per hour, you 're making oodles of money in this pot.

It gets better though. In this scenario, you win even if your equity is proportional to the number of players seeing the flop, so if 4 people see the flop and you have 25% equity, you are making money. But the more loose villains are, the more equity you have. Even if it's a marginal gain with you having 29% equity 4 way and the other 3 players 21% equity, you are making oodles more money.

But then we add the benefit of position. This means there will be many spots in which you ll get an extra bet when you have the goods and many other spots where you ll pot control realizing your showdown equity and not paying an extra bet to your opponents, who will also thanks to the disadvantage of position have a tough time gaining max value for their hands.

Even in the supposedly bad scenario in which both blinds call and the limpers call, you still make money, because even though there are less dead money in the pot, your equity increases. The more players call, the worse their equity becomes, the higher the share of the pot you gain in equity.

All of this assumes that each of these players play more than 30% of their hands. But even in the scenarios in which there tight passives in the pot, you re still profitable thanks to the other players.

So tldr, be a smarty, raise the limper party!

If one of the limpers has shown propensity to limp-raise, overlimp. If no such factor is present - raise.

This is a fine hand to over limp with, so folding should be out of the question assuming you are comfortable with your postflop skills.

Also to those that are saying never overlimp, always raise or fold you probably do not have a lot of experience with low stakes live no limit hold'em games like 1 2 and 1 3. With certain hands like low pocket pairs and Axs you actually maximize your value by overlimping and then building the pot after the flop if you flop significant equity.

I normally keep all my AIDSy posts in 1/3 NL threads cuz I don't play 1/2 NL (and thus don't have any experience with their raise sizes, stackoff thresholds, $ meaning, etc.), but just cuz my name was mentioned in the OP...

I explained my reasons in another thread, but unless Button/blinds are very aggro preflop, this is a pretty trivial overlimp for me. If your style is to raise, ok, you do you (there are reasons for, as explained above, but there are also reasons against). If you suck horrendously at poker compared to your opponents while in position, then folding (to rack up immediately) is acceptable; otherwise it is far and away the worst play which is leaving massive value on the table in most games, imo.

GcluelessingeneralnoobG

I actually have a ton of 1/2 and 1/3 experience, going back 20+ years. At least 2k hours over the past three years. Plus some tournament cashes and some time at 2/5.

It's KJ, not a low-middling pair or AXs. It's not a hand that plays as well in a seven-way pot.

I didn't say never over-limp. In fact, in OP's other thread on that exact topic, I said this:

I don't see as many tight-passive players at 1/3, so it didn't occur to me to consider my over-limp strat or range with a TP on the BTN when I'm in the CO.

I don't like limping here because of the combination of BTN being somewhat tight yet passive, and the fact that we've got 3 limpers in front of us, with the BTN and both blinds still left to act. We're going to end up going 7 ways to the flop too often for my liking.

I'd rather over-limp from the BTN, or maybe behind 1 or 2 limpers, but not here, in this specific configuration. I don't hate over-limping, but this isn't such an obviously good spot to over-limp that it's automatic.

I look at KJo in a spot like this, and wonder how often we'll smash the flop hard enough to want to continue to aggression, AND have an opponent with a good enough hand to lose a lot of money, versus how often we'll catch just enough of a piece that we hang on long enough to lose a bunch of money, before we fold or get shown a better hand.

Facing the likelihood of winning a small pot or losing a big one, I'd rather raise or fold pre.

It's the properties of the hand. A6s plays fine multiway. So does 44. So does 76s with some caveats. The problem with KJo is that a lot of the time you're going to flop top pair modest kicker, or second pair, multiway which is going to cause awful headaches. Heads up you can be much more confident when you hit your pair, or cbet with more confidence.

That said it doesn't have the same kicker issues as QTo etc (I might overlimp QTo from the button, but more to keep myself amused at the table rather than any expectation of making money). KJo at least has some high card value occasionally and on Jxx flops at least you can be fairly happy.

With all due respect to what I gather is your prolonged success crushing low stakes, I think it may be a logical leap to assume we're a much better player than our opponents if we're doing the same thing they're doing - limping in. I think the definition of being "better" would require us to be doing something different than what our opponents are doing.

It's rare that I play a 7-way pot, so it's even more rare for me to lose a lot of money in one. But part of the reason for that is that I'm not typically over-limping in spots like this. If folding is too nitty, ok, fine. Let's raise, and see if we can't isolate some of the dead money in the pot. If we don't want to raise with KJo, and would rather wait until we have A5s, or whatever, fine, let's fold.

Folding is guaranteed not to get us in trouble. Raising might get us into trouble, or might keep us out of it. Limping can't keep us out of trouble, can easily get us into trouble, and seems most likely to either win us a small pot or lose us a big pot.

Please understand - I'm not being deliberately obtuse about this. If there were 1 or 2 limpers in front of us, and / or if we were on the BTN, and / or if our hand was just a smidge better, I'd be right there with you, over-limping and loving it.

