Posted in Poker February 6th, 2010
Poker Tournament Strategy – Avoiding The Limp
Everybody limps now and then for one reason or another in tournaments. Limping appears week, because usually the act of calling releases control of the hand to someone else at the table. But is limping a viable strategy when all of the poker training you hear about these days always slants to play more aggressive?
Well you’ve probably heard this one before, but the answer is of course “it depends”. There is to be sure, a strong argument to limp in certain situations. The problem with limping however, is that naive players tend to do it excessively, and from the incorrect position. Repeated limping in early position in online poker tournament is a recipe for losing.
There are two huge factors that make early position limping costly. Players that still have to act can throw a big surprise by re-raising. Oftentimes you will be forced to call a raise because you have committed yourself to a proper mathematical call, with a average strength hand. In the early stages of the tournament you should not really be paying too much attention to mathematically proper calls. You should be giving far more care to preserving your stack and identifying profitable chip up situations.
Don\’t forget that limping with weak hands will also result in the wide majority of flops not helping your hand whatsoever. This gives way to your antagonists taking control of the hand, you getting caught in an expensive bluffing game, or are you having to involve yourself in a challenging decision.
There are of course times when you do want to limp in a tournament, and typically that will be when you are holding a strong hand and want to trap your opponent. By limping in you\’re showing weakness in the hope your opponents will bet, allowing you to extract more money from the pot. A good player may even limp with the intention of outplaying their opponents post-flop, but in a standard online tournament, starting with only 1500 chips, there really isn\’t a lot of room for this type of manouver.
Often when you see players limping when the blinds are low, you can put them on small pairs, suited connectors or ace-rags. If you\’re holding a decent hand like a big pair or big slick, you can often take control by reraising. A continuation bet after the flop will then likely win the pot assuming your oppont misses the flop.
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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
