Red Chip Poker: Late Position

Limp-Shoving to Exploit the Table

(Villains flaw)

(Difficulty rating)

(Heros exploit)

Everything we do in poker is dynamic. We need to constantly understand

the ebb and flow of our opponents and the table as a whole. Once you
understand, then adjust accordingly so you take optimal lines. In this hand,
I make an uncharacteristic limp because I felt the table dynamic would
allow me to do so profitably. It all started with observation.
Whenever you walk up to a new table, I suggest doing so slowly and
really checking everything out. Look at the hand in progress, look at each
player, check stack sizes, and analyze which seats are available. Upon first
glance there was only one seat open so I knew where I was going, but the
table looked to be a little aggressive. A huge pot was happening, two
uninvolved players were scoffing at each other, and everyone was looking
quite happy to be involved in such a game. So I took my seat and was faced
with my first decision: how much should I buy in for?
Most players do not even bother asking themselves this question, but it
is an important one. At this table, I decided to buy in for the table
minimum: 50BB, or $100 at this $1/$2 game. If the game was going to be
splashy it would be easy to get all-in pre-flop with an edge. Likewise, it
would be easy to three-bet and create a very small SPR pot with a big hand.
Besides, if my original read of the table turned out to be wrong, I could just
reach into my pocket, pull out an extra $200, and top up to the table
maximum.
After an orbit, it became obvious that all of the table aggression was
coming from a single player: the middle-aged guy with a ball cap in seat five.
He was angry, grumbling about everything, and he seemed unable to smile.
He was three to my left, another reason why I decided to buy in for a
smaller stack size. He was fighting for a bunch of pots pre-flop and in one
orbit had three-bet twice, once with 63o, and he raised multi-way limped
pots twice.

62

Hands

$1-$2
Image:
Venetian
9:30PM
UTG
Bad passive

Action:
Call/Call

$400

MP1

Tight passive

Call/Call

$600

Cutoff

Hero

Call/???

$100

Button

Tries to see cheap flops

then fit or fold flop
Angry Maniac

Call

$150

$12

$400

Big
Blind

Hand:

Starting
Stack:

Any time a player is predictable, he is exploitable. The Maniac is

predictably aggressive. Often times in games with a single Maniac, the
money is not only made from the Maniac, but also from the other players
that try to limp in cheap to make a hand and beat the Maniac. With a short
stack, we can comfortably get all the money in pre-flop while still having
fold equity when we shove. Many people want to have a big pair when they
do this. This chapter will show that that is not required.
There is so much available information on very splashy tables like this.
Over a single orbit, or ten hands, we have been able to get a slight player
profile on the majority of the table. When you first sit at a table make it
your goal to pay a ton of attention for the first thirty minutes so you can
form good player profiles.
Once the Angry Maniac in the Big Blind predictably raises and UTG
and MP1 call, we have our three options: call, fold, or raise.
Calling: This is not a good option here because we would have a very
low SPR of about two ($88 in Stack to $50-$60 in pot.) We do not want this
low of an SPR with a hand that only hits the flop about of the time.
Players who use smaller stack sizes voluntarily or due to losing some pots
perform significantly better if they just stop calling pre-flop. If you are
going to use a 30-50BB stack, then learn to leverage the stack size. Do not
constantly call off chunks of your stack just trying to make a hand.
Fold: That does not seem very enterprising. We made a very
uncharacteristic limp into this pot because it was likely we would get a
chance to shove over the expected raise from the Maniac and calls from
passive players.
Raise: With this short of a stack, the only raise is all-in. With our call,
there is already $50 in the pot and we have $88 left. If our raise would pot

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Red Chip Poker: Late Position

commit us, as the graphic below shows, we would rather use that money to
increase the chances of getting a fold. A shove here will have some chance
of folding players out.
To simplify for now, we assume everyone but the Maniac is going to
fold. (We will look at this assumption later, leaving the possibility for one of
the limpers to come along instead.)
It is a math decision really, but non-mathy players may not have ever
done this kind of analysis before. So let us work through it together. Start
with the facts:
At the time of our shove we are risking $98 since the original
$2 limp no longer belongs to us and thus we dont factor it
into the shove.
At the time of our shove there is $40 in the pot.
We can raise $88 since the first $10 is calling the raise and $2 is
already in the pot.
To use a fold equity calculator (for example the one found at
http://redchippoker.com/fold-equity) we also need a single
win percentage when called.
For most calculators, you need to estimate your winning percentage.
For this book, a custom chart has been created. This chart shows a contour
plot of our expected value based on all possible Villain folds percentages
and all possible win when called percentages:

64

Hands

EV of shove of $98 into a pot of $40 over a bet of $10

100
90

50

80

25

50

60

75

50 -25

25

40

80

10

40
60
Win percent when called

5
-7

10

-25

20

75

0
-5

30

50

Fold percent

70 0

25

0
0

20

100

The bottom of the y-axis of the chart represents the Villain folding zero
percent of the time. The far left of the x-axis represents us never winning at
showdown. The value in this corner of the chart is -98. That makes sense: if
Villain always calls and we always lose, we should lose our full bet. As we
move right on the x-axis we increase our win percentage when called.
Eventually, between 40%-50%, this becomes a breakeven move. As we win
an even larger percentage when called, the amount won becomes larger
until in the lower right hand corner we win 100% of the time. In this case,
we would win the pot and our bet from the Villain.
However, neither of these extremes of winning or losing 100% of the
time are ever true. For example we only have 78% equity when he calls with
a dreadful Q2o. On the opposite end, we still have 14% equity when he
dominates us with KK.

