2. Isolating a limper
This is your favourite move. You see a weak player limping in front of you and decide to isolate him, because you see easy money on the table. You have a position on a weaker player and you want to play a pot against him (possibly heads up – therefore isolating him for yourself and not sharing him with other players what would happen if you only limped) as he has a weak hand and is weak overall. This is often true, but you have to pay attention to certain factors. Position of the fish, your position, players behind you, your cards, stack sizes and mostly what kind of weak player limped.
Stats to look at before isolating
VPIP – the higher VPIP is, the better it is to isolate the player by raising
PFR – The higher PFR of a limper is, the better for you, as he would raise his strong hands
WTSD – This stat will tell you if he likes his hand so much, he takes it to showdown often or gives it up easily once he miss the flop 30 and higher is high WTSD
limp/call or limp/fold and limp/raise – this will tell you how often villain calls when he limps. Some players only call 40% of their limps but some call close to 100% of their limps. The more they call, the better your hand should be. If villain often limp/reraises and almost never limp/calls and limp/folds, you shouldn’t isolate him without knowing what his range is and rather limp behind if table allows it.
fold to c bet – this will tell you if he plays fit or fold postflop. If villain folds to cbet 55% or more, he is a good victim to isolate and win the pot by cbetting if called. If other factors wouldn’t come to play, you would show profit by isolating him with any two cards. But why you shouldn’t isolate with any two cards should be clear to you by reading the rest of this article.
samplesize – for VPIP PFR 50-100 hands can give you pretty good picture about players tendencies, but you need more for WTSD – at least 500 hands, which you often won’t have – but you can always watch villain play and see what hands he shows at showdown and go from there
Types of limping players
There are a few weak Tag regular players that limp first in with weak pocket pair (22-66) and call a raise OOP hoping to hit a set. Other than that, most limping players are weak players, possibly fish who are more or less fit or fold and are loose and passive. Loose means that they play many weak hands preflop hoping to hit a piece of the board postflop. Fit or fold means that if they don’t hit anything, they tend to fold. And passive means that they don’t like raising or betting, but they call instead. These weak players are not positionally aware, meaning that they play the same amount of hands in EP as in CO and BB. They don’t understand the significance of position, but they somehow know that BU is the best position, because if they limp, they will see flop often.
But there are various kinds of these limping and calling players. Typical example is a 40/10/2 (VPIP/PFR/3bet) players. It is a straightforward fish. He open raises his strong hands like 77+, AT+ and limps with other hands that he likes – many suited hands, somehow connected hands, any hand with Ace, connected hands like 8To or 45o. When he 3 bets your raise, he has QQ+ or AK, maybe JJ. He also likes to go to showdown with his weak hands if he calls them on flop. On the flop he may hit his top pair with 78o, but he can’t understand that his hand is weak by the river if Q and K come the board now has 3 cards of the same suit. These players are good to value bet but bad to pure bluff, as they like their hands more than they should.
But there are a lot more fishes and this was only one example. There are player that like to play even more hands – like 70/20/10. This is somewhat aggressive fish when it comes to his hands preflop. He raises a lot but he limps or cold calls even more. He 3 bets with good hands as well as weak hands. You can isolate this player even more because when he limp he certainly tells you that he has weak hand, because if he had somewhat strong hand, he would raise himself.
There is then a fish with stats like 30/4/1. This player doesn’t play as many hands as fish above, but he raises even less than them. So when he raises, he has 99+ or AQs+. This means he limps even with strong hands as 88, 77, AJ, AT. Sometimes he even limps AK, but he decides to raise with 33. He can play very fit or fold postflop but he can also call 3 streets with his bottom pair like 55 just because he had a pair preflop. You should proceed with more caution against player like this and choose your hands better not to value town yourself against him with dominated hand like JTo.
There are then players who like to limp/reraise AA or KK, mostly in EP or MP. If you see someone limp/reraising make not of it and if he shows his cards, write it down. Some players also limp and then raise with 88 and will even call an all in preflop.
Position
As a rule of thumb, the sooner the player limped and the sooner your position, you isolate less than when you are in BU and limper in CO. The reason is, that if you are in MP and isolate an EP limper, CO and BU have position on you and can call or 3 bet. If players behind you are prone to call, you should adjust your range to hands that play well in multiway pots, like suited connectors, suited aces, pocket pairs. If there is an aggressive 3 bettor behind you, you should tighten up your isolating range or consider 4 bet bluffing him sometimes with hands that have blockers. But this won’t happen too much in low limits, as regular players are not paying attention as they tend to play many tables and don’t like 3 bet bluffing a lot based on action in front of them. They rather 3 bet bluff according to their cards.
