Limping suited connectors.

Quite a few in the recent past. Just in 2024, I've played Vegas (mostly Bellagio), Seattle, New Orleans, W. Virginia, D.C., Cleveland and Philadelphia (Live).

Although the 1-3 games across the board have been relatively-to-very soft, and there were 3-5 hour stretches where a table might be super passive, I didn't play anywhere that had the kind of drooler population Javanewt describes.

Still that way

This could be a leak for me; at 100bb I call very often at BU with 76s vs an open, with or without caller(s) in between. Guess I need to practice more sliding cards.

We can overlimp and sometimes limp raise with suited connectors if the raiser has sizing tells and everyone calls before us.

I don't play any small pairs (66-) or suited connecters in EP in my 1/3 NL game. There is just too good a chance that there is going to be a preflop raise (about 2/3rds of the time is standard for my games). So in EP and even MP we should be playing extremely tight, and this goes triple the more noobish we are to NL. We can start loosening up the closer we get to the Button.

GcluelessNLnoobG

The problems with a pretty hand like 76s is that:

1. You're unlikely to win with TP;
2. When you hit your flush and others start shoveling in money, you're likely getting overflushed;
3. If you make a non-nut straight you're at risk for losing to higher straights.

I play all small pairs in ep. I call a raise in ep and raise smallish or limp if folded to me. I am fine calling a raise and often a 3! with them.

Yeah, you could raise big at limpers in late position or blinds with like 76s. It is a good result if you take it down or get HU. There are problems in that loose passive players could limp/call with hands in 99+/AQ+ and will often call you down HU postflop. It does sort of balance your raising big with premium hands, but it is very exploitable intentionally or otherwise.

I pretty much always limp behind Axs, as I prefer to play it multiway and deep. With small pps, I generally make a smallish pot building raise for value and to often get a free turn card.

^ big question. what are you guys doing with 22-66 from EP? Im usually opening to 10 at 1/3

It is really table dependent. If I'm at a "tired" table that is mainly folding unless someone has a good hand, I'm raising. If the table is passive (not 3 betting), I'll limp/call. If it is an aggressive table, I'm folding.

FWIW, I'm not limping if it's folded to me in MP/LP. I'm limping only if there are two or more limpers already, and I do mix it up with raising.

In bigger stack games (which you seem to be playing in), so long as you're expert postflop, this is probably fine.

In smaller stack and raisey games (which I play in) I now autofold small pairs in EP and really only attempt to sneak in for cheap in later positions.

Ggamedependent,imoG

This is a good approach in my opinion. You don't want to raise large, because you want a multiway pot. You want to build to pot some, but not enough to interfere with you implied odds.

I usually raise small, but sometimes limp/call with small pps and sometimes use different sizings, depending on how the table seems to be playing. I have no problem limping or varying sizing, and feel I can do either without giving much information.

Folding small pps in ep is definitely GTO, but is burning money at most 2/5 and below tables.

Changing raise size based on what we want to accomplish pre is a leak. You would never make it 10 with a premium, giving good and or aggressive players the green light to pound your weak opens.

I vary my sizing with the same hand based on the situation. Generally, I raise smaller with small pps. I don't do it in an obvious way that people can easily read, like not always bigger with big hands, etc. I know the tendency is to never limp and not change raise sizes, but I learned to play before that was standard, and am not going to change a part of my game that seems effective.

If you aren't going to raise smaller with small pps or raise small with your whole range, then it might be better to limp small pps at many tables. If you are going to raise everything a big sizing designed to get it HU or 3-way, then it might be better to fold small pps in ep, because they don't play well shallow and HU.

So yes, if you raise smaller with small pps or limp them, then someone may be able to read that your range for raising small or limping has a portion of small pps. If you raise small with everything that is optimal for small pps, but maybe not for some other hands. So I prefer having some raise small and limp hands with a balance of types of hands in each. I don't usually open raise real big anyway. You are always giving some information if you play hands differently, but it is possible to be subtle about it that 1/3 players who probably see you play for only a few hours aren't going to be able to exploit it.

Short answer - I try to never open-limp, but I'll over-limp often enough with these speculative hands, under the conditions you describe - a game with lots of limping and no one particularly aggro left to act. The caveat is that we need to get max value when we make a hand, and avoid getting coolered.

Generally, though, I prefer to play my entire range as raise or fold, from every position that isn't the BTN or BB.

Limping in and playing multi-way reduces our ability to effectively range our opponents or rep stronger hands. It makes the game more like BINGO.

FWIW, we welcome BINGO games because we typically make far fewer and far less atrocious mistakes postflop than our opponents, we are in position more often than not, usually with a better nutmaking hand, and are far better at properly evaluating the strength of our hand in eleventeenway pots.

GcluelessBINGOnoobG

All true, although the bolded does make it higher variance...unless one is sacrificing EV by overfolding in splashy, multiway pots--which is a leak I'm consciously working on.

I limp pocket pairs in a completely exploitable way, which is I'm basically never folding to a single raise less than 10% of my stack, I'm hoping it goes multiple ways, and I'm playing to drill a set and sometimes peeling 1 if I flop second pair. This is a super easy way to play these hands, it's incredibly hard to lose money this way, and even though this is the only part of my range I'm playing this way nobody has ever adjusted to it even though I've played this way for years. This is the best hand class to play this way because when you make a hand it's always strong enough to get the money in vs the field and when you miss it's easy to fold your hand to any heat. If I only ever got dealt pocket pairs and could only limp/call preflop poker would be an extremely easy game.

I don't like limping suited connectors because to play these hands well we usually want to be in a heads up situation since more often we're going to be making a pair plus draw, combo draw, or naked draw than the nuts. When we make a set we can just brainlessly put all the money in facing any action and it's going to be +EV. With a suited connector the best line to take is going to be villain dependent and ideally we want position, control of the aggression, and a heads up pot. The one exception to this imo is JTs because it makes the most nut straights and we have the highest chance of coolering the average live poker player's limp range with this hand. I've dragged in a lot of players' stacks with JTs in a limped pot. On Q98 live villains are not limp/calling and then finding a fold on the 5 way flop for 200bb with 98o.

If we're folding the nuts, then we're overfolding in multiway pots; otherwise, I doubt we can overfold.

GfoldingmywaytovictoryG