by GodlikeRoy » Mon Feb 11, 2008 8:31 am
Ex,
When you're playing with a shortstack or with shortstacks at the table, things change. Your raising range OTB with a shortstack in the BB should go way way down as you basically pointed out.
Limping definitely does have its place and to never do it because the CR people say not to is, well, silly.
That said, OPEN limping, is, in general, bad. Open limping OTB isn't too bad. Open limping when everyone behind you is very very passive and/or have shorter stacks and/or will stack off lightly in limped pots and/or aren't good at handreading, is less bad.
Limping behind someone with a marginal/speculative hand isn't too bad.
You really need to be able to identify the specific situations where limping is better than raising or folding though, as they're generally far and few between (and become much rarer as you move up in stakes).
Limping as a general strategy seems bad to me. And thus limping with hands like KK seems bad to me. If you're limping against someone who can hand-read effectively and is a good enough player, it is probably -EV to be limping any sort of range there (even if that range includes KK, 78s, AJ and 22). No matter how much you mix it up against a good player who has position, you will lose. Against a bad player, you can just limp behind with 22 or 78s and not worry about balancing your range, you can raise with KK and AJ and whatever and that should be enough.
Everything in poker is relative.
Poker is silly.
It is not enough to be good at chess, you must also play well.
Somewhere in the world someone is training when you are not. When you race him, he will win.