MTT Strategy - Limping the Button 15-25BB eff.

[Jables20]

I wanted to share something I have  found to be really profitable recently. So far I'm working from a pretty small sample size so I wanted to share my thoughts and hopefully fine tune this idea. 

The move is most effective in the mid to late stages of an MTT where it folds round to hero on the BU and the effective stack between you and the BB is somewhere between 15-25BB. Min raising this spot is super profitable. I just filtered this scenario on HEM and I'm winning 38.91 bb/100. Not too shabby. However, recent videos on DC have made me consider limping this spot. The main reason I think it's worth considering this alternate line, is that these stack sizes vs steals are becoming really close to solved for most player types. Anybody half decent knows exactly what sort of hands they should be reshoving for 15BB from the BB vs a guy with 50% steal, they know what hands they should be 3b/calling or 3b/folding for 25BB vs a 60% steal.

To give ourselves the easiest life possible, I'm not going to consider limping the bottom 40% of hands. Lets keep those for stealing vs nits/5-10BB stacks, or folding. Also for the time being let's leave out the top of our range, say top 11% (77+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,ATo+,KQo), hands that we're really happy opening and calling off. I'm looking at doing this move initially with the middle part of my range (55-22,A8s-A3s,KJs-K4s,Q5s+,J6s+,T7s+,97s+,87s,A9o-A7o,KJo-K8o,Q9o+,J9o+,T9o,98o,87o) and I'll explain why.

Example Hand

Poker Stars €9+€1 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t4000/t8000 Blinds + t1000 - 6 players - http://www.handconverter.com/hands/2218107
The DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: t274773    34BB
Hero (BTN): t160290 20BB
SB: t224534    28BB
BB: t154554    19BB
UTG: t173040    21BB
MP: t204159    26BB

Pre Flop: (t18000) Hero is BTN with   
3 folds, Hero calls t8000, 1 fold, BB checks

What happens immediately when limping the button is that we force the players in the blinds to react to something that they are not used to. In this case the small blind folds, but often they will limp along a very wide range, and the big blind checks meaning that he is playing any two cards. In fact, his range is weaker than any two cards as I would expect him to raise the top of his range 100% vs this action. We've put ourselves in position with KTo vs a range that looks something like 66-22,A6s-A2s,K8s-K2s,Q9s-Q2s,J9s-J2s,T2s+,92s+,82s+,72s+,62s+,52s+,42s+,32s,A7o-A2o,K9o-K2o,Q9o-Q2o,J9o-J2o,T2o+,92o+,82o+,72o+,62o+,52o+,42o+,32o.

Against this range we have 64% and we're forcing our opponent to play OOP which is good. When we min raise KTo, villain is not going to fold KJ and he might rejam K9 and make us fold, both those things are bad.

Flop: (t26000) (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t9500, BB raises to t19000, Hero calls t9500

We flop top pair and get check raised, considering how wide his range was to start with I would say we have the effective nuts a lot of the time here and just flat call. Because of our limp pre flop I would expect a lot of players to try a chk/raise bluff here.

Turn: (t64000) (2 players)
BB bets t126554 all in, Hero calls t126554

Gin on the turn and villain jams. Villain woke up with in this hand so we got lucky on the turn, but I think this still works as a good example of how we've got value from a hand that would otherwise have never been in the pot.


OK, results in the same time frame as I had previously filtered for min raising the button, now for limping the button are 169.49 bb/100. Obviously this is a much smaller sample size but even if this is out by 75% it's still coming in as a viable alternative strategy. As history builds up you will need to start considering balance as an issue and start limping some monsters to trap, but for know I'm really keen to hear your thoughts on this line and any initial pros/cons you can envisage.

Just one more thing. I'm aware forward thinkers like Sam Grafton have been limping the button probably since the Gutshot was open so if this is already a topic that you guys have worked on, analysed & decided was BS then just link me a previous thread and i'll continue on my merry way.

Happy limping!

[Bertpup]

I don't think this is a good example.

There is 18000 in the middle preflop lets just Jam and add 10% to our stack.

Another point is all this effective stack size stuff that is being talked about is so misused at the moment when it comes to tournaments. Yeah we might have 18Bigs on the button but against a BB who has 18bb, 28bb, 40bb or 100bb our  effective stacks are still 18BB but each of those stack sizes create a different dynamic to how the hand should be played out best.

[dreenie]

I don't mind limping some buttons, as long as we don't get married to our weaker range.

What would happen in that hand if u had limped the K10, and the BB 2.5x what do u do then?

[Jables20]

It's not the best example and I know if we rip 20bb with KTo it's +EV to the tune of about 0.5bb in this spot. Is that case closed then? Shoving is +EV but I think it's worth considering an alternative sometimes.