But KJo, almost certainly going seven ways, from the CO, when the BTN is tight-passive? Really? Other than seeing AQT or KKJ on the flop, and some idiot blasting off with AT, QT, or JJ, how is this likely to lead to glory? More likely, we'll make some marginal strength hand that costs us more than it should, or we'll completely whiff, and wish we folded pre.

If we want to play some speculative hands, fine. But I'd rather play some combo that's more likely to have a lane to itself. 97s is likely going to make us more or cost us less than KJo.

Don't even get me started about rake considerations. Is it okay to avoid getting involved in pots that are $14 on the flop, and are going to be raked for $7 once they get over $50?

@ docvail

It's funny, I was actually going to make a point about reciprocality (the idea that in poker money only exchanges hands long term when we play a hand vastly different than our opponent would have in our shoes and/or vice-versa). But that doesn't mean there aren't some spots where we're all doing the same thing; I mean, we don't have to do the complete polar opposite move to the world on every single play. So yeah, a lot of my opponents are overlimping KJo here just like I am, but also just like all of us are all folding 72o UTG or calling off our whole stack preflop to a shove with AA. Admittedly, the more we do the same the more we'll just lose to the rake like they do. But even in this hand here, reciprocality will still occur in my favour, as there are people limping hands here OOP that I wouldn't be plus losing far much more money with them postflop than I would be.

I'd actually be much more inclined to raise the fewer limpers there are. The fewer the limpers, the much better chance a raise takes down the pot now or enables us to take down the pot postflop, all while dealing with much more manageable SPRs. The more limpers, the much stronger hand we need to raise (very similar to postflop when betting into one player versus eleventeen).

And again, rake is most definitely bad, m'kay? But I highly doubt anyone here plays in a higher raked 1/3 NL game than I do ($9+$1+$1) and I do ~ok. Don't get me wrong: I am the tightest player in the room. But those standards can be relaxed greatly in spots like this.

GmayjusthavetoagreetodisagreehereG

I've spent a stupid amount of money on books/courses/etc., but the one book I always recommend to everyone is Elements of poker just for this. And it's mostly free:

https://www.tommyangelo.com/reciprocalit...

...but, yeh, if you waste enough time at 1-2 it's probably difficult not to learn the most profitable spots ... and you probably want to play those the same way everyone else does, for the same reasons.

tl;dr When it comes to limping pre to win a big pot we should all be _extremely_ confident we know something unique before saying GG is wrong, IMNSHO.

I would limp. Don't want to drive out hands you dominate.

Raise in a vacuum. Against more sound or OMC limpers (which may also entail limping strong hands) overlimp may be more +Ev.

OvertlySexual did a good job explaining why in his post, I don't think its particularly close.

Also the idea that limping KJo lets Hero outplay opponents post-flop going 5w+ to the flop is a bit lol. Its much easier for Hero to outplay opponents after raising when his range is uncapped.

UTG limped. All of his kings and jacks crush us. When the flop comes king high or jack high and he leads out for pot or more, what's our plan for the rest of the hand?

OTOH, if we raised pre and UTG called, and the flop is either king high or jack high, and he c/c's a cbet, we can now control the pot by either checking the turn (and evaluating his size if he donks out otr) or betting small planning on checking back the river. But because he limped, we're now in no man's land which is why I think it's much better to raise and not to over limp KJo IP (suited can be limped all day), but that's just me.

All "outplaying" can mean is that it is highly unlikely that we are going to completely **** the bed postflop in a high SPR pot in position (something that a lot of our typical LLSNL opponents are very capable of doing, especially OOP).

GgivingmyopponentsroomtocompletelyshitthebedG

We make a trivial flop fold and move on to the next hand? Most LLSNL players play their hand face up in multiway pots. And even if we overfold in theses spots and occasionally fold the best hand, big deal, it was in a small meaningless pot (we weren't playing for the small pot, we were playing for the large stacks behind).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Where do you get the idea the UTG limper's K and J crush us? He would need to be limping AJ / KQ/ AK. Who knows what junk someone is limping in these games.

most players who limp KJo aren't folding flops of K92r just because UTG lead out for pot or more. They're gonna be milked all the way to the river.

That's what 1/2 players do from UTG, they limp hands like KQ, QJ, AQ, AJ and even AK (because they refer to it as a drawing hand).

I completely agree.

And there's your reciprocality right there. Both us and the horrible player are doing the exact same thing preflop by overlimping KJo here. And then postflop we lose ~$0 and they lose ~$120.

GfollowthemoneyG

The idea that KJo is a hand that wins big pots amuses me. It's exactly the sort of hand that you want to grind out small wins with. It's an offsuit one-gapper with kicker issues for crying out loud. If limped 5-way, it's the kind of hand you hope the postflop action goes something like Flop: Kxx, check-check-check-check-check, Turn x, check-check-check-check-check, River x, check-check-check-check-check. Which is a bit of a hail Mary.