Today we will talk about a subject that comes up a lot in lessons: Why do I say that you should (almost) never open limp in limit hold’em?

We will discuss the following reasons:

· Poker is a battle for the blinds.
· Limping is guessing.
· It keeps hand selection down and forces tighter play.
· Limpers can be victimized.
· Raising helps create dead money.

Poker is a battle for the blinds. In limit poker, the blinds are essentially making an error. They are putting money in the pot before they look at their hands. And they are out of position. Of course, it is also required by the rules, but that does not make it a better theoretical play. By raising first in, you are trying to win the blinds. If everyone folds, you win. By limping, you are trying to play with the blinds, you are giving what is essentially a free card to an arguably inferior hand. Bad idea.

Limping is guessing. But what about when you have, say, 88 and you are in passive game? Shouldn’t you limp then? Well, yes, if everyone promises to stay passive on this hand. But if you limp and the next guy raises and almost everyone folds, then it wasn’t passive this time. By limping you are gambling that the game will stay passive and that no one behind you will pick up a raising hand and ruin your plan. Poker is a game of situations, and when you are in early position, you do not know what the situation will be (even if you know what it used to be). So if you hand is not good enough to raise in the position you are in, should you gamble or fold? I pick fold.

It keeps hand selection down and forces tighter play. By forcing students to open raise or fold, it keeps them from playing difficult hands in early and middle positions. If you have JT second under the gun, the temptation to limp is high. But if you would be required to raise if you played it, then folding becomes easy (or should, anyway). Its difficult to lay a hand like JT out of position unless you get a great flop, so folding is a much better option.

Limpers can be victimized. Assume you limp in middle position with a hand like JT and everyone folds to the cutoff, who raises and everyone folds. Now you miss the flop. You have to check and fold. But what if you hit some of the flop. Can you be happy if the flop is KT6? AJ5? How about J44? Or even Q82, where you have a gutshot and should play if he has 55 or AK, but fold if he has AQ or KK (or JJ)? Again, you will be out of position and making very difficult decisions. Even if he raised with a hand like T8s, you will hard pressed to win a few pots. Playing out of position against a player with aggression and perhaps a better hand is a tough chore.

Raising helps create dead money. Dead money (meaning money that has been put into the pot by an active player who is no longer in the hand) is wonderful. Let’s say you raise and I reraise and the blinds fold. That’s 1.5 small bets that we get to share in proportion to how often we win the pot. If we both win 50% of the time, we each get to be winners. OK, it’s not much, but limit poker is a game of recurring edges and small amounts won frequently are very good.

Conclusion. That’s all I have time for here. This essay will be expanded in a column soon, and it will appear in my book coming out this spring (I hope).