I'm confused about your other point. I've looked at this effective stack size for this post because the decisions people make with or vs 15-25bb have become pretty robotic and limping could be a way of taking a player out of their comfort zone. You can apply it if you have 100bb and the BB has 21bb or vice versa. I'm not really sure what difference it makes to the theory aside from a 100bb stack might play against us with a big stack metality (is this what you mean?). Even so we can anticipate this and have plenty of limp/jams waiting for them.

Here is perhaps a better example, and fwiw the villain in this case has a 69% Av ROI over 600, ave BI $90 games on Sharkscope

IPoker Network No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t/t Blinds - 3 players - http://www.handconverter.com/hands/2225014
The DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: t96208      
Hero (BTN): t222312      
SB: t270480      

Pre Flop: (t0) Hero is BTN with
Hero calls t0, SB calls t0, BB checks

Flop: (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets t6600, SB calls t6600, BB folds

Turn: (t13200) (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: (t13200) (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t9000, SB calls t9000

Final Pot: t31200
SB shows
Hero wins t44400
(Rake: t-13200)

[dreenie]

I think it's good to mix it up tho, specially vs good players u know will re jam light.

Think u get to send them a little dizzy when u do this sort of thing here and there, which is always a good thing.

[Jables20]

What would happen in that hand if u had limped the K10, and the BB 2.5x what do u do then?

I know limp/folding sounds filthy but I have found that I have been played back at so rarely pre flop that when the make it 2.5x they probably just have a hand they are calling off with anyway. Even decent regs seem to just be checking their option and check folding a bunch presuming I'm just trapping. That example I posted where villain had 88 illustrates this, he's not even raising a good pair.

[Bertpup]

I'm confused about your other point. I've looked at this effective stack size for this post because the decisions people make with or vs 15-25bb have become pretty robotic and limping could be a way of taking a player out of their comfort zone. You can apply it if you have 100bb and the BB has 21bb or vice versa. I'm not really sure what difference it makes to the theory aside from a 100bb stack might play against us with a big stack metality (is this what you mean?). Even so we can anticipate this and have plenty of limp/jams waiting for them.

Lets assume we have 18bb on the button and we play four hands against the same player. In the hands he has 18bb, 30bb, 50bb and 1000bb. In all four hands the only thing that is constant is we have an effective stack of 18bb. But out approach and optimal line against each stack could and should be different. I think ignoring effective stacks and looking at % of stack should be the way to go.

I agree that 2nd hand is probably not a bad spot to limp. The reasons are is we have a playable hand 3 handed when we are already in the money this taking away most of the subtleties from the spot you suggested because we are already in the decent money places.

[gs08bjohnson]

I'm all for new ideas, and trying new stuff, but the example you give seems awful.  You believe you have the nuts on the turn and are looking to do your stack with it, without a fortunate turn you have not in fact got action you wanted off 24, you have almost needlessly got stacked.  Yes there are good and bad sides to limping the button, but 39bb/100 is pretty hard to beat.

I think you should look to trial it 20-25 and 30-40 where people are very jam happy, or 3b happy (opponent dependent) 25-30 is an awesome stack to open into, so much to pile and it feels awkward to most players to 3b fold. Below this I think you give away too much. That's if you are to trial it at all.

I don't actually think people have particularly well solved jamming ranges v button opens, it's very hard for a hud to give you a btn open percentage for all the specific spots you come across, for example some people open buttons relentlessly deepstacked but will never raise fold into two 20bb stacks, hud cannot tell you this.  Some people have tried limping buttons and it quickly lost popularity. I think there is a much better case for experimenting and getting comfortable limping the sb, bvb, with a more balanced range - people don't get 39bb/100  winrates here.

[wazz]

There is definitely some merit to the play but imo it has more to do with reads than stacks. Part of the point of the limp is that we're saying we want to keep the SPR deeper, at the cost of giving a free flop to a random hand (well a bottom 85-95% range, anyway). We do this partly because our opponents aren't used to playing this scenario where they're very used to playing vs a minraise or w/e, and because we're seeing the flop for half price, we can widen our range significantly and steal cheaper postflop.

Obviously there's a minimum stack size you want to be doing this with - I don't know what that is but I'd suggest 15bbs (having very little experience myself of being a button openlimper, at least in nlhe mtts), lower than which, if our hand is profitable to limp, it's almost certainly more profitable to jam. Above that, I'd suggest we still want an openraising range but if we can balance two ranges at the same time, or we feel we can just go exploitative, why not.

I feel like giving examples where we smash the flop/turn isn't great, and we should be looking at how to make it work when we miss the flop and villain goes for a passive line. On what runouts are we doubling and tripling etc?