Dealing with limpers

One of the most frustrating players you will come across in poker is one who habitually limps preflop and never seems to fold regardless of your actions or those of the rest of the table. They will call you all the way to the river with the most intriguing hands imaginable but they will also often go home broke.

We will all have faced this type of player during poker careers and they are especially noticeable if your choice of discipline is the cash game. They will call preflop regardless of the size of the raise made before them and they will be almost impossible to push off a hand, even one as weak as bottom pair.

How many times have you raised a limper preflop with Ace-King, seen a flop of A-9-6 and managed to get it all-in only to find that the limper was limping with nine-six offsuit? They show up with so many crazy holdings, and it often seems like they flop the weirdest two-pair hands when you have top pair top kicker that they can put even the most patient and controlled poker player on tilt.

If you come across one of these players the first thing that should enter your head is that they are almost always losing players, in fact if I were to hazard at a guess I would say over 99% of this type of player is a losing one, simply because you cannot cheat the mathematics of poker for too long and playing like this will soon see you go bust. You need to say this over and over again in your head if they are constantly sucking out on you to stop you going on tilt as you will get your money back from them eventually, as long as you do not tilt it off to someone else at your table that is.

The best approach for these players is to simply continue to play your usual game against them, although limit the bluffing post flop in my opinion. Preflop you should attempt to isolate them with a wide range of hands and try to get into a heads-up pot with them so when you do flop a strong hand, even one as weak as top pair, you can value bet it to the maximum and hope to stack one of the weakest player types there is.

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