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Red Chip Poker: Late Position

EV of shove of $98 into a pot of $40 over a bet of $10

100
KK

90

Q2o

50

80

25

50

60

75

50 -25

25

40

80

10

40
60
Win percent when called

5
-7

10

-25

20

75

0
-5

30

50

Fold percent

70 0

25

0
0

20

100

These vertical lines show us the actual extremes of win when called
percentages. Against KK we have the lowest amount of equity, and against
Q2o we have the most amount of equity. His calling range will never be
exactly KK, nor will it ever be exactly Q2o, so the new vertical lines
represent the extreme best and worst cases for us. We are unlikely to be
called by our best case scenario of Q2o, so that edge needs to be moved to
the left even further in practice.
Notice in these shrunken limits that on the far left if the Villain folds
over 60%, then we are always in the positive area of the chart. If we win
just over 45% of the time when called, then we are also always in the
positive area of the chart.
To find where we actually are in this chart between these extremes, let
us start by thinking about the range of hands that the Maniac is raising. We
need to understand what percentage of his raising range he will fold if we
shove. The more often he folds, the more money we make. For simplicitys
sake, let us say he will always call our shove with 88+/AJ+, which is 7% of
hands.

66

Hands

If he raises preflop with 22% of hands, and only calls with 7% of

hands, then he is folding 68% of the time. Here is what a 22% opening
range looks like.

We have seen him open much wider than this, so even this tight
estimate for his opening range shows we are always in positive Expected
Value.
What if he raises even wider with 33% of hands? This is what that
range looks like:

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Red Chip Poker: Late Position

He is folding 79% of the time. And, of course, if he raises wider, then

we expect even more folds. On the other hand, another possibility is that he
calls wider and that gives him a weaker range.
There is a fine balance to consider. The wider range he calls our shove
with, the more our equity increases, but the less folds we can expect
preflop. Conversely, the more he folds preflop the less equity we have when
called.
Let us explore our equity against a few different calling ranges:

vs.
Calling range Equity:
Us vs. Them
22+/AT+/KQ 42% vs. 58%
88+/AJ+
37% vs. 63%
TT+/AQ+

31% vs. 69%

Required fold
% by Villain
7%
26%
41%

There is a certain percentage of hands that the Villain will put all his
money in with. This is known as his stack-off range. Notice that against
pretty much any realistic stack-off range we are a dog. Some players may
see that we are on the bad side of equity and say, Well, we are behind and
thus we have to fold. But that is not really the way it works since there is
overlay in the pot. There is $40 in the pot that we are fighting for.
Against all of these ranges we need some percentage of folds (as seen in
the last column) by the Villain for this to be a good move. Thinking back
on his preflop raising range, we thought he would fold against our shove
quite often. Remember, if he raised with 23% of hands and called with
88+/AJ+ (which is 7% of hands) he is folding 70% of the time. If we only
need 26% of folds to be breakeven and expect to get 70%, it is easy to see
how profitable this shove is going to be.
If he snaps us off with AA, that does not mean we made a bad play; it
means we got unlucky. These plays will be swingy, but they will win over
time.
In this hand we are not against just the maniac, there are three other
players that could possibly call our shove as well. With what hands are they
likely to limp pre-flop and then call our shove? Do they have hands like AA
or KK? No. They would have raised those hands at some point pre-flop.
With the exception of the Button, all the other players limped and then
called. (Although the Button has not had a chance to respond to the

68

Hands

Maniacs raise, with our three bet, it seems likely that he will fold.) Think
first about the hands the other players would limp-call with. A range
including all small-medium pairs, some suited connectors, and some weaker
Broadway hands all make sense. They could have some decent hands like
88, 99, and AQ, but those represent a small percentage of their limp/calling
range.
We can assume that the limpers will call with a range of 88-JJ, AQ, AK.
Not every player would limp with these hands (especially JJ and AK), but
we cannot rule them out for these players because they might have been
trapping. Our KQs has 38% equity against that range. So we need some
percentage of folds when we shove, which we expect from such passive
players.
Overall, we can predict this will be a profitable shove against the table.
The Maniac is surely folding often enough when we shove. The limpers are
surely folding often enough when we shove. And we always have a decent
chunk of equity for the rare times we do get called. This is a great semibluff shove situation. We are not shoving for value, rather we are shoving
to contend for the dead money in the pot and using math in our favor.
$1-$2
Image:
Action:
Hand:
Starting
Venetian
Stack:
9:30PM
UTG
Bad passive
Call/Call/
$400
Fold
MP1
Tight passive
Call/Call/
$600
Fold
Cut off
Hero
Call/$100
$100
Button

Tries to see cheap flops

then fit or fold flop
Big Blind Angry Maniac

Call/Fold

$150

$12/Fold

$400

Everyone folded and we increased our stack by $38 without ever seeing
a flop. Because we knew the math, it made the shove quite easy.
Reading table dynamics we went for a limp/re-raise from the cutoff
with KQs. This is far from our standard play but it looked like the best way
to exploit an overly aggressive player. It also allowed the weak limpers to
put in money that they would rarely defend once we shoved. If it limped
through without a raise, then we spent $2.
There is a huge difference between limping to see a cheap flop and
limping with a realistic plan to limp-raise shove with decent equity. As a
default, we advocate you rarely limp pre-flop. However, if you have a good
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Red Chip Poker: Late Position

reason to limp pre-flop and a plan for making money because you limped
then by all means.

70