How to Crush Limpers in Online Poker?

Who are limpers in poker?

These are the players who often open the action when it’s their turn with a call option, instead of a raise. The bad thing about limping is that you lose the opportunity for other players to fold and you stealing the blinds.

You also give a good price to other players to see the flop for cheap and automatically reduce your own equity in the hand. Some of the frequent tendencies of limpers are also to play very face-up:

• They bet when they have a strong hand
• When they are weak, they just check and fold
• When they have draws, they just check and call

This is of course not set in stone, but a general pattern that we often see, but there are also exceptions.It can be hard to play against a limper, if you’re not exactly sure how to approach that style of play

How to play against limpers

1. Play Loose
By playing loose against a weak and passive opponent, we will get a lot of preflop folds, and even when we get a call against our 3-bets, we will have a position and range advantage against them.

In this situation we create profit by putting pressure on the limper’s wide (and weaker) range, where it will be very difficult for him to realize his equity against an aggression.

2. Play Tight
This approach should be used when the players behind you are short stacked and in those rare cases, when the limper is a good player and knows how to balance his strategy.

In short, we should reduce our 3-betting range and fold marginal 3-bet hands.

To play profitably against a limper, it is important to understand his strategy, because not every limper will think the same way about poker. So, before we start with exploit strategies, it is important to collect as much information as possible about the opponent, because every time we exploit, we risk being exploited.

If you want to improve your game, just check different strategy articles here on PokerPro.cc, where we have material for all game formats.

Study infographic on how to play in limper situations

Conclusion

Limping is by no means a profitable way to play, but it can cost you, if you play incorrectly against them. That’s why it’s important to have good basic understanding of limping game and a general understanding how to exploit a certain type of player.

And remember, poker is a game of incomplete information, and you will never be 100% right when reading your opponent, but you only need to be right just a bit more than being wrong in order to be profitable.