Arsenal Upgrade: Stealing against Limpers. NLHE MTT

[Nikita]

Great thread. I've never considered trying to steal from limpers like this before.

[BlibbityBlabbity]

Nice thread.

I have also seen a similar thing happening much more lately. This is mostly early in tournaments when there are many people limping in with weak hands trying to flop miracles.

Say the blinds are 30/60 and 4 people limp , SB calls and the BB raises the pot (roughly). Everyone folds. That is +300 chips.

This seems to work pretty well, from what I've seen, but if it doesn't work....

1) First limper calls the raise and then the second limper says "well, I'm getting odds" and calls, other limpers call and you are in 2nd position after the flop in a 6 way LARGE pot.

2) Getting a call doesn't mean they have a big hand. They just might have called off 1/5 of their stack with 9Ts (with position on the BB raiser).

3) Continuation betting can be tricky if you get a call (or more) since you know the range of hands they started with is so wide.

I have rarely seen the BB raisers cards in this spot, so it is hard to say if they really did have big hands (PPs?) or if this is a move that is made with any two.

Personally, I think the move you posted is a much stronger play since you will have position regardless. The BB steal either works or gets you in trouble for a large portion of your stack.

[Talking Poker]

I am just now getting around to reading this. Nice post, Lou.

Two comments:

1. I use the same "punish the limper" mentality in cash games, but it's much more effective in the situation you described.

2. I think raising only 3x their bet may be a little bit light. I would normally go for 4x, but 3.5x would probably be my bare minimum with air.

[Aequitas58]

You are correct. Looking back (and for those thinking about this in the future) 4x is probably preferred in this spot.

[juiCe[3x]]

Very nice thread, I'm deffinatly going to try this out.

[Aequitas58]

Unless you're an experienced player, comfortable with post-flop play (esp. w/ air ... lol) wait till the blinds get up to the 100/200 level. Ok 75/150.

Point is: there's more fold equity when the blinds are higher. If you try this line at 25/50, yea, you might take it down, but more often than not, the original limper realizes it's only 150-200 more to go and quite simply at this level, he's usually calling.

Enjoy placing deeper in tournaments.

[Kurn]

This tactic worked very well for me in those massive MM $2.5M sats.