Poker players love it when they can be tricky and outplay their opponents. One of the most common tricky plays in poker is to limp in with a big hand in the hopes of inducing a raise from a later position player. It doesn’t even have to be a player who was the first limper – it can be the second or third limper. What these players are doing is trying to induce someone to ‘punish the limpers’ and then take advantage of the big raise that is frequently made in these cases.
Just because a player has limp-reraised though, it doesn’t necessarily mean they have a hand like Aces or Kings (although they frequently do). They could merely be making a play back at you, believing you are trying to push out weak hands with your raise. This is why it is important to punish the limpers with good hands as well as bad hands. By good hands, I mean hands that you’re willing to risk a significant portion of your stack with like Queens, Kings, Aces and A-K. You need to be able to show that when you are raising in these situations you ‘usually’ have a hand. That being said, however, it is often best to raise limpers with marginal hands like 9-8 suited or small pairs. The reason is simple. If you are reraised, your hand plays easily as you can fold it.
Hot or hoax?
How do you figure out which players are limp-reraising with monsters then? One good indication is if limp-reraising is something that’s out of character for that player. For example, if a player has always raised first to act and comes in limping in early position and then eagerly puts in a reraise after you have popped it up, you’ve probably run into a limp-trapper. However, if you’ve seen a player limp-reraise on four different occasions, chances are he is simply using this play to represent strength that he doesn’t necessarily have.
Pay attention to what the players at your table are doing when they limp in. Do they only limp in with speculative hands or have they shown that they will do it with big hands too? If a player has shown the ability to do it with big hands, then you always need to account for the possibility that they are limp-trapping.