Stack sizes
Other key factor you have to take into consideration is your stack size and stack size of your opponent. You should have always at least 100 BB, but your opponent can have more or less. If he has only 40 BBs, you should leave out speculative hands and raise more with broadway hands. If you and your opponent are 150 BB deep, you can add more speculative hands like suited connectors, suited aces, all pocket pairs, suited broadways, suited one gappers. Against short but loose opponent you want to hit top pair but against player with which you are deep you want to hit stronger hand than top pair good kicker to get all in happily – trips, two pair, straight, flush, full house.
Isolation raise size
When you choose a raise size preflop you already have to think about getting all in by the river (if conditions are right). Therefore, if you isolate a smaller stack (around 50 BBS), you can isolate to 3BB + 1BB for limper. If there are two limpers, you can also use this 3+1 formula as it enables you to get AI by the river safely (without overbetting pot) even if stacks are 100 BB. If there is a player that is limping with very wide range, let’s say the 70/20 player and is also limp/calling 90% of his hands, you can raise to 5, 6, 7 +1 and he will most likely call. If he has 100BB, the standard size is potsize(3,5+1) or 4+1. If he folds to cbet 60% or more, you can raise more even with weaker hands, but if less than 50% of times, then raise to bigger amount with stronger hands (like TT+, AJ+, KQ).
Isolating OOP
There will be situations, where you see a weak player limping in front of you, you are in SB or BB, meaning you are OOP to the player and still want to isolate him by raising. Even if there is no other player in the pot, so you could safely check behind and be heads up with the player, it is more +EV to raise preflop. You want to take initiative in the pot and build up the pot so you could get AI by the river if conditions are right without overbetting the pot. You obviously want to raise with hand like AA even from the BB, because you want to get value. But against 70/20 player, you can also profitably raise hands like KTs, QJo, 88, A5s even out of position and play against him as preflop aggressor. By raising preflop, you force him to pay more with his weaker hand and he is willing to give up more easily if he doesn’t improve postflop with his weak hand that is potentially better than yours. The same thing applies here as before – if he folds a lot to cbets, you can loosen your range and if not, tighten. But anyway, the isolation raise preflop OOP is still more profitable than check behind or complete in SB.
Example hands:
1. Here I isolate when OOP his weak range, possibly small suited connectors or suited gapers, maybe small suited ace.
No-Limit Hold'em, $0.30 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
saw flop | saw showdown
BB ($67.41)
UTG ($47.60)
MP ($27)
CO ($29.67) 31/15 60 hands
Button ($29.55)
Hero (SB) ($29.70)
Preflop: Hero is SB with T♣, K♣
2 folds, CO calls $0.30, 1 fold, Hero bets $1.35, 2 folds
2. Here I isolate a weak player with decent hand, but my range here is a lot wider, as he limp/called only 30% of his hands and folded to cbet 80% of the times so far.
Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.30 BB (6 handed) - Party-Poker Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
saw flop | saw showdown
MP ($30.15)
CO ($28.35)
Hero (Button) ($29.55)
SB ($29.70)
BB ($32.30)
UTG ($14.72) 50/14 60 hands
Preflop: Hero is Button with A♥, 7♥
UTG calls $0.30, 2 folds, Hero bets $1.20, 3 folds
Total pot: $1.05
Results:
Hero had A♥, 7♥.
Outcome: Hero won $1.95
3. Here I isolate 3+x two fishes with mid stack with high vpip. It is a good hand against them as it is high and connected. Sometimes it is dominated by KJ but more often I dominate their hands with jacks and queens.
No-Limit Hold'em, $0.30 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
saw flop | saw showdown
SB ($60.34)
BB ($30)
UTG ($13.80) 50/18
MP ($16.57) 50/11
CO ($34.05)
Hero (Button) ($32.77)
Preflop: Hero is Button with Q♥, J♣
UTG calls $0.30, MP calls $0.30, 1 fold, Hero bets $1.50, 4 folds
Total pot: $1.35
Results:
Hero had Q♥, J♣.
Outcome: Hero won $2.55
So long
, 4
